19th Century
Introduction:
Our perspective of 19th century bohemia in London is significantly
richer than the previous two centuries discussed, based on several factors: 1)
The 1800s witnessed a significant increase in the foreigner discussing
culture-brand of essay writing, offering us more objective perspective on the
evolution of the British bohemia. 2) The diversification of London Club
culture and consequent specification of art-minded urban dwellers. 3) The
amount of text available on and from the Aesthetic Movement, headed by Oscar
Wilde, is abundant. 4) Philosphically, the century separates itself based on
the new, arguably post-modern concept of fluidity between the intellectual
and the beautiful.
As we witness the gradual progression towards
radical-notions in the art community of London, we must understand just how
relative it is to the rest of Europe. It becomes all too clear just how
prevailing was the tameness of Londons hipsters when we consider, for example,
the Viennese perspective: persons accustomed to the beehive life of Vienna
coffee-houses consider the London Clubs as dull though handsome edifices.[1]
Understandably enough, docile activities like lounging, gossiping, and
smoking provoked descriptions like Max Schlesingers (the club) astonishes
but does not dazzle one, because here prevails that grand substantial taste in
domestic arrangementsit is most expensive. Even more indicative of the
comparable docility of British bohemianism is this, Ralph Waldo Emersons,
description of a famous dandy: Even Brummel, their fop, was marked by
the severest simplicity in dress.[2]
However, once again we recognize the familial bond
within the urban-artistic community, for what critics have recognized solely as
English exclusivity simultaneously serves to tighten the connections within the
club: No stranger could possibly gain admittance into a club without being
introduced by a member, and these impregnable fortresses play a most important
part in an Englishmans life.[3]
[Francis Wey]
Thakeray
In the 19th century, on the far left of
this, as we now recognize, relatively tame culture lay William M. Thakeray,
writer and political cartoon satirist. Another true bohemian figure, Thakeray
did indeed live primarily (and pennilessly) off of the money he was able to
obtain from selling his sketches and novels. One of the first acknowledged
multi-disciplined artists of the bohemian mindset, with his basic fondness for
rascals and schemers,[4]
Thakerays contributions to the bohemian ideal are consistent and diverse: Two
of his best known literary works, Vanity Fair (1848) and the Becky Sharp
series, paved the way for the seriocomic novel, whose form Dickens would
later perfect. Probably one of the most audacious female characters in British
literature yet, Becky Sharp, the so-called adventuress who propelled
Thakerays popular series, indicates Thakerays seditious intentions. Finally,
the certainty of Thakerays bohemian lifestyle is confirmed by his marked, if
not somewhat paradoxical relationship to Paris and its own brand of bohemia. In
several sketches and journal entries from his Paris Sketchbook, Thakeray
manages to romanticize and criticize Parisian bohemia while simultaneously
registering its notion of a carefree, leisurely life of artistic expression for
future employment in his home environment.
Although the man would certainly protest any label, the beloved, the detested, the famous, the infamous, the artist Oscar Wilde (linked to website w/ bio), guides us through our final evolution of British bohemia. In order to understand Wildes role in the final stage we must first understand the larger context of the Aesthetic Movement, which both shaped and was shaped by this monumental figure. The artistic precedent for Decadence, the Aesthetic Movement championed art for arts sake[5] coupled with the search for definable beauty. Also characterized by a fascination with Japanese aesthetics (i.e. blue and white chinaware) and a devotion to medievalism, the Aesthetic movement generated both the Yellow Book, a blueprint for modern British design, and The Rhymers Club a new school of lyric poetry. Characteristic of bohemian style, the Aesthetic Movement artists initiated a shift (down the economic scale) in gallery locale from the Royal Academy to Grosvenor Gallery, where both the works of Pre-Raphaelites and Whistler were housed.
Also characteristic of the Aesthetic Movement, and well evidenced by the pervasive floral imagery of the first chapter of Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray, is a cult of what some call higher silliness a fixation with frivolity, flowers and feathers. While Wilde epitomizes nearly every aspect of the Aesthetic Movement in his writing, most superficially he is certainly a member of this silly cult. With anything more than a passing interest one would soon discover Wildes deeper foci: Walter Pater put one prevalent idea quite well, to be present always at the focus where the greatest number of vital forces unite in their purest energy to burn always with the hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy is success in life.[6] In this mode of refined hedonism one finds hardly a trace of the bohemia discussed thus far. However, somehow during his constant indulgence in a morbid love of admiration, Wilde did in fact continue the community tradition of the past artistic, urban dwellers. Not only did he create the first worthwhile English theatre since Goldsmith,[7] but ostensibly improved on the formula of artificial comedy, reaching with The Importance of Being Ernest, his seminal work, the perfect artifice. That is not to say Wilde didnt venture to the more serious vein of literature; however, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was dismissed for moralism, and his serious play, Salom, is just plain bad. Perhaps this next step in British bohemia, this search for beauty on the surface, can be explained by a parallel with a more contemporary example: consider Warhol as the wrapper for the Velvet Underground revealing the gritty-perverse-clandestine underbelly of society by focusing on the plastic cover. Perhaps Wilde wasnt aiming to reveal to the grit, as say William Hogarth was, but he certainly approached art in a comparable fashion.