Aubrey Beardsley, Dandy of the Grotesque

By Chris Snodgrass

This book analyzes a wide range of Beardsley's most characteristic work. It establishes his assumptions about the underlying nature of his world, and clarifies why so many observers have considered Beardsley's art indispensable to understanding fin-de-si?cle Victorian culture. Beardsley's pictures present a dialogue between seemingly polarized impulses: a desire to scandalize and destabilize the old order, and, equally strong, a need to affirm traditional authority.

Beardsley depicted various grotesque shapes, caricatures, and mutated figures, including foetus/old man, dwarf, Clown, Harlequin, Pierrot, and dandy (the icon of the Decadent "Religion of Art"). Incarnating the fearful contradictions of decadence, these images served as objective correlatives of some "monstrous" metaphysical contortion. His grotesques suggest the impossibility of resolving these contradictions, even as his elegant designs try formalistically to control and recuperate the disfiguration.

As a canonical style, Beardsley's "dandy" sensibility and grotesque caricatures become his means of realigning canonical meaning. Thus, he effects what might be termed a "caricature" of traditional signification. An aesthete devoted to the "Religion of Art", Beardsley, nonetheless, creates a world inescapably "de-formed". He is a Dandy of the Grotesque.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195090624
• ISBN13: 9780195090628
• Release Date: June 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 2.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.8" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Strongly Recommended for the Serious Beardsleyite

Firstly, I feel it important to say that this book is not necessarily for the viewer with only a lightweight, or passing, interest in Aubrey Beardsley - it is a very deep, involved study of the man, as well as of his work. That said, I will say that for the Beardsley fanatic, it is an absolute must-read.I have read many books on Beardsley, and none reach into his work so deeply as this. The book provides a psychological study, as its basis for review of Beardsley's greatest works. While it does focus on the man's self-identification as a dandy, other facets of his complex personality are also brought to attention, and analyzed. Chris Snodgrass approaches such an endeavor with some detachment, but it is quite clear that he is anything but lukewarm towards Aubrey Beardsley and his art - rather, his admiration for both is apparent.I would not recommend this book as a first read for the budding Beardsleyite - rather, I'd go with Matthew Sturgis' wonderful biography. This book seems to assume that the reader is already intimately familiar with Beardsley's life story, and also intimately familiar with his works. If you fit in this category, please give this book a read - its value cannot be underestimated. An indispensible reference, and never a dull moment.