Aubrey Beardsley at Tate Britain in a mask

The Tate galleries re-opened on 27 July and there's Art to see, timed entry by ticket, masks and social distancing, guards in visors and ticket office now behind perspex screens. All as expected really. The Aubrey Beardsley exhibition has been extended due to the lockdown so I wandered over to Tate Britain last Wednesday. I don't know why but I expected a relatively small exhibition, not an exhibition that fills the normal exhibition space downstairs.

I suspect that most people who visit galleries know the name of Aubrey Beardsley and can recognise his distinctive and stylised drawings and that's as far as my knowledge of him goes. A late Victorian who moved in the same circles of Oscar Wilde and illustrated Wilde's 'Salome' as well as other works of the time. Something I didn't know is that he died at the age of 25 - he produced an awful lot of works in his short life. Or that Edward Burne-Jones (the Pre-Raphaelite painter) was his mentor for a time. There's a lot to learn in this exhibition.

We see his early works and a self-portrait from when he was 19 years old. We see some of his drawings of the Arthurian legends and 'Morte d'Arthur', all very stylised and decorative reflecting the artistic fashions of the time. Part of me wished he'd used colour rather than the black/white greyscale he used. He really seems to have liked drawing with black ink and ink washes and it makes for a very effective image. I actually have no idea if they had coloured ink back then but it's a lovely medium to use and is very flexible.

He produced some very delicate line drawings, such as his drawing of Sir Percival seeing the Holy Grail (below). I wonder how many 'mistakes' he made with his lines - or if he made any? Maybe he didn't and he was that good with his pen.

Then there are drawings of androgynous people in flowing robes, like this drawing from the 'Salome' series. This is supposed to be John and Salome confronting each other, almost in mirrored poses, Salome differentiated since her clothing is a bit more elaborately decorated. Throughout the history of painting John is usually shown wearing furs or very plain, simple clothes, but Beardsley puts him in this rather elaborate robe with a careful hair-do. That's what artists do, they create the image and that image tells a story as much as the story behind the painting or drawing. An elaborate robe fit the aesthetic of the time so that's how he's dressed.

Another thing I didn't know was that Beardsley was also a book editor as well as contributing drawings and illustrations to various books and journals. This is a cover he drew for a book he also edited, 'The Yellow Book'. The actual drawing on white paper is on the wall beside the glass case that holds this copy of 'The Yellow Book'. A masked woman and man and a tall candle. What's that all about then? I have no idea but I like it.

Coming towards the end of the exhibition and my eye was caught by this drawing for the title page of an edition of 'Volpone' by Ben Johnson (a contemporary of Shakespeare). I've only seen this play performed once, back in 1978 when the play was on the syllabus for the English Literature 'A' Level. I'd love to see it performed again. Maybe Shakespeare's Globe will put it on one day.

The penultimate room is a small, slightly darkened room with a sign at the door warning about the explicit images inside that might upset those of a delicate disposition. Naturally, I just walked in and took photos of the rudest drawings I saw, both illustrations for scenes from 'The Lysistrata', an ancient Greek play by Aristophanes. If you've read this far then I'm pretty sure you know what the play is about so let's just say the women of the city withheld their sexual favours from the men with the obvious frustrations that leads to for the men.

The final room was essentially a tributes and influences room, showing Beardsley's influences down the years in paintings, drawing, cartoons and record covers, including the Beatles' 'Revolver'. 

The safety measures worked fine, with people queuing outside the exhibition, nicely distanced, but then, as soon as people got through the door, it became a bit of a scramble, with far too many people in the first room, more distanced in the second and so on. I moved on quickly. All in all, it's a good exhibition and well worth visiting (I might visit again later in the run). It was nice to see the range of Beardsley's work over such a short life.