headpieceHEADPIECE: PIERROT WITH THE HOUR-GLASS
HEADPIECE: PIERROT WITH THE HOUR-GLASS
tailpieceTAILPIECE TO “PIERROT OF THE MINUTE”
TAILPIECE TO “PIERROT OF THE MINUTE”
November was to be rich in achievement for Aubrey Beardsley. It was to see him give to the world one of the most perfect designs that ever came from his hands, a design that seems to sum up and crown the achievement of this great period of his art—he writes that he hasjust finished “rather a pretty set of drawings for a foolish playlet of Ernest Dowson’s,The Pierrot of the Minute” which was published in the following year of 1897—a grim irony that a boredom should have brought forth such beauty! As he writes Finis to this exquisite work, he begs for a good book to illustrate! Yet on the 5th of this November a cry of despair escapes him: “Neither rest or fine weather seem to avail anything.”
There is something pathetic in this eager search for a book to illustrate at a moment when Beardsley has achieved the færy of one design in particular of the several good designs in thePierrot of the Minute, that “cul-de-lampe” in which Pierrot, his jesting done, is leaving the garden, the beauty and hauntingness of the thing wondrously enhanced by the dotted tracery of its enclosing framework—a tragic comment on the wonderfulHeadpiecewhen Pierrot holds up the hour-glass with its sands near run out. It is a sigh, close on a sob, blown across a sheet of white paper as by magic rather than the work of human hands.
It was in this November that there appeared the futile essay on Beardsley by Margaret Armour which left Beardsley cold except for the appearance of his ownOutline Profile Portrait of himself in line, “an atrocious portrait of me,” which he seems to have detested for some reason difficult to plumb—it is neither good nor bad, and certainly not worse than one or two things that he passed with approval at this time for theBook of Fifty Drawings. It is a pathetically tragic thought that the November of the exquisitePierrot of the Minutewas for Beardsley a month of terrible suffering. He had not left his room for six weeks. Yet, for all his sad state, he fervently clings to the belief that change will rid him of that gaunt spectre that flits about the shadowsof his room. “I still continue in a very doubtful state, a sort of helpless, hopeless condition, as nobody really seems to know what is the matter with me. I fancy it is only change I want, & that my troubles are principally nervous.... It is nearly six weeks now since I have left my room. I am busy with drawing & should like to be with writing, but cannot manage both in my weak state.” He complains bitterly of the wretched weather. “I have fallen into a depressed state,” and “Boscombe is ignominiously dull.”
It was now that Beardsley himself saw, for the first time, the published prints for the cover and the title-page ofEvelina—of his “own early designing.”
TheSavoyfor December gives us some clue to the busy work upon drawings in November of which he speaks, but some of the drawings that now appeared were probably done somewhat before this time.
It was soon clear that the days ofThe Savoywere numbered and the editor and publisher decided that the December number must be the last. The farewell address to the public sets down the lack of public support as the sole reason; but it was deeper than that. Beardsley, spurred to it by regret, put forth all his remaining powers to make it a great last number if it must be so. For he drew one of the richest and most sumptuous of his works, the beautifulA Répétition of Tristan and Isolde—and he flung into the number all the drawings he now made or had made forDas Rheingold, which included the marvellously decorativeFrontispiece for the Comedy of The Rheingold, that “sings” with colour, and which he dated 1897, as he often post-dated his drawings, revealing that he had intended the long-cherished book for the following year; but the other designs for the Comedy are the unimportant fragmentsFlosshildeandErdaandAlberich, which he,as likely as not, had by him, as it was in October that he wrote of “most of the illustrations being finished.” He now drew his two portraits of musicians, theMendelssohnand theWeber; he somewhat fumbles with hisDon Juan, Sganarelle, and the Beggarfrom thatDon Juanof Moliere which he had ever been eager to illustrate; he gives us theMrs. Margery Pinchwifefrom Wycherley’sCountry Wife; he very sadly disappoints us with hisCount Valmontfrom Laclos’Les Liaisons Dangereusesfor the illustration of which Beardsley had held out such high hopes; and he ends withEt in Arcadia Ego.
isoldeA RÉPÉTITION OF “TRISTAN UND ISOLDE”
A RÉPÉTITION OF “TRISTAN UND ISOLDE”
frontispieceFRONTISPIECE
FRONTISPIECE
It does the public little credit that there was such scant support forThe Savoythat it had to die. The farewell note to the last number announces thatThe Savoyis in future to be half-yearly and a much higher price. But it was never to be. After all, everything depended on Beardsley, and poor Beardsley’s sands were near run out.
Meantime Beardsley had been constantly fretting at the delay in the appearance ofThe Book of Fifty Drawingswhich he had completed in September, in spite of the date 1897 on the cover-design—an afterthought of Smithers, who as a matter of fact sent me an advance copy at Beardsley’s request in December 1896.
The DecemberSavoy, then, No. 8 and the last, saw Beardsley unload all his Wagnerian drawings. Through the month he was toying with the idea of illustrating translations of two of his favourite books,Les Liaisons Dangereusesby Laclos, and Stendhal’sAdolphe....
On a Sunday, early in December, he spent the afternoon “interviewing himself forThe Idler”—the interview that appeared in that magazine, shaped and finished by Lawrence in March 1897.
About Christmas his edition ofLes Liaisons Dangereuseswas taking shape in his brain with its scheme for initial letters to each of the170 letters, and ten full-page illustrations, and a frontispiece to each of the two volumes; but it was to get no further than Beardsley’s enthusiasm. At this Yuletide appearedThe Book of Fifty Drawings, in which for the first time were seen theAli Baba in the Wood, theBookplate of the Artist, and theAtalanta in Calydonwith the hound. This book holds the significant revelation of Beardsley’s own estimate of his achievement up to this time, for he chose his fifty best drawings; it holds therefore the amusing confession that he did not always know what was his best work. It is interesting to note that Beardsley includes the mediocre and commonplaceMerlinin a circle, yet omits some of his finest designs. It is all the more interesting in that Beardsley not only laid a ban on a considerable amount of his early work, but made Smithers give him his solemn oath and covenant that he would never allow to be published, if he could prevent it, certain definite drawings—he particularly forbade anything from theScrap Bookthen belonging to Ross, for he shrewdly suspected Ross’s malicious thwarting of every endeavour on Beardsley’s behalf to exchange good, and even late drawings, for these early commonplaces and inadequacies. And Smithers to my certain knowledge had in my presence solemnly vowed to prevent such publication. When Beardsley was dead, it is only fair to Smithers to say that he did resist the temptation until Ross basely overpersuaded him to the scandalous betrayal. However that was not as yet.... Evidently, though the fifty drawings were selected and decided upon in September, Beardsley changed one October drawing for something thrown out, for the OctoberAve atque Valeappears; and it may be that theAtalanta in Calydon with the hound, sometimes calledDiana, and the BeardsleyBookplatetogether with theSelf-portrait silhouettethat makes the Finis to the Iconography,may have been done as late, and replaced other drawings. Beardsley dedicated the book of his collected achievement to the man who had stood by him in fair weather and in foul from the very beginning—Joseph Pennell. It was the least he could do.
houndATALANTA—WITH THE HOUND
ATALANTA—WITH THE HOUND
plateBEARDSLEY’S BOOK PLATE
BEARDSLEY’S BOOK PLATE
December had begun with more hope for Beardsley—his lung gave him little or no trouble; he “suffers from Boscombe more than anything else.” And even though a sharp walk left him breathless, he felt he could scarcely call himself an invalid now, but the walk made him nervous. He is even looking forward to starting housekeeping in London again, with his sister; he hungers for town; indeed would be “abjectly thankful for the smallest gaieties & pleasures in town.” And were it not that he was nervous about taking walks abroad, he was becoming quite hopeful again when—taking a walk about New Year’s Eve he suddenly broke down; he “had some way to walk in a dreadful state” before he could get any help. And he began the New Year with the bitter cry: “So it all begins over again. It’s so disheartening.” He had “collapsed in all directions,” and it was decided to take him to some more bracing place as soon as he was fit to be moved.
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So ended the greatSavoyperiod! Beardsley’s triumphs seemed fated to the span of twelve moons.