Quote#Wisdom
I see everything in a grotesque way. When I go to the theatre, for…
Quote byAubrey Beardsley · 1872–1898
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: From an interview given in 1894, as quoted in Aubrey Beardsley : A Biography (1999) by Matthew Sturgis, p. 220.
English (original)
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.
— Aubrey Beardsley
More from Aubrey Beardsley
I’m so affected, that even my lungs are affected.
I think the title page I drew for Salomé was after all "impossible". You see booksellers couldn't stick it up in their windows.
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.
It takes only one man to make an artist, but forty to make an Academician.
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.'
Of course, I have one aim, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.