Art Movements: Vorticism

England had a lot to feel silly about during the first half of the twentieth century.

Its empire was in the process of being dismantled, the threat of two wars fought on the continent proper had threatened autonomy and the culture was basically required to demur to art forms (literature, painting, etc.) coming from France, Italy and the rest of Europe. Even today, most folks would be hard pressed to name a specific art movement tied to that island nation. Punk might have been its largest, international contribution, but even that music really came from the States.

The first two decades of the twentieth century, though, found a group of writers in the Bloomsbury group coming into contact with a gentleman named Wyndham Lewis, who was a published author as well as a painter. All involved were interested in creating a distinctive voice for British artists, no matter the discipline. Lewis, though, had a falling out with the Bloomsbury crew and resultantly set up the Rebel Art Centre.

Lewis’ paintings, which he used the Centre to showcase along with other artists sharing similar attitudes, largely concerned themselves with a combination of Cubist tendencies and the wildness of Futurism. Ezra Pound, a friend of Lewis’, dubbed the style Vorticism. And for lack of a better moniker, it stuck.

The Vorticists only maintained the Rebel Art Centre and any sort of community for a few months, the first World War interrupting progress. Still, there were two exhibitions of work during the war – 1915 at the Doré Gallery and 1917 in New York – but only served to create tension between the movement’s adherents. Lewis, it’s been suggested that his figurehead status relied mostly upon his ability to self promote, wasn’t seen by his cohort as the best representation of the movement. His work, though, remained the most prominently displayed in these exhibitions.

Today, the movement is best recalled and best related by BLAST, a Vorticists publication which included something of a mission statement as well as scale representation of paintings and various other writers, including work from the aforementioned Pound and T.S. Eliot. The publication’s been cited as an influence on subsequent design movements. But really, the fact that an art movement – even if it only properly existed for about six to twelve months – has been reduced to a publication doesn’t speak volumes for the work involved.

That being said, some paintings by Lewis, specifically portraits from after the war are extraordinarily engaging even if they busy themselves with aping other styles.