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ion: D'ALBERT IN SEARCH OF IDEALS _From "Mademoiselle de Maupin." Reproduced from the original in the possession of Mrs. Bealby Wright_] Applying the epithet "original" to an art so intensely reminiscent, so ingeniously retrospective, might seem paradoxical to those unacquainted with Beardsley's more elegant achievements. His is not the originality of Corot and Whistler, with a new interpretation of nature, another scheme of art and decoration, but rather the scholarly originality of the Carracci--a scholarship grounded on a thousand traditions and yet striking an entirely new note in art. In his imagination, his choice of motive, his love for inanimate nature, his sentiment for accessory,--rejected by many modern artists, still so necessary to the modern temper,--his curious type, which quite overshadowed that of the pre-Raphaelites, the singular technical qualities at his command, Beardsley has no predecessors, no rivals. Who has ever managed to suggest such colour in masses of black deftly composed? Reference to the text is unnecessary to learn that the hair of Herodias was purple. His style was mobile, dominating over, or subordinate to the subject, as his genius dictated. He twisted human forms, some will think, into fantastic peculiar shapes, becoming more than romantic--antinomian. He does not appeal to experience but to expression. The tranquil trivialities of what is usually understood by the illustration of books had no meaning for him; and before any attempt is made to discriminate and interpret the spirit, the poetical sequence, the literary inspiration which undoubtedly existed throughout his work, side by side with technical experiments, his exemption from the parallels of criticism must be remembered duly. LIST OF DRAWINGS BY AUBREY BEARDSLEY COMPILED BY AYMER VALLANCE LIST OF DRAWINGS BY AUBREY BEARDSLEY JUVENILIA 1. A CARNIVAL. Long procession of many figures in fifteenth and sixteenth century costume. Water-colour drawing. Unpublished. Given by the artist to his grandfather, the late Surgeon-Major William Pitt. _c._ 1880. 2. THE JACKDAW OF RHEIMS, set of illustrations to the poem. Unpublished. _c._ 1884. 3. VIRGIL'S "AENEID," nine comic illustrations to Book II. The title-page, written in rough imitation of printing, with the Artist's naif and inaccurate spelling, is as follows:--ILLUSTRATIONES DE | LIBER SECUNDUS | AENEIDOS | PUBLIUS WIR
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