Written Text from The Yellow Book

Image from The Yellow Book

The Content

After reading Crackanthorpe’s Modern Melodrama, and critically observing Steer’s Portrait of Himself, there appeared to be similar themes between the two works. Both works are female focused in their perspectives. In Modern Melodrama, the story is told from the mistress’ perspective and in Portrait of Himself the focus of the painting is of the woman in the foreground.

The Claim

Research and Findings

Much of Steer’s career at this time focused on producing realistic situations of English life. He studied impressionism in France and brought it over to England. He helped create the group the New English Art Club which drew its inspiration from the French Impressionists (Robins). These impressionists sought to portray representations of real English life.

In his painting Portrait of Himself, his depiction of the man in the background is partially obscured by the woman in the forefront but what is seen is that he is standing, wearing dark clothing, possibly painting the portrait in question, and his head face is cut off by the edge of the picture. Though the scene is a painted in an impressionistic style, it depicts a representation of real life in a non-romanticized way.

The woman is the focus so the viewer is left to ask, “Why is the painting called a Portrait of Himself, when the man is obscured?” Steer intentionally chose this title so image should represent it. Steer is making a commentary on gender roles in this image; the woman becomes the main focus, her appearance is unkept yet beautiful and obscured, while the man is even more obscured but he is upright and tall, his stance is strong but who he actually is and what he is doing is unknown. Steer’s intention may have been to start a dialect about what makes a man and what makes a woman. He wants the viewer to have to take a closer look at these two figures and interpret them.

A critique on this subject is what occurs in a review from The Critic on the volume two of The Yellow Book. Here the review states that the work, “[…] is a bit of a joke on [Steer’s] part, as there is no portrait of man at all” (The Critic). While the review is short it does state the irony of Steer’s work’s title compared to its content. This is what Steer was trying to achieve, the image is ironically juxtaposed to the title of the work so viewer has look closer and ask, “What makes this a portrait of him?” The viewer has to wonder how does picture represent a man?

In Crackanthorpe’s Modern Melodrama, he juxtaposes the roles of the men and women in the short story. The women, who are the mistress and the house maid, are both emotional creatures who express their feelings. The men, who are the man and the doctor, are stoic and hide their feelings (Crackanthorpe). Crackanthorpe is purposefully juxtaposing these roles to clearly depict each genders roles and actions. These characters are symbolic of the gender roles at the time in a similar way that Steer has done. The women are expressive and in the forefront while the men are closed off and obscured. This is a critique on how gender roles are expected to be expressed.

In a review of the first volume of The Yellow Book by The Spectator, Crackanthorpe’s Modern Melodrama, the reviewer says that, “its bold presentment of the death-stricken woman are only equaled by the coarse brutality of the man who has no comfort to offer her except caresses or champagne” (The Spectator). The reviewer, who condemns the story, is summing up the exact critique that Crackanthorpe is trying to portray. Crackanthorpe is trying to get the reader to observe and critique these gender roles by portraying them in a dramatic but realistic way.

Both of these men are trying to demonstrate gender roles that they want to challenge and do this by portraying these roles in juxtaposition to the opposing gender’s roles. The reader is made to question what the subject matter is trying to do by either being ironic in Steer’s work, or dramatic and shocking in Crackanthorpe’s work. The viewer or reader is made to question what males role is and if it is appropriate in contrast to the females roles and actions.

The Yellow Book facilitates Crackanthorpe’s and Steer’s works to begin this critique on gender roles because it gives them a platform to show it to the books subscribers. This follows with what Aubrey Beardsley was trying to accomplish as an editor. Even though his association with Oscar Wilde cost him his positon as art editor at The Yellow Book, his intention in the books creation was to disseminate new styles and ideas to the magazine’s readership, and to challenge the older ways of thinking so that art and literature could progress (Janzen).