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John Beazley

Sir John Davidson Beazley(/ˈbiːzli/;13 September 1885 – 6 May 1970) was a Britishclassical archaeologistandart historian,known for his classification ofAttic vasesbyartistic style.He wasprofessor of classical archaeology and artat theUniversity of Oxfordfrom 1925 to 1956.[1]

Sir
John Beazley
CHFBA
Beazley cataloguing an unidentified vase in 1956
Born
John Davidson Beazley

(1885-09-13)13 September 1885
Glasgow, Scotland
Died6 May 1970(1970-05-06)(aged 84)
Oxford, England
TitleLincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art
Board member ofBritish Academy
Spouse
Marie Ezra
​
​
(m.1919; died 1967)​
AwardsOrder of the Companions of Honour
Academic background
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford(BA)
Academic work
DisciplineArchaeologyandclassics
Sub-discipline
Institutions
Notable works
  • Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters(1946)
  • Attic Black-Figure Vase-Painters(1956)

Early life

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James Elroy Flecker(sitting) and Beazley (standing) in 1908.

Beazley was born inGlasgow,Scotland on 13 September 1885,[2]to Mark John Murray Beazley (died 1940) and Mary Catherine Beazley née Davidson (died 1918).[3]He was educated atKing Edward VI School,Southampton andChrist's Hospital,Sussex.[2]He then attendedBalliol College, Oxfordwhere he readLiterae Humaniores:he receivedfirstsin bothModsandGreats.He won theGaisford Prizein Greek composition for "Herodotus at the Zoo", a parody ofHerodotusin which the historian visitsLondon Zoo.[2]He graduated with aBachelor of Arts(BA) degree in 1907.[3]

While at Oxford, Beazley became a close friend of the poetJames Elroy Flecker.[3]They were perhaps lovers, asA. L. Rowsesuggested in an article forThe Spectator;[4]certainly their relationship took place within what one biographer has described as an "an aura of bisexuality".[5]The pair founded the "Praxiteles Club" together, a club of which they were the only members. The only rule was that members were to wear a particular blazer, white with gold trimmings.[5]Among Beazley's other friends during this time wereJohn Maynard Keynes,Lytton Strachey,andRupert Brooke.[5]

Beazley was a keen poet in his youth but abandoned it (and ceased even to speak of it) as his scholarly pursuits begun to take up all his time.[2]Flecker addressed a poem to Beazley, an "invitation to a young but learned friend to abandon archaeology for the moment, and play once more with his neglected Muse".[5]T. E. Lawrenceonce commented of Beazley that "if it hadn't been for that accursed Greek art, he'd have been a very fine poet".[2]Beazley and Flecker drifted apart as Beazley drifted away from poetry.[5]

Academic career

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Beazley (left) with Gino Pelizzola looking at a Greek vase mid-restoration in 1967

After graduating, Beazley spent time at theBritish School at Athens.He then returned to theUniversity of Oxfordas a student (equivalent tofellow) andtutorinClassicsatChrist Church.[3]

DuringWorld War I,Beazley served inmilitary intelligence.[3]For most of the war he worked inRoom 40(Cryptanalysis) of theAdmiralty'sNaval Intelligence Division,[2]where his colleagues included his fellow-archaeologistWinifred Lamb.[6]He held thetemporary rankofsecond lieutenantfrom March[7]to October 1916[8]when he was on secondment to the British Army.

In 1925, he becameLincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Artat the University of Oxford,[3]a position he held until 1956.[1]He specialised inGreek decorated pottery(particularlyblack-figureandred-figure), and became a world authority on the subject. He adapted the art-historical method initiated byGiovanni Morellito attribute the specific "hands" (style) of specific workshops and artists, even where no signed piece offered a name, e.g. theBerlin Painter,whose production he first distinguished.[9]He looked at the sweep of classical pottery—major and minor pieces—to construct a history of workshops and artists in ancient Athens. The first English edition of his book,Attic Red-figure Vase-painters,appeared in 1942 (in German asAttische Vasenmaler des rotfigurigen Stils,1925).

Later life

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Beazley retired in 1956, but continued to work until his death inOxford,on 6 May 1970.[2]His personal archive was purchased by theUniversity of Oxfordin 1964. It was originally accommodated in theAshmolean Museum,but in 2007 it moved into theIoannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studiesas part of the new Classical Art Research Centre.[10]

Honours

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Beazley was elected as aFellow of the British Academy(FBA) in 1927.[2][11]He was elected to theAmerican Philosophical Societyin 1943.[12]In 1954, he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.[13]

Beazley was appointed aKnight Bachelorin 1949, and therefore granted thetitlesir.[3][14]He was appointed to theOrder of the Companions of Honourin the1959 New Year Honours"for services to scholarship".[15]

Personal life

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Marie Beazley, painted by Harry Bloomfield in 1923.

In 1919, Beazley married awidow,Marie Ezra (née Bloomfield), whose first husband had been killed in World War I.[3]In their early years together, the pair kept a goose in Christ Church, which Marie would take out for exercise inTom Quad.Marie helped Beazley's work by photographing vases for him.[2]Beazley had no children with Marie,[2]though Beazley had a stepdaughter from Marie's previous marriage, Giovanna Marie Therese Babette "Mary" Ezra. Mary Ezra married Irish poetLouis MacNeice.[16]Marie died in 1967.[2]

The classical scholarMartin Robertsondescribed Beazley as follows:

He had great charm, and could be an amusing and delightful companion; but as he grew older his total deafness and his increasing absorption in his work combined to cut him off to some degree from other people. He was modest, and took immense trouble with the guidance of his pupils, treating them as equals and winning their devoted affection. He was completely generous in communicating his knowledge, not only to these but to all who consulted him, as in increasing numbers scholars, collectors, and dealers constantly did. In appearance he was somewhat under medium height, slight but well made, with striking blue eyes and fair hair (white in age), and fine rather ascetic features which suggested to many a fifteenth-century Flemish portrait, aVan Eyckor aVan der Weyden.He was never professionally painted, but his wife, a talented untaught artist, drew several heads of him in coloured chalks which are preserved in Oxford, atBalliol,Christ Church,andLincoln.[2]

Archive

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There is a notebook in Beazley's hand in Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts, theBodleian Library,Oxford (MS. Eng. misc. e. 1390), containing his notes on Greek literature and sculpture and on Roman history, and also his illustrations of classical statuary and his sketched caricatures of some contemporaries.

References

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  1. ^ab"Sir John Beazley".University of Oxford. 12 June 2012. Archived fromthe originalon 20 June 2012.Retrieved14 June2012.
  2. ^abcdefghijklMartin Robertson; David Gill (2004)."Beazley, Sir John Davidson (1885–1970)".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30664.Retrieved15 June2012.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  3. ^abcdefgh"Beazley, J[ohn] D[avidson], Sir".Dictionary of Art Historians. Archived fromthe originalon 21 July 2012.Retrieved14 June2012.
  4. ^Rowse, A. L. (1985) 'A Buried Love: Flecker and Beazley',The Spectator(21–28 December), 58–60.
  5. ^abcdeHarrison, Thomas. "Herodotus’s Travels in Britain and Beyond: Prose Composition and Pseudo-Ethnography." InHerodotus in the Long Nineteenth Century,edited by Thomas Harrison and Joseph Skinner, 244–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
  6. ^Gill, David W.J. (2018).Winifred Lamb: Aegean prehistorian and museum curator.Oxford. pp. 38–45.ISBN978-1784918798.OCLC1042418677.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^"No. 29513".The London Gazette(Supplement). 17 March 1916. p. 3025.
  8. ^"No. 29774".The London Gazette(Supplement). 3 October 1916. p. 9648.
  9. ^James Whitley (4 October 2001).The Archaeology of Ancient Greece.Cambridge University Press. pp. 37–.ISBN978-0-521-62733-7.
  10. ^Classical Art Research Centre,Retrieved 4 December 2013.
  11. ^"BEAZLEY, Sir".British Academy Fellows Archive.The British Academy. Archived fromthe originalon 4 March 2016.Retrieved15 June2012.
  12. ^"APS Member History".search.amphilsoc.org.Retrieved14 April2023.
  13. ^"Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B"(PDF).American Academy of Arts and Sciences.Retrieved29 May2011.
  14. ^"No. 38553".The London Gazette.4 March 1949. p. 1125.
  15. ^"No. 41589".The London Gazette(Supplement). 30 December 1958. p. 26.
  16. ^"Louis MacNeice".Poetry Foundation.Retrieved14 June2012.
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