What connected writer Oscar Wilde and artist Aubrey Beardsley, and why they broke up

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Oscar Wilde is known to us not only for his phenomenal works, but also for his enormous talent and life, which was shrouded in secrecy. Just like Aubrey Beardsley, who was a famous British artist of the late 19th century. Both of them were well acquainted with each other, closely related to work on one play, as well as an inordinate desire to annoy each other, which resulted in many years of enmity and support in difficult situations.

In 1893, Beardsley read Wilde's Salome, which was published in French, and was extremely inspired by it. This tragic play revived the then rusted genre of French drama. Oscar wrote this work, already being famous and famous. Not long before that, he had already bothered to publish his brilliant "Portrait of Dorian Gray", and also noted several comedies at once, among which - "Lady Windermere's Fan" and "A Woman Not Worthy of Attention."

While working on the creation of "Salome", Oscar essentially did not create a new story. He took as a basis an already existing legend, several of its main versions and began to rework them. He paid special attention to working on the characters. So, Oscar portrays the girl herself with a duality of nature, presenting her at the same time as evil and innocent, a victim and an offender overnight. The girl in his vision became not just an object of passion, but also an endless, perverse lust.

During the climax, when Salome insists that John should be executed, she says that this is punishment for rejecting her passionately loving him.

Beardsley became very interested in this play, and also created several illustrations for the first issue of "The Savoy", which depicts a girl with the severed head of her lover.

At that moment, it seemed that Wilde had finally found himself a loyal friend and companion. He even sent him a personal autographed copy of the play, signing it with the following words:.

This union, which was originally a creative tandem and unity of thought, soon turned into a deep, personal enmity, as well as many insults to each other.

There is no clear evidence that Wilde tried to abandon Aubrey's drawings, and also wanted to censor them so that they would be published in a different form. However, a critic named Theodor Vratislav notes that initially Oscar wanted Salome, which the artist portrayed, to be painted with a different face in each picture. It is also suggested that probably these comments were not made personally to Beardsley. Wilde may have said this to Ricketts, another illustrator who designed all of his books prior to the release of the play.

In his notes, the author will write:.

There is no clear understanding of the reasons why Wilde spoke this way about Aubrey's work. Ricketts believed that this attitude arose from the fact that Oscar equally loathes and mercilessly edits all the images, because he does not like their meaning. But an artist named John Rothenstein noted that Wilde simply did not like their style. Thus, Aubrey's drawings have some touch of the Japanese style in drawing, while the play itself, according to the writer, was Byzantine.

And it was also believed that Wilde is very painstaking about the balance of language and semantic content of the text. There was so much talent and "power" in Aubrey's images that they, even outside of the text, attracted attention. Therefore, the writer rightly feared that they might subjugate his text or even prevail over it.

And, of course, Aubrey couldn't help but find out how Wilde feels about his work. Thanks to this, a famous caricature appeared on the pages of the print edition, which depicted the playwright at work. Beardsley remembered very well how Oscar boasted to the writing world that he had never used outside sources to write a play in French, hinting at an impeccable knowledge of the language. That is why in the picture the author was depicted at a writing table, which was littered with various French editions, among which was the Family Bible, French dictionaries and language courses, fairy tales in French, educational materials on the topic, and, of course, an immediate copy of the main novel of the writer …

In addition to Wilde, the publisher of the book also had questions about the illustrations by Beardsley, who was not happy with the amount of nudity and the rather provocative images in the drawings. However, it was on the criticism of Oscar that the artist focused most of all, and therefore, even on very frank drawings, one could find hidden sketches and caricatures of the writer himself.

For example, in one of the drawings, which was called "Woman in the Moon", Oscar was depicted directly as the Moon herself, who was holding one small carnation in her hands. Art critics argue that this is a very clear reference to the so-called "green carnation", an emblem that was very popular at the time and was used by the gay community in Paris. Luna observes her characters with interest, being in the form of a writer, while they, represented by Page and Narraboth, look up with a slight note of disbelief, preparing for what the writer has prepared for them.

Another image titled "The Appearance of Herodias" also contains an image of the writer, which this time is located in the lower right corner. In this case, he is drawn as a character dressed in a buffoon's uniform and an owl-shaped hat. In his hands you can see a book with the play of the same name, and his other hand, as it were, invites the audience to watch this creation live. The image as a jester, genius and prompter at the same time is a reference to Oscar's personal preferences, such as the desire to wear long hair, dress bright and unusual, and also attend all of his public appearances with flowers. It is noteworthy that the carnation flower is also present here, and it can be seen on one of the jester's sleeves.

The enmity between the artist and the writer grew into personal insults, too. So, Wilde publicly doubted the heterosexual orientation of Beardsley himself, saying that one should not sit on the chair on which the artist had just sat. In addition, he advised Aubrey himself to move from the famous Sandwich hotel to a small fishing town on the coast of Normandy, noting that this is the ideal place for him, since extremely strange and unpleasant people come there.

Despite this, Aubrey himself never crossed the line and did not portray Oscar in his illustrations as a vicious person, unlike the characters in his play. For the most part, the characters intended to be the portrayal of the writer were sad, suffered and had sad expressions.

Many of Oscar's later works were aimed at the study of human sin, and he also made the secret desires of people as his central theme. In one of his works, in a text entitled The Decline of the Art of Lying, which was released in 1889, he writes that life only imitates real art. Therefore, he strove to approach this topic, enjoying sinful and reckless pleasures.

Wilde's life soon turned into a real nightmare. And all because of the accusations of homosexuality that sounded against him from the Marquis of Queensbury, who was the father of Oscar's lover, the notorious Alfred Douglas, who translated the play into English.

After that, a long and difficult trial began, during which the writer was convicted of sodomy and indecent behavior. His sentence was two years of hard labor. The play "Salome" in no way participated in this process, with its help they did not try to prove the perversity of the author. In addition, the artist's name, Aubrey Beardsley, was not mentioned in the courtroom, despite the fact that many tied them together, which means that the artist himself could well be accused of the same crimes.

Wilde's imprisonment ended in 1897, when he, broken, broken, with ruined health and bankrupt, left the country. After that, he moved to Paris, where he began to live and create under the pseudonym of Sebastian Melmot. From that time, Beardsley's letter, which he sent to Oscar, has survived. It read:.

Both of these geniuses died soon after they embarked on the path of the Christian faith. Aubrey in 1896 decided to turn his attention to Catholicism, but two years later he died of tuberculosis in the city of Menton, France. And in the early 1900s, Oscar himself fell ill, who was hard on meningitis. A few days after the discovery of the disease, the author was converted to the Catholic faith by performing a baptismal ceremony. The great author died in the capital of France, Paris, a day after his initiation into the faith.

The life of writers, like artists, is full of secrets, gossip and intrigue, as well as harsh criticism and condemnation from people. Lewis Carroll, who came into the sight of the crowd, fame and prejudice, was no exception. About, how was the fate of the author of the legendary "Alice in Wonderland" and who was the author's secret beloved - read in the next article.