Jules Platier, Le Lion Artistique (The Artistic Lion/Dandy). 1842. Hand-tinted Lithograph. Bureau de Charivari: Paris. Printed by Aubert & Co. 8.75" x 10.75".
Dandyism
was a consistent force in European counter-culture throughout the 19th
Century, and its central tenants, albeit usually through different
idioms, continue as central components of the avant-garde lifestyle
today. Beginning in England as a practice of refined fashion
trend-setting, it was taken up by the Parisian avant-garde, theorized
and radicalized by people like Roger de Beauvoir, Barbey d'Aurevilly,
and Charles Baudelaire, who described it as, "a kind of religion"
dedicated to re-designing one's total experience of self through a
rigorous practice of self-control and public presentation. While some
dandies (also known in Parisian slang as "Lions") continued the more
conservative tradition of subtle refinement in dress and manner, others
combined it with the emerging Bohemian subculture (seemingly inimical to
it) and developed wildly idiosyncratic public personas and esoteric
modes of private life and thought.
This satirical series from which this is drawn was published by the comedic journal Charivari (see elsewhere in the Prints and Journals tabs of the archive) at the height of the first explosion of Dandyist eccentricity, in which Baudelaire first associated himself with the movement, and ridiculed all of the many sub-streams of Dandyist subculture. This print represents the 'Artistic Lion' or avant-garde dandy. It has been touched-up to an unusually rich, glossy colour, using a thick binding medium and process that have not yet been determined.
The caption reads: "The Artistic Lion: He is long-haired, melancholic and abstracted; yet he is ugly, scruffy, and vain. His favourite haunts are the galleries of the Louvre. (Flemish school) He feeds on grain such as lentils, beans. In the old days he sold strikable matches."
The monocle was a symbol of dandyism and became a symbol of the conscious, creative re-writing of the Self, re-appearing consistently among the Decadents, Aesthetics, Symbolists, Futurists, Expressionists, Dadas, Surrealists, and others––it is from this tradition that mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, publisher of works from this archive under Revenant Editions, takes its name.
This satirical series from which this is drawn was published by the comedic journal Charivari (see elsewhere in the Prints and Journals tabs of the archive) at the height of the first explosion of Dandyist eccentricity, in which Baudelaire first associated himself with the movement, and ridiculed all of the many sub-streams of Dandyist subculture. This print represents the 'Artistic Lion' or avant-garde dandy. It has been touched-up to an unusually rich, glossy colour, using a thick binding medium and process that have not yet been determined.
The caption reads: "The Artistic Lion: He is long-haired, melancholic and abstracted; yet he is ugly, scruffy, and vain. His favourite haunts are the galleries of the Louvre. (Flemish school) He feeds on grain such as lentils, beans. In the old days he sold strikable matches."
The monocle was a symbol of dandyism and became a symbol of the conscious, creative re-writing of the Self, re-appearing consistently among the Decadents, Aesthetics, Symbolists, Futurists, Expressionists, Dadas, Surrealists, and others––it is from this tradition that mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press, publisher of works from this archive under Revenant Editions, takes its name.
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