Aubrey Beardsley by Jacques-Emile Blanche

Aubrey Beardsley (1895)
Jacques-Emile Blanche (French, 1861-1942)
Oil on canvas
36.5 x 29 in. (92.6 x 73.7 cm.)
© National Portrait Gallery, London

The Confessions of Aubrey Beardsley by Donald S. Olson

London : Bantam Press, 1993

When Oscar Wilde was arrested for gross indecency, it was reported in the press that he was carrying a copy of The Yellow Book. Both the color and the title of this literary journal, whose art editor was Aubrey Beardsley, was a reference to illicit French novels which were typically bound in yellow. The story of what happened to Oscar Wilde is well known, but the affect of his arrest, conviction and imprisonment on others in his orbit is less well explored.

The Confessions of Aubrey Beardsley opens in the final years of Aubrey Beardsley's life. He has committed himself to converting to Catholicism prior to his impending death at the age of 25 from tuberculosis. As a matter of survival, becoming Catholic or moving to the continent were the common choices among gay men in England after the Wilde trial. Beardsley provides his full confession to Père Coubé, a French priest, through a series of letters. Over the course of these letters we learn about key events in his life.

Beardsley's family struggled financially during his early years and Aubrey and his sister performed at parties of the wealthy—he on the piano and his sister, Mabel, reciting poetry. As a teenager, he had begun to take more seriously his talents as an artist and he was particularly enamored with the art of Edward Burne-Jones, a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Beardsley presented himself and his portfolio of drawings at the home of Burne-Jones who saw something worth encouraging. He later helped Beardsley to hone his craft and make connections with others in the arts community. 

After entering this new world of art and literature, he became aware of Oscar Wilde's intention to publish an English edition of his play Salome and that it would need illustrations. Instead of appealing directly to Wilde or his publisher, Beardsley created a single illustration depicting a critical moment in the play and it was published in an arts and literature journal where he knew Wilde would see it. His plan worked and he soon had the commission to provide the illustrations for Salome. Wilde was ascendant in the literary and arts world and having this connection helped Beardsley to achieve even greater success. When Wilde soon thereafter had his great fall, Beardsley's star also fell. He blamed Wilde for his foolish behavior which also ruined his own reputation and career.

Beardsley struggles with his confession because to renounce his life as sin would mean to agree that his art had no value. He had suffered from tuberculosis at least from the age of seven. Death was always imminent and given his young age at death, one can see why he wanted to experience everything possible while he was still alive. 

Although the particulars of the story are quite different, while reading this novel, I couldn't help thinking of another extremely talented artist/author that died far too young, Denton Welch. There's something about putting so much energy into one's artistic output while suffering significant and ongoing health crises that is extraordinarily compelling. 

Krijgsmanen (Warriors) by Jean-Eugène-Charles Alberti

Krijgsman met getrokken zwaard = Warrior with Drawn Sword (1808)
Jean-Eugène-Charles Alberti (Dutch, 1777-1843)
Oil on canvas
92.5 x 73 cm
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Krijgsman met lans en schild = Warrior with Lance and Shield (1808)
Jean-Eugène-Charles Alberti (Dutch, 1777-1843)
Oil on canvas
91.5 x 72.5 cm
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee

New York : Knopf, 2021

Andrew Haswell Green was shot and killed in broad daylight outside his home in 1903 at the age of eighty-three. Jonathan Lee tells the story of Green—maybe the most important figure in the creation of modern New York City—someone who nonetheless remains relatively unknown. 

Green was instrumental in bringing together the boroughs of New York into what we now know as the modern city, a result dubbed by many as the great mistake. He was also instrumental in making possible such important public works as Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Natural History, and The New York Public Library. 

The Great Mistake opens with Green's murder. There is no question who committed the crime, so the focus becomes why the crime was committed. Told in alternating chapters, the novel follows Inspector McClusky's investigation of the murder while also supplying Green's back-story starting from his youth growing up on a farm in Massachusetts. The chapter titles are taken from the names of the gates for entry into Central Park—Boys' Gate, Children's Gate, Girls' Gate, Women's Gate, Engineers' Gate, Farmers' Gate, Gate of All Saints, Hunters' Gate, Mariners' Gate, Miners' Gate, Merchants' Gate, Naturalists' Gate, Woodman's Gate, Pioneers' Gate, Scholars' Gate, Warriors' Gate, Strangers' Gate, Inventors' Gate, Artisans' Gate, and Artists' Gate. Green insisted the gates be named for all those who came to New York to seek their fortune instead of naming them for the wealthy members of New York society. 

While Green was involved in very important work, that isn't the primary focus of the novel. What we learn in this novel is more about the man himself and his relationships. Recognizing his own homosexuality at an early age and then being shipped off to New York as an apprentice when his friend's mother perceives the situation, he learns to hide his desires. He repeatedly gets the message through the years that it's not acceptable—and it's actually quite dangerous—to be who he is. Even when he eventually meets his greatest friend and partner, Samuel J. Tilden, they seem unable to consummate their great love for fear of what it would mean if they were caught. It's the story of channelling the energy that might have gone toward that relationship into public works that were representative of the things they both valued—nature, the arts, and literature. It was important to Green, who grew up poor, to make all of these things available to everyone. These institutions stand as a monument to their great love.

Die Quelle by Ludwig von Hofmann

Die Quelle (1913)
Ludwig von Hofmann (German, 1861-1945)
Thomas Mann Archives,  Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Hung in Thomas Mann's study and traveled with him to Switzerland, the United States and back again during his years of exile
from Germany.

 

The Magician by Colm Toibin

New York : Scribner, 2021

Like The Master before it, Toibin has centered his novel on an important literary figure. The Master gave us Henry James; The Magician presents Thomas Mann.

Opening in 1891 in Lübeck, Germany with a 16 year old Thomas, spanning sixty years, and ending in 1950 Los Angeles, Toibin presents Thomas' life in detail. Thomas publishes Buddenbrooks and Death in Venice to much acclaim, before World War I. The interwar years are complicated for Thomas with both his brother Heinrich and his children Klaus and Erika becoming quite vocal politically. With the rise of Hitler and the Mann's exile to Switzerland, Thomas doesn't feel that he can speak out against the Nazis—in part because he wants his books to remain in print in Germany, which he still considers home. His decision to remain mostly silent allowed him to continue to sell his works and support his family in an increasingly polarized world.

A particularly strong moment in the novel happens around Thomas' request that his son who is still in Germany retrieve his journals from the safe in their home and send them to Thomas in Switzerland. For a period, the journals are lost and Thomas' concern manifests itself in a flashback based on an entry in the journals that makes clear Thomas' homosexuality. This section provides the strongest sense of what Thomas Mann may have been feeling, while the rest of the novel seems to be solely focused on what happened next.

While many reviewers contend that the novel is about Thomas Mann's secret sexuality, it actually plays a minor role. The focus of the novel is the day-to-day life of Thomas and his family, how they survive the social and political upheaval of the time, and how Thomas' decisions about what to say publicly (or not say publicly) allowed the family to survive World War II. 

Stylistically, The Magician is a novel, but structurally it reads like biography. In this way, I think the adherence to a linear chronological structure with chapters titled by location and year, doesn't allow the reader to learn much about Thomas Mann, the man. While reading, I wondered if a novel structured more specifically around the fear of the Nazis obtaining his journals and flashing back to various experiences through his life documented in the journals might have allowed the reader to have a sense of what Thomas felt about his own life and sexuality, or what or how he felt about his children's sexuality, three of whom would be considered part of the LGBTQ community today.

Nude Bathers by Ludwig von Hofmann

Nude Bathers (after 1937)
Ludwig von Hofmann (German, 1861-1945)