How the First World War Transformed Art | Hacker News Reader

How the First World War Transformed Art

newstatesman.com

83 pointsgruseom3 comments

Fascinating to see Vorticism spring up here of all places, even among most of the artists I interact with it's a minor footnote if even known at all. But Vorticism holds a special place in my heart with it's call to action simply for changes sake, emphasis on harsh polarisation and focus on the tensions of the past coming to fruition. Hell, the first 10 pages or so of BLAST is the group cursing the wrongs of various things with a focus on the humdrum British lifestyle and loving that snazzy new dazzle camoflauge.

I'm just going to transcribe the first of the seven part portion of the manifesto here.

"[1] Beyond Action and Reaction we would establish ourselves.

[2] We start from opposite statements of a chosen world. Set up violent structure of adolescent clearness between two extremes.

[3] We discharge ourselves on both sides.

[4] We fight first on one side, then on the other, but always for the SAME cause, which is neither side or both sides and ours.

[5] Mercenaries were always the best troops.

[6] We are Primitive Mercenaries in the Modern World

[7] Our Cause is NO-MANS.

[8] We set Humour at Humour's throat. Stir up Civil War among peaceful apes.

[9] We only want Humour if it has fought like Tragedy.

[10] We only want Tragedy if it can clench its side-muscles like hands on it's belly, and bring to the surface a laugh like a bomb."

Even as the war dragged on Lewis' work as a war painter would inform his works. Take a look at earlier Vorticist works and compared it to "A Battery Shelled", they're less abstract once the concrete reality of the trenches had affected the artists. It's an interesting shift that others involved or near the movement would mirror, a brief expenditure of energy followed by a burning out and attempt to return to normalcy. It's a shame Vorticism was such a small and short lived movement, but what can you do when a good number of your artists were jumping to join the fight and promptly got themselves killed like Brezeska? At least we can still get high on Pounds work and whatever was scrounged together to be documented (and not left in the back of a taxicab).

If you're looking for a good read please give BLAST and BLAST: War Number a read, they are truly amazing and underappreciated works and you may find something to take away from it. I'm extremely grateful to have picked up this particular dusty book from the middle of the stacks in Canada.

"A Battery Shelled": https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Lewis%2C_Perc...

"Blast (PDF link)": https://library.brown.edu/pdfs/1143209523824858.pdf

"Blast: War Number": https://monoskop.org/images/c/c1/Blast_2.pdf

"Enemy Of The Stars (2015/200 views)": https://vimeo.com/129298317

I absolutely love vorticism. I produce new editions of classic books for Standard Ebooks and used vorticist artists for cover art a couple of times recently: Edward Wadworth’s Rotterdam for Edwin Abbott’s Flatland[1] and Paul Nash’s The Ypres Salient at Night for a collection of Wilfred Owen’s poetry[2]. As well as reading BLAST (which one really should do), there’s a compilation of art called “War Paintings & Drawings”[3] produced by the UK government that has some prime examples of less abstract vorticist paintings.

[1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/?query=flatland

[2] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/?query=wilfred+owen

[3] https://archive.org/details/warpaintingsdraw00grea_0

(I’m also super-jealous that you found a physical copy of BLAST!)

I was only vaguely aware of Vorticism before reading this, and I was amazed at the look at their short lived 1914-1915 journal BLAST -- the cover art and even the typography are rather reminiscent of modern counter-cultural "zines".

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