ABSTRACT
In the 1890s, artists like Aubrey Beardsley were not only availing themselves of the mechanical methods of reproduction, but were also using the growing popularity of the ‘home interview’. The injustice of the critics in their evaluations of avant-garde art particularly incensed Beardsley, and he highlighted their hypocrisy in English art criticism. In the interview, Beardsley professes admiration for London’s beautiful sights like the Brompton Oratory and Euston Station, but admits that the Parisian sense of style in general, and modern feminine dress in particular, is far superior to that of the British. In interviews with the national press, Beardsley was quick to promote a continental sophistication in his life and work. The attraction of France was also perhaps what one critic writing in the 1940s most vividly evoked as the ‘great blessing’ of ‘anonymity’. In Paris, in particular, Beardsley was assured a place among other English artistic and literary exiles escaping from the morally constrictive atmosphere of Victorian England.
