Word: beardsley
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...present show at the Busch-Reisinger, three rooms are devoted to Nouveau objets d'art and the graphics of some artists influenced by the school--Beardsley, Charles Ricketts and, true to recent art scholarship, the masters, Lautrec and Munch...
...eclecticism of Beardsley and his follower, Charles Ricketts, can be seen to derive from the Art Nouveau habit of overstatement and slickness. Likewise, the Nouveau penchant for vegetal forms led to the functionless fantasies in glass of Louis Tiffany, America's gifted designer. The most interesting forms of his stylized works, such as the flower vase in this show, are impractical and, consequently, must be looked at as sculptures in glass. Unfortunately, Tiffany's garish color schemes lessen their value as works...
Along with the poetry, Identity features illustrations by Kaffe Fassett (who, says the accompanying blurb, loathes milk that boils over.) Mr. Fassett's drawings, while sometimes competent, look somewhat like a cross between Aubrey Beardsley and Basil Wolverton, and add little to the total effort...
Without a consistently dazzling and imaginative technique, Beardsley's drawings take on an unpleasantly decadent tinge. The super-sophisticated subject matter is not elevated or illuminated by the artist's compassion. Beardsley, one feels, did not really care about most of his work, most notably his slick "fashion ad" drawings for the Yellow Book. He drew the stylish and stylized images well, brilliantly often, but left them lifeless and hollow...
Included in this well-chosen show of the best of Beardsley's interesting, but unsatisfying, graphics are two paintings, by Burne-Jones and Albert Moore, demonstrating the Pre-Raphaelites' influence on him. When one realizes that these works were done by the leaders of late Victorian art, he can fully appreciate the scope and importance of Beardsley's technical accomplishment. Another artistic force in Beardsley's career, the Japanese eighteenth century print-maker, Utamaro, is likewise represented with two works. However, these subtle, lyrical works tend to point up Beardsley's limited emotional attachment. The conviction which dignifies...