The Fascinating Life of Aubrey Beardsley Trivia Game | People

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Aubrey Beardsley was born in Brighton, England, in 1872. At the age of seven he was diagnosed with the disease that eventually killed him. What was it?

Answer: tuberculosis

Tuberculosis was endemic in Victorian England - the causes were little understood, treatment consisted of isolating patients in sanatoria or in the case of those who could afford it, sending them to an environment where the air was "pure". The Swiss mountains were a popular destination for prosperous sufferers.

Some doctors treated it by injecting air into the chest cavity. It is estimated that in the early 19th century TB caused 40% of deaths in London.

2. After Beardsley finished his formal education at Brighton Grammar School, he obtained employment in London. What was his job?

Answer: insurance clerk

He hated the mundane life of a clerk, and when he received his first commission to illustrate a book, he resigned his post without telling his parents.

3. Who described Aubrey Beardsley as having "a face like a silver hatchet and grass-green hair'?

Answer: Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde was prone to flowery language: he described Lord Alfred Douglas as having "rose leaf lips " and "a slim gilt soul that walks between poetry and passion". Beardsley's hair was actually a mousy blond, but he did have a very thin, prominent nose that gave him a hatchet-like profile.

4. As children, both Aubrey and his sister were considered to be artistically and musically gifted. His sister later became an actress. What was her name?

Answer: Mabel

Red-haired Mabel was only a year older than Aubrey. They were always very close and he left all his money to her in his will. She was a renowned beauty, if not a brilliant actress. Invitations to her afternoon tea parties were sought after by the fashionable artists and writers of the day and their hangers-on.

It is at one of these parties that Robert Scott (of Antarctic fame) met his future bride, the sculptress Kathleen Bruce.

5. Beardsley's first paid commission was to illustrate Malory's "Morte D'Arthur". This was so well received that he was immediately asked to illustrate Oscar Wilde's scandalous 1892 play which was banned in Britain. What was its title?

Answer: Salome

Wilde's one-act tragedy "Salome" was written originally in French. Strauss' opera of the same name is based upon it. The English translation remained banned for 40 years and was not performed in London till 1931. The play deals with the Biblical tale of the erotic dance Salome performs at the court of King Herod, for which he rewards her with the head of John the Baptist.

6. Beardsley's fame was established when he became art editor for a quarterly magazine. The venomous elegance of his startling black-and-white drawings made the journal an overnight sensation. What was its name?

Answer: The Yellow Book

"The Yellow Book" quarterly was a new type of journal which would attract attention by its format, its contents, and its high literary and artistic quality. Among the contributors were Edmund Gosse, Walter Crane, Sir Frederick Leighton, and Henry James.

7. When his friend Oscar Wilde was convicted of sodomy and sent to jail, Aubrey Beardsley was dismissed from his job at the magazine, whose owners did not want their image tarnished. What contributions by Oscar Wilde had been published in the magazine during Beardsley's editorship?

Answer: None

England and the literary world were fascinated by Oscar Wilde's three trials at the Old Bailey (London's Criminal Courts of Justice) in 1895. The trials had it all: celebrities, scandal shocking beyond words for the time, sex, wit, intrigue, surprises and learned discussions on art and morals ... what a pity there was no TV then! The trial transcripts remain riveting reading even today, over one hundred years later.

8. Although he was a member of Oscar Wilde's clique of aesthetes, Beardsley was heterosexual. He had an ongoing sexual relationship with a woman who miscarried (or aborted) his child in 1892. Who was she?

Answer: His sister

Beardsley and his sister Mabel had an incestuous relationship that had started in childhood. After Mabel's miscarriage, drawings of diminutive foetus-like monsters started to appear in his work. They shared a house for most of Beardsley's life.

9. Beardsley became renowned for his dark and perverse images and his grotesque erotica. His most famous erotic drawings are the illustrations for which book?

Answer: Lysistrata

"Lysistrata" is the story of the women of Athens who decided to put an end to war by refusing all sexual favours until the men would stop fighting. Beardsley's illustrations are full of men, dwarfs and hunchbacks with grotesquely huge phalluses and various other bawdy and sensual images.

These exquisitely delicate drawings represent the pinnacle of Beardsley's erotic art, but because of the subject matter, these marvellous images were not often reproduced.

10. How old was Beardsley when he died at Menton in the south of France?

Answer: 25

Beardsley was sent to Menton by his doctor in the hope that the balmy sea air would help his condition. Four months later he was dead. He continued working until he died, even though bed-ridden and wracked by chills and haemorrhages for those last four months of his life. He crammed a truly meteoric career into his five short years as a full-time professional artist.

Source: Author annamc

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor bloomsby before going online.
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The Fascinating Life of Aubrey Beardsley Quiz

Aubrey Beardsley's disturbing drawings have always fascinated me. I hope this quiz will be enjoyed by those who know his work - and will inspire those who don't - to look at his pictures!

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