Visions of the End in Interwar British Art Thomas Bromwell Phd
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Visions of the End in Interwar British Art Thomas Bromwell PhD University of York History of Art September 2019 Abstract The cessation of hostilities to the Great War with the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918 brought the largest and most devastating war hitherto known to an end. It was meant to be the “War to End War”, yet a little over twenty years later in 1939 it was eclipsed by the devastation of the Second World War. The shadow of war loomed over the intervening years, which were marked by pronounced speculation on where human society was going; for every prophet of doom anticipating collapse into degradation, animosity, and self-annihilation there was a contrasting viewpoint awaiting the move towards a better new world. Further, these assessments often overlapped. This thesis examines the impact of apocalyptic ideas within British art in the interwar years. It looks at painting, drawings, prints, and sculpture, addressing the use and development of apocalyptic concepts during the period 1918-1939, and explicitly relates contemporary anxieties and apocalyptic evocations with Christian apocalyptic narratives. Interwar British society at large identified with Christian traditions, either as products of a Christian education and state, or through belief. The Apocalypse is central to Christian hope. The project surveys this underappreciated aspect of the period in order to recognize the influence of Judeo-Christian apocalyptic traditions. The apocalyptic orientation, both in its religious and secular forms, has been recognised as a manifestation arising from anxiety in the contemporary context. This thesis reveals a British permutation of a general (European) trend. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 2 List of Illustrations ......................................................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................................... 17 Introduction: Prelude to a Disaster .............................................................................................................. 19 Understanding Apocalypse .............................................................................................................................. 20 The Revival in Apocalyptic Thinking in the Early Twentieth-Century ............................................................... 24 Art and Religion in Interwar Britain ................................................................................................................. 29 Chapter One Crucified by War: Crucifixion in 1914-1930 ............................................................................. 37 Implications of the Crucifixion ......................................................................................................................... 37 The Apocalyptic Sensibility in Images of The Crucifixion by David Jones, Stanley Spencer, William Orpen and William Roberts 1919–1921 ............................................................................................................................ 44 Chapter Two “My God, My God, Why Hast Thee Forsaken Me?”: Crucifixion in the 1930s .......................... 70 Francis Bacon: Carcass on the Cross ................................................................................................................ 70 C. R. W. Nevinson: the Cult of Sacrifice ............................................................................................................ 77 Michael Rothenstein: Judaism and the Cross .................................................................................................. 83 Chapter Three From First Fruits to the White Throne: Of Resurrection and Judgment ................................ 90 The Apocalypse of Stanley ............................................................................................................................... 97 William Johnstone: “There will always be a rebirth” ..................................................................................... 108 Glyn Philpot: I shall rise again ........................................................................................................................ 112 Ethel Walker: Angels and Resurrection .......................................................................................................... 114 Death is Not the End: Charles Sim's Last Paintings ........................................................................................ 117 Chapter Four Witness to the End: Apocalypse and the End of the World as we Know it ............................ 124 1914: The end of the world as we know it ..................................................................................................... 124 (Another) War on Earth ................................................................................................................................. 155 Chapter Five Visions of the Kingdom: Millennium, Paradise, and the New Jerusalem ............................... 178 The Light of the World ................................................................................................................................... 180 The Kingdom and the Great War ................................................................................................................... 183 Approximating the Kingdom of God .............................................................................................................. 200 Mark Lancelot Symons and Stanley Spencer: Visions of an Earthly Paradise ................................................ 205 The Neo-Romantic Paradise .......................................................................................................................... 214 Conclusion: The Passing of All Things ......................................................................................................... 217 Appendices ................................................................................................................................................ 225 3 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................. 227 Illustrations ............................................................................................................................................... 252 4 List of Illustrations 1. Francis Derwent Wood, Canada’s Golgotha, 1918 [Canadian War Museum] 2. Thomas Fisher, ‘Tied to the Wheel - Field Punishment. Common in War’, undated [Canadian War Museum] 3. Frank Brangwyn, Mater Dolorosa Belgica, 1915 [William Morris Gallery] 4. Gilbert Spencer, The Crucifixion, 1915 [Tate] 5. Jacob Epstein, Christ, 1917-1919 [National Galleries of Scotland] 6. Wilhelmina Geddes, The Crucifixion, 1922 [St Peter’s Church, Wallsend-Under-Tyne] 7. War Memorial window, c.1920s [Church of St. Gwynog, St. Twynnells, Pembrokeshire] 8. James Clark, Duty (The Great Sacrifice), 1914 [St Mildred's Church, Whippingham, Isle of Wight] 9. After James Clark, The Dying Soldier, 1919 [St Mary Magdalene, Windmill Hill, Enfield] 10. James Clarke, The Great Sacrifice Memorial Window, 1916 [Church of St. Margaret, Mountain Ash] 11. David Jones, Study of Soldiers Playing Dice at the Foot of the Cross [Tate] 12. Andrea Mantegna, The Crucifixion, 1457-59 [Louvre, Paris] 13. Percy Hague Jowett, England, c.1918 [Liss Fine Art] 14a. David Jones, Jesus Mocked, c.1922-3 [National Museums of Wales, Cardiff] 14b. David Jones, Jesus Mocked, c.1921 [Tate] 15. David Jones, Squared-up study of Soldiers, c.1920-1 [Tate] 16. David Jones, Germany and Peace, 1917 [Graphic, Jan 20, 1917] 17. David Jones, Is There Peace? 1917. [Dilworth, Jones and the Great War, 144] 18. Ruined Calvary and church at Ablainzeville, 30 June 1917 [Imperial War Museum Q 78076] 19. Eric Kennington, The Kensingtons at Laventie, 1915 [Imperial War Museum] 20. Colin Gill, Heavy Artillery, 1919 [Imperial War Museum] 21. Charles Sims, Sacrifice, 1918 [Canadian War Museum] 22. David Jones, Crucifixion, 1926 [Private Collection] 23. David Jones, Sanctus Christus de Capel-y-ffin, 1925 [Tate] 24. David Jones, Frontispiece. From: In Parenthesis (London: Faber & Faber, 1937). 25. David Jones, Tailpiece. From: In Parenthesis (London: Faber & Faber, 1937). 26. Stanley Spencer, The Crucifixion, 1921 [Aberdeen Art Gallery] 27. Stanley Spencer, Travoys Arriving with Wounded at a Dressing-Station at Smol, Macedonia, September 1916, 1919 [Imperial War Museum] 28. William Orpen, The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles, 28th June 1919, 1919 [Imperial War Museum] 29.William Orpen, A Peace Conference at the Quai d'Orsay, 1919 [Imperial War Museum] 30. William Orpen, To the Unknown British Soldier in France, 1923 [Imperial War Museum] 31. William Orpen, To the Unknown British Soldier in France, amended 1928. [Imperial War Museum] 32. Tommaso Laureti, Triumph of Christian Religion, 1513-1521 [Sala di Costantino, Vatican] 33. William Orpen, untitled (‘I dreamt - and lo, the figures over the clock had changed – and I remembered the war’) 1919 [Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery] 5 34. William Orpen, Blown Up, Mad, 1917 [Imperial War Museum] 35. William Roberts, The Resurrection, 1912 [Private Collection]