Aubrey Beardsley Quotes

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis. Wikipedia  

✵ 21. August 1872 – 16. March 1898
Aubrey Beardsley photo
Aubrey Beardsley: 19   quotes 0   likes

Famous Aubrey Beardsley Quotes

“The only place in London where one can forget that it is Sunday.”

On the Brompton Oratory, in "Table Talk" p. 63.
Under the Hill and Other Essays (1904)

“I’m so affected, that even my lungs are affected.”

A punnish reference to his tuberculosis and public image as a dandy, as quoted in "In Black and White" http://www.cypherpress.com/beardsley/prose/tabletalk.asp edited by Stephen Calloway

“There was a young man with a salary,
Who had to do drawings for Malory;
When they asked him for more,
He replied, 'Why? Sure
You've enough as it is for a gallery.”

On illustrating Le Mort d'Arthur (1893), as quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 155

Aubrey Beardsley Quotes

“I really draw folk as I see them. Surely it is not my fault that they fall into certain lines and angles.”

From an interview in the newspaper To-Day (1894), as quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 200
Context: All humanity inspires me. Every passer-by is my unconscious sitter; and as strange as it may seem, I really draw folk as I see them. Surely it is not my fault that they fall into certain lines and angles.

“I see everything in a grotesque way.”

From an interview given in 1894, as quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 220
Context: I see everything in a grotesque way. When I go to the theatre, for example, things shape themselves before my eyes just as a I draw them — the people on the stage, the footlights, the queer faces and garb of the audience in the boxes and stalls. They all seem weird and strange to me. Things have always impressed me in this way.

“It takes only one man to make an artist, but forty to make an Academician.”

Quoted by Robert Ross in a eulogy. http://www.archive.org/stream/aubreybeardsley00rossrich#page/16/mode/2up

“Of course, I have one aim, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.”

In an interview with <i>The Idler</i> (1896), as quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 309

“I have always done my sketches, as people would say, for the fun of it… I have worked to amuse myself, and if it has amused the public as well, so much the better for me.”

In an interview with <i>The Idler</i> (1896), as quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 309

“I shall not live much longer than did Keats.”

As quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 214

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