Friday, July 4, 2014

Incipit Vita Nova

Early Pen, Brush, Ink & Wash Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley


James Whistler mocked him as that hairy young thing with hairs on his hands, hair in his ears, all over, because of all the hairy lines of filigree with which he decorated his early drawings when Beardsley was just beginning to make a name for himself within the artistic circles of London and Paris some time in 1892.  These early drawings mark the time of his finding his own voice.  The title printed in the book in the last drawing down, Incipit Vita Nova, is best translated as thus life begins.  The drawing above is a portrait (which clearly shows Whistler’s influence) of the artist with whom Beardsley studied drawing, Fred Brown, on the recommendation of Edward Burne-Jones (which helped him to stop imitating the latter.)
 




 






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