Aubrey Beardsley Coloring Book

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley (1872–1898) was a fashionable English illustrator and author associated with the aesthetic movement and the development of the art nouveau style. Known today and in his time as a master of black-ink line work executed with supple fluidity and slashing vigor, Beardsley veered away from Victorian convention, choosing instead to portray characters and scenes as he saw them. “Things shape themselves before my eyes just as I draw them. . . . They all seem weird and strange to me.” He asserted that “the grotesque is the only alternative to the insipid commonplace.” His fantastic illustrations expressed his appreciation of the unexpected, the erotic, the dark and decadent.

Although he struggled with ill-health throughout his brief life—he was diagnosed with tuberculosis as a child and died of the disease at twenty-five—Beardsley was a prolific and well-known artist, and by his early twenties was the art editor of The Yellow Book, an avant-garde literary quarterly. His audacious style influenced artists of diverse genres, and whether despite or because of its modish affectedness, Beardsley’s artwork continues to captivate audiences. This coloring book features a selection of twenty-five black-and-white illustrations published in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century versions of literary works such as Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory, The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, and Salomé by Oscar Wilde.

Images

1. The Lady of the Lake Telleth Arthur of the Sword Excalibur. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
2. Venus between Terminal Gods, 1895. Design intended as frontispiece to The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser by Aubrey Beardsley
3. The Return of Tannhäuser to the Venusberg, 1895. Illustration intended for The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser by Aubrey Beardsley
4. La Beale Isoud at Joyous Gard. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
5. The Battle of the Beaux and the Belles. Illustration for The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
6. The Driving of Cupid from the Garden. Front-cover design for The Savoy
7. How Queen Guenever Rode on Maying. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
8. A Snare of Vintage. Illustration for Lucian’s True History translated by Francis Hickes
9. The Rape of the Lock. Illustration for The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
10. The Abbé. Illustration for Under the Hill by Aubrey Beardsley, reproduced in The Savoy
11. How Sir Belvidere Cast the Sword Excalibur into the Water. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
12. Arthur and the Strange Mantle. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
13. John and Salomé. Illustration in A Portfolio of Aubrey Beardsley’s Drawings Illustrating “Salomé” by Oscar Wilde
14. The Dream. Illustration for The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
15. Peacocks in a Formal Garden. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
16. The Toilet. Illustration for The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
17. Ali Baba in the Wood. Illustration intended for a version of The Forty Thieves but first published in A Book of Fifty Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley
18. Illustration for The Pierrot of the Minute by Ernest Dowson
19. How Queen Guenever Made Her a Nun. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
20. Sir Launcelot and the Witch Hellawes. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
21. How Morgan le Fay Gave a Shield to Sir Tristram. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
22. Design for the cover of volumes in Pierrot’s Library series
23. Design for endpaper of volumes in Pierrot’s Library series
24. How King Mark and Sir Dinadan Heard Sir Palomides Making Great Sorrow and Mourning for La Beale Isoud. Illustration for Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory
25. The Baron’s Prayer. Illustration for The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope