{"id":1881,"date":"2007-05-23T01:00:41","date_gmt":"2007-05-23T00:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=1881"},"modified":"2020-02-20T22:32:35","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T22:32:35","slug":"the-art-of-john-austen-1886-1948","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2007\/05\/23\/the-art-of-john-austen-1886-1948\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of John Austen, 1886\u20131948"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"austen1.jpg\"<\/p>\n

A few drawings by British illustrator John Austen (1886\u20131948), like Patten Wilson<\/a> another artist whose work is hard to come by today. Austen was one of the many young illustrators over whom Aubrey Beardsley’s etiolated shadow fell from 1900 onwards and it’s the first ten years of Austen’s work I find most interesting, mainly because of the Beardsley stylings. He’s not as original or as elegant as Harry Clarke<\/a> but he’s a lot better than the frequently overrated (yet interesting for other reasons) Hans Henning Voigt, or Alastair as he preferred to be known.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"austen2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

The first two drawings here are from copies given to me years ago without any details of provenance although the Oriental setting points to illustrations for The Arabian Nights<\/em>. The Hamlet<\/em> pictures that follow were from an illustrated edition from 1922. After this Austen’s style changed as the Beardsley look became increasingly unfashionable. While artists such as George Barbier<\/a> took Aubrey’s innovations in a new Art Deco direction, Austen followed a different trend of stylisation that was very popular among illustrators of the 1930s. His work is less compelling from that point on but I’d still be happy to see a decent collection of his work in book form.<\/p>\n

See also:
\n\u2022 Bud Plant’s John Austen page<\/a>
\n\u2022 John Austen’s Hamlet<\/a> (better copies than those here which I missed originally)
\n\u2022 John Austen’s ABC of Pen and Ink Drawing (1937)<\/a><\/p>\n

\"austen_hamlet1.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"austen_hamlet2.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"austen_hamlet3.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\"austen_hamlet4.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The illustrators archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 T&H: At the Sign of the Dolphin<\/a>
\n\u2022 Alla Nazimova’s Salom\u00e9<\/a>
\n\u2022 Austin Osman Spare<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few drawings by British illustrator John Austen (1886\u20131948), like Patten Wilson another artist whose work is hard to come by today. Austen was one of the many young illustrators over whom Aubrey Beardsley’s etiolated shadow fell from 1900 onwards and it’s the first ten years of Austen’s work I find most interesting, mainly because … Continue reading “The art of John Austen, 1886\u20131948”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,50,30,42,48,46],"tags":[785,285,277,94,2469,316,695,1293,99,2140,2084,123],"class_list":["post-1881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-beardsley","category-black-white","category-books","category-illustrators","category-theatre","tag-alla-nazimova","tag-arabian-nights","tag-art-deco","tag-aubrey-beardsley","tag-austin-osman-spare","tag-austin-spare","tag-george-barbier","tag-hans-henning-voigt","tag-harry-clarke","tag-john-austen","tag-patten-wilson","tag-salome"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-ul","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}