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Ezra Pund and Vorticism | Cubism | Abstract Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System Ezra Pound and Vorticism: A Polite Blast Author(s): William C. Lipke and Bernard W. Rozran Source: Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Summer, 1966), pp. 201-210 Published by: University of Wisconsin Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1207248 Accessed: 20-04-2016 05:14 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1207248?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Wisconsin Press, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature This content downloaded from 202.209.200.247 on Wed, 20 Apr 2016 05:14:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms EZRA POUND AND VORTICISM: A POLITE BLAST William C. Lipke and Bernard W. Rozran I In Who's Who (London) for the years 1915 through 1918, Ezra Pound contributed the following entry: "EZRA POUND, M.A. vorticist... Recreations: fencing, tennis, searching the Times for evi- dences of almost incredible stupidity." William C. Wees, in an article entitled "Ezra Pound as a Vorticist,"' described Pound's brief career as a vorticist, his influence on the movement, and its influence on him. Mr. Wees's presentation of the facts of Pound's participation in the vorticist movement is welcome, but Pound's affiliation with vorti- cism might be clarified if vorticism itself were more clearly under- stood. As Mr. Wees indicates, vorticism was primarily a movement in the visual arts. The following remarks are aimed not at disputing Mr. Wees's interpretation of the facts of the movement, but at sug- gesting a more precise meaning of vorticism. What are the characteristics of vorticism as a visual style? If we examine Mr. Wees's article we have little to go on. He cites, for instance, the first issue of the vorticist magazine Blast and notes that all of the illustrations "(except for two by Spencer Gore) could be called Vorticist." (p. 64) We are not told why they are "Vorticist," or on what basis we can call any work of art "Vorticist." Further, Mr. Wees presents some suggestions when he refers to Pound's poem "Dogmatic Statement" as being like a vorticist painting which "is an abstract composition based on line, color, and pattern." (p. 69) This description could apply to the work of Kandinsky or Picasso-in 1 William C. Wees, "Ezra Pound as a Vorticist," Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature, VI, 1 (1965), 56-72. Citation of page numbers in reference to this article will hereafter appear parenthetically in text. WISCONSIN STUDIES I VII, 2 This content downloaded from 202.209.200.247 on Wed, 20 Apr 2016 05:14:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms fact to most of the paintings created between 1907 and 1915 by the avant-garde. While it is true that Pound coined the term in late 1913, the works executed by the vorticist artist prior to this date can be seen as a logical development of the non-representational vorticist style labeled by Pound. T. E. Hulme, writing on "Modern Art" in the New Age in 1914,2 attempted to unravel the complex styles practiced by the more avant-garde English artists since 1905. All of these works were, according to Hulme, part of the "modern movement." This "modern movement" in English painting was characterized by three stylistic phases: post-impressionism, analytical cubism (which Hulme considered the basis of the abstract phase of vorticism), and finally, a "new constructive geometric art" which he found best typified in the work of David Bomberg and Jacob Epstein. This last phase of the "modern movement" was distinct from vorticism, Hulme claimed, because it was more original and less derivative than the vorticist work. What was the "history" of vorticism and what were the styles within the developing movement? The cubist and futurist inspired experiments of a group of English painters and sculptors executed between 1911 and 1920 are part of a larger and more comprehensive view of the vorticist movement. Three stylistic phases can be distin- guished in the decade of vorticism, and all of them can be seen in the illustrations to the first issue of Blast. The first phase could be called "primitive cubism." Much of the stimulus of the first phase derives from certain drawings of the cubists and futurists. There are certain works of Picasso and Herbin where emphasis upon the hard-edged line tends to create planes of form rather than a more naturalistic delineation of the object's contour line. This phase is, nevertheless, representational and is inspired primarily by the rediscovery of "primi- tive sculpture." A related source for this first phase can be found in the vorticists' admiration of Jacob Epstein's growing collection of primitive sculpture. The second phase of vorticism, the style to which I think Hulme was referring when he used the term "analytical cub- ism," is in fact a rather naive interpretation of what the vorticists thought analytical cubism intended to present. Its characteristics are the stick figures applied to the surface of the canvas, figures which are reminiscent of certain paintings of Picabia and Severini executed between 1910 and 1912. Hulme claimed that this vorticist style was 2 T. E. Hulme wrote four articles on "Modern Art" which appeared in the January 15, February 12, March 26, and July 9, 1914 issues of the New Age. 202 1 CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE This content downloaded from 202.209.200.247 on Wed, 20 Apr 2016 05:14:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms distinguishable from its source ("analytical cubism") in that the Eng- lish artists made use of mechanical forms." While the first phase, "primitive cubism," dates from as early as 19094 and continues to 1914, the second phase of the vorticist style exists between 1912 and 1915. It appears in some of the war drawings and paintings of the vorticists and reappears after the war. The third phase was essentially less derivative and was non-representational. Growing in part out of the 1913 experiments done at Roger Fry's Omega Workshops, it was the logical termination of experimenting with the previous two phases. This style became fully developed in 1914 and 1915 and reappeared in late 1919 and 1920. It is distinct from other work done in England or on the continent at the time. Angular lines expanding sequentially rather than logically are its characteristics. The scheme is usually worked around an unconventional "unbalanced" composition based on the contrast between open volumes and tightly enclosed spaces. This phase of vorticism is thus distinct from futurism in its repudia- tion of the painterly technique, its insistence upon the non-figurative motif, and its avoidance of the principle of simultaneous vision. These stylistic considerations indicate the inaccuracy of some of Mr. Wees's examples of visual vorticism. He claims that "Blast is in itself, a Vorticist work of art, perhaps the most successful of all Vorti- cist works of art," because of its "garish color, over-sized type, and pugnacious tone." (p. 65) Similarly, it is difficult to conceive of the vorticist manifesto which appeared in the first issue of Blast as suggest- ing any of the stylistic phases of vorticism which we have outlined. The manifesto, according to Mr. Wees is "a kind of prose libre ... in patterns of large, heavy type carefully arranged on the large pages. In effect, the words create abstract Vorticist designs with lines and blocks of black on planes of white." (pp. 64-65) IT IS DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE ANY SENTENCE AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE VORTICIST STYLE, Or any visual style in painting. Such an interpretation may be tempting, but it hardly does justice to vorticist artists or to the styles they had created. 3 Wyndham Lewis's "Timon" series, which were exhibited in part at Roger Fry's October 1912 second post-impressionist exhibit, is unique in that it re- flects all three stylistic phases of the vorticist movement. The forms are mechan- ical, but closer to the curvilinear treatment of Duchamp than the more tightly controlled angular schemes of Leger. 4 The earliest vorticist work of this "primitive cubistic" phase is Wyndham Lewis's "The Theatre Manager" of 1909. It is now in the Print Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum. A POLITE BLAST 203 This content downloaded from 202.209.200.247 on Wed, 20 Apr 2016 05:14:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Since he has not accurately identified visual vorticism, it is sur- prising that Mr. Wees should be prepared to claim that "Vorticism was the only movement in pre-war England to fully and enthusiastic- ally catch the spirit of the 'new age.' " (p. 57) Hulme and his "con- structive-geometricists," Fry and his Omega Workshops, "The British Fauves," and others also enthusiastically caught the spirit and figure very importantly in this decade of British art.
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