Beyond The Black And White: Aubrey Beardsley s Ambiguities
Format
Oral Presentation
Abstract/Artist Statement
One of the most significant figures in English art in the last decade of the nineteenth century Aubrey Beardsley is an artist whose radical style and subject matter is still a topic of debate today. Part of the Art Nouveau style in England Beardsley was one of the primary composers of a new modern style which took hold at the end of the nineteenth century. Although his pen-and-ink drawings were black and white in color in meaning and implications they were anything but. This research project explores the ambiguities concealed within Beardsley’s work as well as in his life and personal relationships and how these paradoxes parallel the social situation in Victorian England. In applying current critical theories of analysis to Beardsley’s work namely the seventeen drawings he produced for Oscar Wilde’s play Salome in 1894 as well as to the relationship between these two men my research uncovers ambiguities which go far beyond the surface of the visual.
Location
Pacific Geosciences Center
Start Date
30-4-2005 11:00 AM
End Date
30-4-2005 12:00 PM
Beyond The Black And White: Aubrey Beardsley s Ambiguities
Pacific Geosciences Center
One of the most significant figures in English art in the last decade of the nineteenth century Aubrey Beardsley is an artist whose radical style and subject matter is still a topic of debate today. Part of the Art Nouveau style in England Beardsley was one of the primary composers of a new modern style which took hold at the end of the nineteenth century. Although his pen-and-ink drawings were black and white in color in meaning and implications they were anything but. This research project explores the ambiguities concealed within Beardsley’s work as well as in his life and personal relationships and how these paradoxes parallel the social situation in Victorian England. In applying current critical theories of analysis to Beardsley’s work namely the seventeen drawings he produced for Oscar Wilde’s play Salome in 1894 as well as to the relationship between these two men my research uncovers ambiguities which go far beyond the surface of the visual.