Casting a spell
Andrew Lambirth
The Age of Enchantment: Beardsley, Dulac and their Contemporaries 1890–1930 Dulwich Picture Gallery, until 17 February
Taste is strictly divided over the enchanted visions currently on view at Dulwich. It seems that people are rarely indifferent to this kind of imagery; it either delights or revolts. I must admit that I went more in the spirit of inquiry than enthusiasm. I found a densely hung exhibition — it’s the kind of show you really ought to have a lorgnette for — which makes a surprisingly wide appeal, for the work on view is more varied than I’d anticipated.
The show begins with Beardsley and the Age of Decadence, illustrated by a wall of his drawings. These are not the naughty schoolboy ones, but the exquisite arrangements of line like ‘The Peacock Skirt’, ‘The Abbé’ and ‘The Battle of the Beaux and the Belles’, an illustration for Pope’s ‘Rape of the Lock’ which is a masterpiece of stippling. We are also shown artefacts: Beardsley’s drawing table, fine bindings and a rather fabulous pair of velvet curtains embroidered with Chinese peacocks in gold and silver thread. The peacock theme continues into a watercolour by Edward and Maurice Detmold, twin child prodigies, done when they were just 13. There’s also a group of intricate but less exciting Laurence Housman ink drawings, very rococo in mood and somewhat too fanciful.
In the second room we are shown the Gothic shadow of Beardsley, as instanced by the monsters of Sidney Sime. Pretty ghastly stuff in my opinion, but the fine black ground to ‘The Felon Flower’, with its less crowded composition, is certainly impressive, if not as powerful as Beardsley’s designs. The Irishman Harry Clarke comes nearer to the master, while a group of spare, stylised drawings by Charles Ricketts sounds a different and curiously more exotic note. The third room takes us into three-dimensional work with a fluid Art Nouveau bronze sculp ture of ‘The Sirens’ by Raoul Larche and a ceramic of ‘Undine’ by Emil Gregoire. Here are more books and an attractive if ethnic-looking doll’s house. Arthur Rackham is also here to cast a real spell: look at his subtle and distinctive use of colour and atmospheric line in ‘Lizzie, Lizzie, have you tasted, For my sake the fruit forbidden?’ This is the fairy world beloved of the Victorians, but rendered more than acceptable by Rackham’s formal magic, in spite of the goblins. In much the same way, Bernard Sleigh’s intricate woodcut ‘The Horns of Elfland Faintly Blowing’ is a technical tourde-force, and convinces despite its subject. The same cannot be said for the over-ornate and neurotic Annie French ...
The fourth room features a whole wall given over to the Detmold twins, whose work en masse is unbearably twee: rather vile imaginary animals in watercolour. That said, the colour etching ‘Parrot’ and the mysterious ‘raised painting’ entitled ‘Tiger, Tiger’, both by Edward Detmold, are surprisingly effective. This is the menagerie room which also contains the hothouse reveries of Charles Robinson (younger brother of Heath Robinson). It’s something of a relief to move through into room 5 to find the sober fantasy, real invention and subtlety of Edmund Dulac (1882–1953). I particularly liked the pattern of light in the background of ‘The Cup of Wine she gives him each night’. His Persian miniature style, instanced in the 1914 gift book, has a different temper altogether from the dark swirly blue fairyland images, but possesses a lovely lucidity despite the ornamentation. This room easily makes the best display of the exhibition.
The final room deals with International Enchantment, bringing in the Dane Kay Nielsen and the German recluse Alastair (Hans Henning von Voight). The latter employs rather amazing fretted textures in memorable images such as ‘The Insulting Bird’, ‘Passionate Embrace’ (from Manon Lescaut) and ‘Ashtaroth’ (from Wilde’s ‘The Sphinx’): marvellous patterns. Five watercolours by Nielsen include ‘The Dancing Princess’, a wonder and delight of verticality and teardrop trees. Here also are vases by Daisy Makeig-Jones and Frank Brangwyn’s print cabinet, a real curiosity.
Chris Beetles (8&10 Ryder Street, London SW1) is the leading commercial gallery to specialise in this area, with an annual Christmas show and a vast publication to accompany it. The latest catalogue, The Illustrators: The British Art of Illustration 1800–2007 (£25), is the biggest yet at 452 pages, and accompanies an exhibition which has already been enormously successful, selling some 350 works. Beetles has added exhibits as others have been sold, so if you want to buy a Beardsley or Rackham or even a Dulac, a visit to Ryder Street may well be in order.
Previous page
