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.”
As Beardsley’s self chosen master, Watteau, had played with mimicry of the Chinese genius in his Chinoiseries, so Beardsley at twenty, faithful to Watteau, played with mimicry of the Japanese genius. And as Whistler had set the vogue in his Japanesques by adopting a Japanesque mark of a butterfly for signature, so Beardsley, not to be outdone in originality, now invented for himself his famous “Japanesque mark” of the three candles, with three flames—in the more elaborate later marks adding rounded puffs of candle-smoke—or as Beardsley himself called it, his “trademark.” To Beardsley his candles were as important a part of the tools of his craftsmanship as were his pen and paper and chinese ink; and it was but a fitting tribute to his light that he should make of it the emblem of his signature. But whether the “Japanesque mark” be candles or not, from the time he began to employ the Japanesque convention alongside of his mediævalism, for three years, until as we shall see he was expelled from The Yellow Book—his twentieth, twenty-first and twenty-second years—we shall find him employing the “Japanesque mark,” sometimes in addition to his name. So it is well to dwell upon it here.
The early “Japanesque mark” of Beardsley’s twentieth year (mid 1892 to mid-1893) was as we have seen, stunted, crude, and ill-shaped, and he employed it indifferently and incongruously on any type of his designs whether Morte d’Arthur mediævalism or the Japanesque grotesques of his Bon Mots. And we have seen that it was in the middle of his twentieth year—he last used it in fact in the February of 1893—that he dropped the initial V for Vincent out of his initials and signature. He had employed A. V. B. in his Formative years. He signs henceforth as A. B. or A. Beardsley or even as Aubrey B.
In mid-1893, at twenty-one, we are about to see him launch upon his Salome designs, as weary of the Bon Mots grotesques as of the Morte d’Arthur mediævalism; and we shall see his “Japanesque mark” become long, slender, and graceful, often elaborate—the V quite departed from his signature.
I have dwelt at length upon Beardsley’s “Japanesque mark,” or as he called it, his “trademark,” since his many forgers make the most amusing blunders by using the “Japanesque mark” in particular on forgeries of later styles when he had wholly abandoned it!
From mid-1892 to mid-1893, Beardsley then had advanced in craftsmanship by leaps and bounds, nevertheless he was unknown at twenty-one except to a small artistic circle. The Bon Mots grotesques, mostly done in the last half of 1892, began to appear, the first volume, Sydney Smith and Sheridan, in the April of 1893; the second volume at the year’s end, Lamb and Douglas Jerrold, in December 1893; and the third, the last volume, Foote and Hooke, in the February of 1894. The Morte d’Arthur began to be published in parts in June 1893. The feverish creation of the mediæval designs in the late part of 1892 alongside of the Bon Mots grotesques had exhausted Beardsley’s enthusiasm, and his style evaporated with the growth of his weariness—by mid-1893 he was finding the Morte d’Arthur “very long-winded.” And what chilled him most, he found the public indifferent to both—yet Beardsley knew full well that his whole interest lay in publicity.
It has been complained against Beardsley that he broke his bond. This is a larger question and a serious question—but it is a question. It depends wholly on whether he could fulfil his bond artistically, as well as on whether that bond were a just bargain. We will come to that. But it must be stressed that just as Beardsley had rapidly developed his craftsmanship and style during his work upon the mediævalism of the Morte d’Arthur, by that time he came near to the end of the book he had advanced quite beyond the style he had created for it; so also his next development was as rapid, and by the time he is at the end of his new Japanese phase in Salome we shall see him again advancing so rapidly to a newer development of his style that he grew weary of the Salome before he completed it, and threw in a couple of illustrations as makeweight which are utterly alien to the work and disfigure it. And yet these two drawings were made immediately after working upon this Salome, and were thrown in only out of a certain sense of resentment owing to the suppression of two designs not deemed to be circumspect enough. But Beardsley did not refuse to make new drawings in key with the rest—he had simply advanced to a new style quite alien to Salome, and he found he could not go back. This will be clearer when we come to the Salome.