Vorticist faq

What is Vorticism?

Vorticism is the name of an art movement founded by Wyndham Lewis. The movement was launched in June 1914. The Vorticist label was originated by Ezra Pound, a collaborator.  He had already spoken of London as a Vortex of art (letter, December 1913).  London at this time (1913-1914) was an extraordinary centre of artistic energy.  Pound was American, and was working in London due to this level of activity, and the number of opportunities open them.  Lewis had moved to London for the same reason in 1912.  London was the 'vortex', or centre, of this powerhouse of artistic innovation.  For Lewis and others, the label 'Vorticist' (that is, of the vortex) was extremely apt. Vorticism signified a select number of painters and writers who worked in London at this time. Lewis and his collaborators wrote a manifesto defining Vorticism, in June 1914.  This document was called Blast.  It was a fitting name for what was, at the time, a rather shocking publication. 

But what was the reason for Vorticism in the first place?  Why did Lewis and his collaborators decide to unveil an art form with such an obscure name at this moment in time?  

Vorticism was born for many reasons, but it seems the foremost reason was a reaction to continental pressures. In France, Cubism had held sway for some years. The Italians had answered Cubism (after learning its inner workings) with their mult-media project, Futurism. Other countries were also generating their own responses to the dawning of a new century, the increase in industrialisation, and the speeding up of communication systems.

The British Vorticist art movement can be contrasted with these foreign movements.  From such contrasts revealing differences are found. For example, the Futurist was concerned with movement - the excitement of a speeding car. The Vorticist was concerned with the static centre of a whirlwind of movement. The Cubist was concerned with apples, guitars and life in the cafe. The Vorticist was not afraid of looking outside the cafe and observing the architecture and people of the street.

There is a hint of aggression, or confrontation in some Vorticist works that is missing in French work. Vorticist works are characterised by the unease created by a disrupted perspective. Their paintings suggest a new 20th century world seen through a 'vorticist lens'. This lens distorts the neat lines, and sends them in different directions, none in parallel. Latent power, something sinister and potentially explosive seems to reverberate through Vorticist works. Meanwhile the Futurists were excited by the actual explosion.

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Who were the original Vorticists?

Everybody, it seems, has their own idea of who were 'truly' Vorticist.  This is because the main players themselves were sometimes unsure whether they were Vorticist.  For example in the 1950's Lewis announced arrogantly that '...Vorticism was something I did..', William Roberts disassociated himself from the Vorticists in the press of the day.  Does that make him a non-Vorticist in retrospect?  Therefore we have to be careful with any list of members, noting down carefully the reasons.  We could define a Vorticist if they had signed the Vorticist Manifesto (in Blast 1914), or by whether they were a Vorticist 'member' at the Vorticist Group Exhibition.  If we took the latter approach we would have:

Dismorr

Etchells

Gaudier-Brzeska

Roberts

Sanders

Wadsworth

Wyndham-Lewis

Those invited to show were:

Adeney

Atkinson

Bomberg

Duncan Grant

Kramer

Nevinson (Futurist)

It is interesting that Nevinson, a Futurist, had a foot in both camps, and was able to get away with exhibiting. Here is my personal list of who is Vorticist.

Pictorial Artists

Writers/Poets

Note that here, we are in cloudy waters. There is no clear 'Vorticist' literary style (yet - but who knows what may appear from careful analysis?). However, Blast 1 and 2 had several literary contributors. Can these contributors be defined as Vorticist? This is clearly a tough area, so we must say that if they are not 'Vorticist' writers, per se, they were definitely associated with Vorticism.

Sculptors

Here we are on solid ground again. Both scuptors here were happy to be considered Vorticist at this time.

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How long did it all last?

Vorticism had was officially announced in June 1914, with the publication of Blast 1.

The first world war started in August 1914. Therefore it existed for only three months of peacetime. There were two main exhibitions - the Penguin Club, New York - 1915, and the Doré Gallery - 1917. BLAST 2 ('The War Number') appeared in 1915.

But as at least one art historian has said, it is misleading to say Vorticism lasted for only three months. The movement was unveiled in June 1914, but the pictorial style had existed for at least a year before this point (see 1913), in the works by Bomberg and Lewis, for example. It can be argued that Vorticism had already existed in 1913 in everything but name.  Okay, butwhen did it all finish?  Once again there is no clearly defined end point. it was never announced as dead.

In the short term, the First World War (1914-1918) drastically reduced Vorticist output. Its key sculptor, Gaudier-Brzeska, was killed fighting with the French Infantry at Neuville St Vaast (near Arras on the Western Front), in 1915. Hulme was killed on active duty with the Royal Artillery in 1917. Lewis was also in the Royal Artillery (the 'RA', interestingly; the same initials as the Royal Academy which Lewis had always despised!). Edward Wadsworth was designing dazzle-paint camouflage for battleships; Nevinson had became a Futurist.  Many of the Futurists, incidentally, had also joined up with Italian forces.  Some Bloomsbury writers were able to evade the call-up because the establishment considered them as national treasures. 

Lewis was later appointed an official War Artist for the Canadian Nation (due to his birthplace in a boat at Newfoundland). This allowed him to step out of front-line duties with his beloved howitzers, and produce some excellent large-scale canvases. This was to mark the only sponsorship of Vorticism by an official body.

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What did they do?

These artists developed a distinctive British strain of the new pan-European modernist art movement. Together, the Vorticists were the FIRST British painters to venture into abstraction. Other affiliated artists like TS Eliot and TE Hulme wrote rather than painted. But they are no less Vorticist for it. The miracle is that this random crowd made any impact on art at all.

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What was their style?

If you view the exhibition pages you will see that often, a Vorticist painting is composed of a series of interlocking planes of colour, with their separating lines being at wierdly non-parralel planes. It causes a feeling of vertigo and discomfort. We can't really define what's exactly going on in the picture as we once could do with the previous generation of painters. We are witnessing a revolution in the way something is painted, and in the kind of message the painting is conveying. All this can be considered characteristic of Vorticist works. The painters, in their search for a new and shocking style, found a new graphic language that was completely different to the natural shapes and forms that had appeared months before. No longer were there intermediate tones indicating comfortable anatomical modelling of the human form. No longer was there a familiar romantic vista of hills, trees and shepherds with their uncomplicated flock. Arriving now on platform 1914 were the angular forms of  mechanistic automatons, lurching unsteadily around in a severe, brash industrial setting.

Their style was like NOTHING seen previously. Their vision was completely innovative. Be aware that everything you see around you is in some way derived from Vorticism. Look around you now.  If all that derived content was removed, and all that remained was Gainsborough, Constable, and Whistler, then, and only then, would you begin to start appreciating that Vorticism brought a completely new vision of reality.

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Weren't they all just misfits

No. Some art critics (usually those who favour the Bloomsbury artists) are quite unkind about Vorticism. These writers are interested in their artistic subjects primarily as human beings, and judge their output as they judge the artist in the conduct of their private life. So they see Lewis, his money troubles, his multiple affairs, his later infamous forays into politics, and his constant denouncements about the establishment, his unkind words about society figures, and they extend the inevitably disfavourable judgement to the art itself. Vorticism was never beautiful in a conventional sense. Art critics that worked in this way would just see ugly shapes.

It's partly a class thing, I am afraid, and I can't be bothered with these people. It is far more instructive to look at the art, and let it speak for itself.

We must also be cautioned that Lewis himself said a lot, and wrote even more.  And some of what he wrote is to be taken with a pinch of salt.  He was highly opinionated. Much of what he wrote was coloured by how he felt on the day. He was ill for much of his life, and although he was born into a wealthy family, he died poor, and blind. His bitterness about his own personal situation was something that many detractors focussed on and used against him and his output.

Although Lewis went through bouts of wealth in the early years, he didn't possess much personal wealth in 1914. He wanted Vorticism to succeed for very real economic reasons. Some of the Vorticists were genuinely poor. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska sculpted in a railway arch in Putney (under the District Underground line north of Lower Richmond Road on the South side of the Thames, number 27). He was genuinely poor, but one of the most enthusiastic and vociferous of the gang; so poor, his archway was not only his studio but his home.  Jacob Epstein was another bohemian artist who struggled hard to make a living.  Bomberg was living in the East End of London, an area of outstanding squalor. 

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Did Lewis use the media?

Wyndham Lewis would today be seen as a sort of spin doctor or media spokesman. He was shrewd in amassing enormous amounts of publicity. The new developments in art gripped the publics' attention, and it was often being debated. He borrowed some money and printed BLAST which was a large puce magazine as thick as a telephone directory. It was a manifesto and a call to arms for the artists of Britain to shake off its Victorian attitudes. He was continually recruiting both artists and wealthy patrons (usually women who wanted to date a famous artist) who would supply the budget for his next venture. Lewis created the 'Rebel Art Centre' in 1913 with one of these budgets. The Rebel Art Centre was a house in Great Ormond Street, London (where the entrance to the Children's Hospital now is). In it, the Rebels gave lectures, art classes and presentations.

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why did they call themselves Vorticists?

The term Vorticism was invented by Ezra Pound, the American poet. Lewis had befriended him whilst in London. The term represented the contradiction of a swirling, heady progress and a still reflective centre which was a characterisation of the group's collective psyche.

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