18 quotes
How few of our young English impressionists knew the difference between a palette and a picture! However, I believe that Walter Sickert did — sly dog!
Under the Hill and Other Essays (1904)
I see everything in a grotesque way.
The only place in London where one can forget that it is Sunday.
Under the Hill and Other Essays (1904)
It takes only one man to make an artist, but forty to make an Academician.
We have had enough of their omniscience, their parade of technical knowledge, and their predilection for the wrong end of the stick.
Pope has more virulence and less vehemence than any of the great satirists. His character of Sporus is the perfection of satirical writing. The very sound of words scarify before the sense strikes.
Under the Hill and Other Essays (1904)
I shall not live much longer than did Keats.
Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999)
I think the title page I drew for Salomé was after all "impossible". You see booksellers couldn't stick it up in their windows.
Of course, I have one aim, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.
In an interview with The Idler (1896)
I’m so affected, that even my lungs are affected.
All humanity inspires me … I really draw folk as I see them. Surely it is not my fault that they fall into certain lines and angles.
When an Englishman has professed his belief in the supremacy of Shakespeare amongst all poets, he feels himself excused from the general study of literature. He also feels himself excused from the particular study of Shakespeare.
Under the Hill and Other Essays (1904)
I have always done my sketches, as people would say, for the fun of it... I have worked to amuse myself, and if it has amused the public as well, so much the better for me.
In an interview with The Idler (1896)
Advertisement is an absolute necessity of modern life, and if it can be made beautiful as well as obvious, so much the better for the makers of soap and the public who are likely to wash.
The Art of the Hoarding (1894)
All humanity inspires me. Every passer-by is my unconscious sitter; and as strange as it may seem, I really draw folk as I see them. Surely it is not my fault that they fall into certain lines and angles.
I see everything in a grotesque way. When I go to the theatre, for example, things shape themselves before my eyes just as a I draw them — the people on the stage, the footlights, the queer faces and garb of the audience in the boxes and stalls. They all seem weird and strange to me. Things have always impressed me in this way.
The general opinion appears to be that it is very funny to make yourself out as fast or as foolish as possible; though even worse than this is the painful orthodoxy of those individuals who claim Shakespeare for their favourite poet, Beethoven for their favourite composer, and Raphael for their favourite painter.
The Story of a Confession Album (1889)
There was a young man with a salary,
Who had to do drawings for Malory;
When they asked him for more,
He replied, 'Why? Sure
You've enough as it is for a gallery.'
On illustrating Le Mort d'Arthur (1893)