Off Prompt: British Illustrators 21: Aubrey Beardsley and Salome
OK, Salome was very much not a children’s book. So how does Aubrey Beardsley qualify? Well, I can stretch the point because although Aubrey Beardsley was very much not a children’s illustrator, he did at one point illustrate an edition of the 1001 Arabian Nights. And furthermore. . . he was a genius in my book. Effectively his career lasted about 6 years, before his tragic early death from tuberculosis at the age of 26. For the later part of that career he was often vilified. However his work is now more popular than ever, and his influence on artists, and graphic designers since the 60s has been frankly immense.
Looking at this famous image you can see some of the hallmarks of the Art Nouveau style of which Beardsley was an innovator – the elongated liquid forms, for example. But look at the way he uses monochrome – this was not years ahead of his time, but decades. I first came to know of Beardsley and his work when I was 17, and studying my English A levels. (A levels are/were the qualifications you needed to pass in England and Wales in order to gain a place to study at University). One of my fellow students was not, frankly, great at English, but he was a superb artist, and he told me about basing his final project on Beardsley. When I researched this name which I knew nothing about, I too fell instantly under his spell.
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