Aubrey Beards, an illustrator, began to be known under the background of the surging new art, and Biazli criticized Victorian society mainly from the sexual aspect. He was fully aware of the challenges to the Victorian value system, not only from the avant-garde, but also from the women's movement (this also happened in the1880s, and in some areas they gained education and economic power). The satirical and symbolic style of his works blurred gender boundaries, mocked men's superiority, and also showed people's desire for sex and men's fear of women's superiority at that time. The title of a French drama, Fin de Siecle, became synonymous with this context and was widely used in Britain from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century. If translated according to the exact words, the word can be translated into "the end of the century", but its meaning is richer: against the elegance of jewelry, against the sense of decline in prosperous times, against paternalism; The deviation of male dominance in gender and the fuzziness of gender differences; Openly resist/kloc-materialistic hedonism, positive philosophy and moral standards determined in the middle of the 9th century.
During this period, Britain's power was declining: economically, the industrialized middle class felt the great pressure of the Great Depression and the growing foreign power in trade competition; Politically, the Victorian concept of authority was threatened by the expanding civil rights, such as Ireland's demand for local autonomy; Culturally, many intellectuals were afraid of the dead silence of Victorian society. These factors affect cultural life and make artistic creation pessimistic. Matthew arnold put forward the concept of culture in "Culture and Anarchy" (1869) as "not a static state, but a state of growth and meeting people's needs". Some avant-garde artists and writers challenged this mainstream art which they thought was stagnant and outdated. In the so-called "decadent" art movement, it is an exaggerated expression of pessimism at the end of the century.
During the decadent period (1880- 1890), artists and writers resisted the sense of luxury in the Victorian value system. This kind of decadence tends to use pessimism instead of optimism to analyze the status quo, so that the abnormal condition can return to normal and the melodramatic condition can return to nature. As avant-garde artists, they insist on exploring new things. In reality, they are looking for "new women" and "new hedonism", and culturally they are "new drama" and "art nouveau movement". They were also influenced by aestheticism in the 1970s, and their slogan was "Art for Art's sake".
Here, art can be enjoyed alone, because it has inner happiness. This is in sharp contrast with the Victorian pragmatic view of art-art cannot exist just for entertainment, it must serve a higher purpose. In judging the value of art, the Victorian standard was that only good people could create good works of art. In order to oppose this view, the decadent school tried to record their lives truthfully according to their artistic concepts. Therefore, some major artists in this movement have decadent lifestyles, and some people are suspected of taking drugs and homosexuality. Based on the influence of women's movement, the resistance of decadent school, as a social change at that time, was carried out at the same time with other factors. Although the decadent school criticized the Victorian value system, the women's movement threatened the collapse of the entire Victorian social structure.
In the last 20 years of the19th century, extensive social changes began to change the status of women in Victorian society. First of all, women get more legal protection, including divorce, property distribution, custody and so on. The reform of the education system has also provided women with the same opportunities as men.
With the changes of these laws, women's social and economic status has been continuously improved, and the increase of job types has provided women with more training opportunities, more benefits and better working conditions. Education and nursing have become full-time jobs for women, who are also employed as secretaries, salespeople, civil servants, lawyers, editors, journalists and doctors. As for the old idea that Victorian women were regarded as weak and tame creatures, they had to obey their husbands or fathers. Professional women strongly resisted this cliche. Take women in the 1990s as an example. Linda Sutterlin described these new women as follows: they got married late and had few children. They started not to wear corsets. Even if they don't have a man to accompany them, they don't worry that it will damage their reputation. They travel on subways and railways by bike alone.
Although there are many examples of this change, more Victorians still hold traditional ideas about the role of women. Especially when some men began to realize that there was a threat to these new women from both personal and social perspectives, this debate has gone beyond the discussion of women's status, and then evolved into a fierce storm from 65438 to 90' s in 2009. The patriarchal system that has been formed in Victorian society is based on the assumption that women are inferior and must rely on men. This assumption also helps to define men as the opposite of women-men are strong, rational, aggressive and excellent. Under such a system, male superiority is based on female inferiority, so the threat of female movement to male status is very obvious. Men are not only afraid of losing their dominant position, but also worried that this social change will lead to women's sense of superiority.
A biographer of Biazli wrote: "The special worries of this era have become more and more clear, but the universal, subconscious and indescribable worries can only be expressed by symbols." In this case, Biazley created a highly symbolic form. His art has become an ideal way to express people's inner world and visualize these worries. Biazli's artistic career is very short. As an insightful criticism, his art strongly implies the hypocrisy of Victorian society. Therefore, his line drawing works have been criticized by mainstream artists, solemn guardians representing Victoria and even his colleagues. In fact, these criticisms do not involve the theme of Biazli's illustrations, but mainly criticize the strange and secretive style in his works. In order to better understand this style, we must put Biazli in the background of the new sword art.
Art Nouveau is an international movement, which has a great influence in Britain. Context at the end of the century also plays an important role in British art circles, and its development runs through the whole arts and crafts movement and the development of "decadent school". William's arts and crafts movement. Morris pioneered by producing beautiful and practical handicrafts and selling them in association stores. This movement, art is defined by a moral scale-the artist's creation is enough to benefit himself or future generations. The neo-moralists of these arts and crafts movements came together with those immoral people who resisted the Victorian moral standards, pursuing the unity of art and longing for new artistic expressions. The arts and crafts movement resisted cheap imitation caused by large-scale industrial production, while the "decadent school" was tired of imitating the traditional art forms popular in nature and mainstream art, and the symbolism movement that refused realism also influenced the new art. The new art movement was finally clearly expressed as line symbolism-"Lines are beautiful, exciting, smooth and warm. We can get this feature of new art from Biazli's symbolic line drawing. We can also see other aspects of art nouveau from Biazli's works, including two-dimensional, decorative patterns and the influence of overseas styles. In Biazli's works, both the background and the character modeling are based on the painter's profound and meticulous observation and feeling of nature, and the images are integrated into one, and the modeling is vivid and vivid. He respects literary works, but never "plagiarizes", but does it through special means and language. Painters have the function of objectifying and mutating things that exist objectively with human subjectivity, and perfectly reshape a new material world in consciousness to express and symbolize the objective existence in human living space. Life feeling, artistic intuition and subjective change are the sources of his creation. Decomposition and remolding is a method to explore the decorative image system, and the result of remolding brings great freedom and tolerance to artistic creation.
The painter expresses the free and profound state in many fields such as social mentality and personal emotion through his creation. The decoration of the modeling system and the truth of the psychological state are as charming as the artist himself in contradiction. Biazli expresses his understanding of the objective world and the stipulation of beauty through "feeling", so his black and white modeling category is broader and deeper. At the same time, the way of expression must also be through extreme measure to complete the often surprising empty world in his works. Salome is non-objective, irrational and surreal. Salome, like its script itself, shows the spiritual activities of human subconscious, which is a dream, a fantasy, love and hate in human soul, a psychological phenomenon of human beings and a more realistic art.
Biazli's painting treatment is the unity of black and white, lines and images, and the unity of spatial composition and inner feelings. He always observes from the whole, grasps the huge contrast in the objective image structure, and transforms the internal organic changes of natural forms into the movement situation of various morphological factors in the picture. From the comparison and combination of concrete form factors and abstract form factors in his paintings, he realized the unique charm of the picture space which combines the western "focus perspective" with the eastern traditional "scattered perspective". This charm contains the duality of conservatism and rebellion against tradition. The angle of observing things, unique taste and personality, unique composition form and unique sketch language all constitute Biazli's artistic personality. Beazeley's first chance to make an impact in the art world was to cooperate with Oscar Wilde, which ran through Beazeley's life. Wood is one of the most influential writers of the decadent school. His plot mainly involves sex, evil and depravity, which is very similar to Biazli's highly symbolic and self-created illustrations. Ian Flatt thinks that these salon line drawings are one of Biazli's most outstanding works and the most influential and popular images in Biazli's works. However, these line drawings were thoroughly criticized by Beazeley's contemporaries. Even wood himself is not very satisfied with these line drawings. He said, "I'm glad I don't like these illustrations of Biazli. Mainstream artists and art critics ignore the obvious sexual theme in Biazli's works and only attack him from the aesthetic point of view. These line drawings describe this era as "difficult to understand because it is difficult to understand and disgusting." Based on this view, Biazli and Oscar Wood are linked in the public impression. But he was not only criticized individually, but also attacked by wood.
Beazeley's salon illustrations made him one of the famous painters of "Decadence School". At that time, he wrote Art editor for two literary magazines (Yellow Pages and Sava Magazine). This period provided him with many opportunities for artistic creation, and also opened up a new way for his social criticism. Biazli worked for the Yellow Pages for five periods and was fired for being involved in the Wood scandal. 1895 In April, Wood was charged and arrested for opposing the dismissal of libel (an indecent full-length play written by Wood). It is reported that Wood has a yellow page under his arm. These self-righteous Victorian moralists went to the Yellow Pages Publishing House and asked to see Biazli's line drawings. They found the line drawings very disturbing and forced Huang Ying, the editor-in-chief, to cancel the Art editor in Biazli. Biazli was fired, but was soon hired as Art editor by Sava.
Although Biazley has tuberculosis, he enthusiastically insists on creating illustrations for Sawa and other publications. Severe cough often leads to pulmonary hemorrhage, but as long as he can hold the pen, he will keep drawing. This passion for creation kept him alive until 1898, when he was only 25 years old. Biazli's line drawing is not only humorous or strange, but also pays attention to social problems, especially the unfairness and hypocrisy of Victorian society. His line drawing not only criticized the depravity of Victorian society, but also supported breaking the patriarchal system. Some of Biazli's illustrations failed to show us a powerful and knowledgeable "new female" world, extended the gender boundary of women, and fully demonstrated a female experience based on gender equality.
In Biazli's line drawing, there is a theme to describe the depravity of men. Biazli believes that depravity is the result of men's pursuit of power. His line drawing depicts men's greed for wealth, and tries to control other men ideologically, while using gender characteristics as a weapon to serve their own rule. Biazli once explained this artistic creation: "People hate to see scenes describing their rapid decline. Although the decline is terrible, the decline should be described."
Beazeley's criticism of material hedonism is obvious in his line drawing, especially the line drawing about the bandit leader of the Forty Thieves. The robber leader's body is depicted as bejeweled and deformed, and the trunk part is beyond the whole picture. Sutterlin described this role as a "huge and powerless eunuch" in her analysis, and the desire for sex has been replaced by the desire for wealth. "His bloated fat and complicated jewelry prove this extraordinary material passion." Biazli's ultimate goal is to question this abnormal material desire.
Biazli believes that the greed for wealth can't be confined to the aristocratic government in18th century, and so can the industrial middle class in19th century. Although the middle class in Victoria agrees with the values of hard work and thrift, such values have not made them "upper class". Studying Biazli's art from the perspective of social criticism can take his art as a witness: it is not clear whether these wealthy Victorian figures are as greedy as the aristocrats in the18th century.
In addition to exposing the current social situation, Biazli, as an avant-garde artist, also criticized the aesthetic taste and art world in the Victorian era. This illustration is the cover of Sava magazine, and Biazley depicts the image of john bull as a representative of a recognized artist. John is portrayed as a dude and eccentric, standing on the stage and announcing some new movements in the art world. He is "arrogant and confident" and "disdains to consider the feelings of the audience". However, under the curtain of the stage, a weak teenager is peeping at the audience. In fact, new artists will be valued in Sava. Sutterlin said, "Like his semi-seclusion, this young artist still has no power. But he saw the audience ignored by arrogant John and the art hidden behind the scenes. " His understanding of these two aspects is then transformed into a potential strength.
The cover of this Sava magazine shows that Biaz uses creative works to convey his feelings about this era. By criticizing these artists who occupy the mainstream authority, Biazley challenges to maintain a consistent Victorian view in the art world. It is through Biazley that these young artists get more and more attention in the world around them. In fact, these so-called artistic authorities were soon replaced by a modern artistic state.
Regarding sexual abuse, Biazli's understanding of this shameful behavior is that men use their gender characteristics as weapons to consolidate their dominance. In a large number of illustrations depicting sexual abuse, almost all of them are aimed at exposing this ugly behavior. Unlike some mainstream artists of that era who described sexism as a kind of sensuality, we can't see a trace of eroticism from this illustration of Zhu Wennuo flogging women; Biazli painted an animal scene. The lady is neither young nor beautiful, but also fixed in a post, giving people an association of being raped. But there is also a feeling of being displayed as a statue. This also responds to the concept of putting women on the pedestal in Victorian customs. However, in this line drawing, she is doomed to resist. Sutterlin wrote: "Whether a statue implies torture or forces a person to worship, it is a silhouette and can never represent someone." This work conveys that when men treat women as a concept, they deny women's independence and personality and regard them as barbaric recipients.
Biazli exposed the hypocrisy and patriarchy of that era with an alternative visual effect. He designed many absurd images and created a world with blurred gender boundaries. Here, women are portrayed as aggressive, powerful and related to sex. It also caused many erotic themes in Beazeley's art. Like other "decadent schools", Beazeley hated the censorship of art and literature in Victorian society and used it as an excuse to treat women as objects. Therefore, Biazli prefers to describe the female image he feels as the image representative of "new women".
Biazli created a series of new female images with Salome as the theme. These line drawings take women as the main body, replacing the sin, lust and desire for secular rule of traditional male materialists. In these two line drawings, Herod's eyes and climax, Salome's behavior are obvious. The Eyes of Herod tells the story of Salome trading with Herod for the head of St. John. In the patriarchal social customs, hue is the only means for her to talk about conditions. This means her resistance to the social customs that restrict her. Sutterlin wrote: "Although Salome's eyes are full of anger, these pictures show that in Victorian era, a twisted motive led to her desire for revenge, and she used a male character to achieve her goal." Although Salome relies on sexual charm, its essence is only a strong struggle against patriarchy by transcending male roles.
Salome's image implies some potential fears and worries about the new women in Victorian society. For example, when Salome is associated with absurd extremes, many of her gestures are masculine and unattractive, her sexual characteristics are low-key, and all her motives are evil. This is the feeling of most men-once the feminist movement has achieved all its goals, women will surface and men's dominance and superiority will be challenged. They subconsciously replaced their social order with the superior system of women in fear. So these fears naturally come out, just like a series of visual versions of a monster woman like Salome.
Biazli also depicts the image of women who do not agree with the so-called mother's natural role. This is a challenge to the idealized motherhood in Victorian society. Biazlai realized that many Victorian women were very afraid of the high mortality rate at that time. In response to this anxiety, Biazli created a series of pictures of mothers and babies. In such images, the baby is depicted as a small monster, and the mother seems to have little enthusiasm.
The most shocking example is Biazli's shameless description of women's obvious physical and sexual needs. Here, a picture depicts a woman masturbating with her back to the audience. Another painting depicts two Athenian women masturbating openly at the same time. These line drawings were banned by the censors on 1857 because they were too erotic.
Biazli even described lesbian women in Victorian society. For example, black coffee, two women sitting in a coffee shop. Their faces are expressionless. When a woman reaches her partner's thigh, her eyes sweep aside as if to see if anyone is paying attention to them. The description of female homosexuality is to correct an early Victorian concept that women have no sexual needs.
Biazli expresses gender characteristics in his line drawing with sarcastic brushwork. In this pretentious Victorian era, he advocated that sexual exploration should be fully free. He shocked Victorian dignitaries with these absurd and unnatural styles and non-ideal nudity. In any case, he never explicitly described adultery or vilified women. Therefore, we should classify Biazli's art as erotic, and it is by no means an obscene pornographic description.
Biazli's art is the representative of Victorian critical style at the end of the century. Although he is one of the leaders of the decadent school and an innovator of the Art Nouveau movement, his art has always been criticized by Victorian society as one of the most improper and weird arts. Biazli's highly symbolic and erotic expression fully reveals the hypocrisy in Victorian patriarchal social structure. Victorian society labeled Biazli's art controversial because he began to involve social issues and supported sexual freedom. But aren't these arguments about him the most important reason? The oppressed Victorians felt that Beazeley's most dangerous weapon was his profound insight. In Biazli's art, they can see their deepest hopes and worries.