Representations of Acoustic Discourse in The Yellow Book Volumes 1, 2, and 3: Walter Sickert's Music Hall Paintings

Abstract

The images Aubrey Beardsley chose to have reproduced within the first, second, and third Volumes of The Yellow Book include; The Old Oxford Music Hall from Volume One (April 1894), The Old Bedford and Ada Lundberg from Volume Two (July 1894),Collins’ Music Hall, Islington, and The Lion Comique both from Volume Three (October 1894). By examining Sickert’s aforementioned reproductions chosen by Beardsley, this paper will utilize the politics of acoustic discourse and intermediality to investigate how Sickert's intermedial acoustic representations of Music Hall are reflective of the social, cultural and technological contentious modernist climate of the 1890s; and why the inclusion of the reproduced images within The Yellow Book are relevant to the magazines status as a total work of art.