V&A Museum: Cult of Beauty Exhibition

I also visited the Victoria and Albert Museum while I was in London this week. I was particularly interested in the Cult of Beauty exhibition after seeing the adverts for it around on the tube.

This exhibition featured a collection from the 'Cult of Beauty', otherwise known as the aesthetic movement; the whole concept of beauty for the sake of beauty. Art was meant to be beautiful and not necessarily reflect political or moral attitudes.

In the exhibition, three artists particularly caught my eye - Frederic Leighton, Frederick Walker and Aubrey Beardsley.

I will start with Aubrey Beardsley, it seems appropriate with a theme of illustration. Beardsley is one of the most famous pre 21st-century illustrators. His style was particularly extravagant and imaginative, often featuring elements of mythology.

I find the compositions of Beardsley's work fascinating; the flowing, organic style mixed with the tight illustrations produced a beautiful balance of looseness and detail.

Both Frederic Leighton and Frederick Walker used a technique that particularly related to my work & media experiments; they used brown paper with black and white chalks/gouache paints to bring shadows and highlights out of the page.

I will experiment using this technique in my media experiments.