(The article was originally written in Bengali and published in several parts in the literary magazine ‘Bishan’ in the year 1936 (Bangla year 1343). A little magazine with its office at Bowbazar Street, Calcutta, Bishan easily boasted on its editorial board luminaries like Dr. Kalidas Nag D.Lit(Paris),Dr.Jatindranath Sen P.R.S, DSc, Suniti Kumar Bandopadhyay PhD(Edinburgh). Asit Krishna Mukhopadhyay PhD(London) was the editor. The magazine was priced at one anna per copy in the year 1936 and offered a discount if subscribed yearly. This is a translation of only the fourth part of the article.)
In London just before the war (WW1), in March 1914, a new movement in the field of art called ‘Vorticism’ was born. In fact this school was protesting Wassily Kandinsky’s lack of construction. It rose from the idea of two contemporaries Wyndham Lewis from London itself and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, a young sculptor from France. He died in war on the fifth of June, 1915. From the trenches he wrote two articles published in ‘Blast’ a magazine which belonged to the Vorticists. Some ideas about this school of thought could be made of from these two articles and from some writings of Lewis. They objected to the static form of geometry in Cubism while on the other hand they evaded the ideas of dynamism in Futurism. Nevinson who was a follower of Vorticism often had his ideas returning to dynamism, thus making this school of thought often ambiguous. At one time Kandinsky’s ideas, uplifting from his theory of ‘lack of construction’, neared Vorticism. Proof lies in the writings of Brzeska and from some writings of Lewis in Blast.
Every work of art or artistic imagination is bound to share some resemblance or similarity with another work of art. But one must not exactly imitate the beauty of the nature. The logic behind this truth is that the joy and feeling on visualizing its beauty cannot be copied or imitated in exact likeness. The only way of doing it is through one’s complete unification and salvation with the beauty of the nature. Appreciating this statement can only be done when one truly understands the Vaishnavite philosophy. While thinking of Radha and Krishna one loses his oneness and starts believing himself to be Krishna. It is like losing ones individualism when in love with someone. But the philosophy of oneness in Vorticists was a bit different. They wanted to fathom the true beauty of the nature which formed the foundations of the beauty that an ordinary human being witnesses.
Let us appreciate the philosophy the Vorticists pronounced through their own words or statements. “The inner beauty of an object at times is beyond the reach of the simple thoughts and often contradicts or opposes the virtual beauty we appreciate. The external or the outer beauty of an object may not truly communicate or realise its inner true beauty. The importance of it’s external beauty, its weight, may not be the same as it’s scientific truth. The sky does not project its true beauty under the covering of the light. If by sheer imagination we can bring into balance and regulate the different forms and beauties of the external world it may seem like dreaming. The sole object of the practice of art is to express the beauties of life, the different forms it takes, through this world of imagination. Imitating bluntly the haphazard way in which nature unfolds its beauty expressing its innumerable forms and to jot down all of them is an audacious venture I am in. The logic of nature’s beauty cannot be conceived in writing. Even the slightest imagination can’t be had of it. In no way can the spiritual weight of an object be felt, by the art of copying.” These complex sentences within the quotes do not clearly portray the thoughts of the Vorticists. It is likely that their main thoughts and thinking lie within the world of ‘spiritual weight’. Every object has a fundamental, elemental and essential beauty encased within its external one. I feel that Vorticists intend to express this primary form of beauty. Every object’s existence or entity, its sense of beauty, projects itself in a sensible viewer’s mind in its fundamental form. The science of dynamics states that every object in a circular motion produces a centric form of energy at the centre of the pathway the object follows. The energy is maximum at the center. This powerful bright centric force, a centric force of thoughts, of beauty is called the vortex (point of maximum energy). The Vorticists believed that every individual object has some form of basic, intrinsic, primitive, fundamental form of beauty and their motive was to find out this true inherent beauty and express it in the form of an art. Their form of art worship had no place for imagination or over expression. So this school , I mean Vorticism only had a simple, erect, bare naked machine like truth to express without any form of ornamentation.
The heroes of Vorticism were Edward Wadsworth and C.R.W Nevinson. “Rotterdam” is a representative piece of work in the field of Vorticism. Brzeska’s sculptors truly express their thoughts. This young sculptor’s stonework named Ezra Pound was effective in expressing the inherent accumulated power in the persona of Pound and provided a unique form of beauty. While Vorticism went on developing Cubism in a new form, centering around England before the first world war, a separate group of five more artists in France were drowned in similar thoughts. They were Brancusi, Robert Delaunay, Henri Laurens, Jacques Lipchitz, LouisMarcoussis and Juan Gris. They were trying to free first generation Cubism. But Gris could never free himself from Cubism.
Delaunay had produced in 1925 a painting on a scene on Eiffel Tower. This decorative piece of art ushered Cubism into a new and worthy way. But the most worthy of all the artists in this group were Laurens and Brancusi. Their ideas followed the school of thought of the Vorticists. Brancusi’s imagination and his continued search for the fundamental beauty in an object often led to a meaningless world. In 1925; his imagination of a ‘flying bird’, with its head and tail removed and the torso only represented by a torpedo like cylindrical object, brought immense controversy in the field of art. He fixed this on a square shaped pedestal and made it more pronounced. The United States of America’s import law at that time exempted any work of art from paying taxes. The customs’ officer on seeing this object did not believe it to be a piece of art and suggested that this raw alloy should attract a lump some duty. Finally the matter ended in a court battle where the customs official commented that not even a mad hunter would like to kill this bird. Brancusi won this case at last and the orthodox old art critics had to face it.
The Vorticists sincerely tried to extract the true inner beauty of an object. There are such extensive examples in the field of ancient Indian sculptures. Brzeska has analysed different procedures followed in ancient sculpting and had showed that this tradition had been in existence since long. Young sculptor Brzeska of this new era had only followed this ancient tradition.
“ Art lives on tradition, of which contemporary culture is nothing but the last development” ( Bell )
All forms of art exist devouring nourishment from old forms. Modern arduous endeavour is only a consequence of the ancient form. It is the last wave arising from the sea of innumerable endeavours.
Foot notes in English used by Prof.O.C.Gangoly in this article :
(1)“ I have been told that Kandinsky is a very great painter, That his lack of construction is a magnificent quality, that he has hit something new. I agree with these colours set free, so to speak- have an effect of mirth. This is a very slight emotion nevertheless. My temperament does not allow of formless vague assertions.” All that is not like me is evil;” so is Kandinsky” Gaudier Brzeska.
(2) “ They began with the theory that every painting must be in some slight sense representative season for not imitating nature is that you cannot convey the emotion you receive at contact with nature by imitating her, but only by becoming her…..
The essence of an object is beyond and often in contradiction to, its simple truth….The sense of objects, even, is a seuse of the significance of the object and not its avoirdupois and scientifically ascertainable shapes and perspectives. If the material world were….. organized as in the imagination, we would live as though we were dreaming. Art’s business is to show how then life would be…Imitation, and inherently unselective registering of impressions is an absurdity. It will never give you even the feeling of the weight of the object or scene which is its spiritual weight” Wyndham Lewis.
(3) “Every concept, every emotion presents itself in the vivid cousciousness in some primary form. It belongs to the art of this form” Gaudier Brzeska.
(4) ‘It is that a Vorticist believes that there is an absolute quality, a spiritual or essential characteristic in every object, and he strives to express this while his emotion over discovering it is red hot; and his means is purged of sentiment, elaboration or ornamentation and tend to a special rigidity and machine like hardness”
Additional notes from Pinaki Lahiri :
In this excellent article by Prof Gangoly there are innumerable printing mistakes done by amateur proof- reading especially in little magazines in those days. The mistakes are shown in bold words. The word ‘season’ should mean ‘reason’, ‘seuse’ by ‘sense’ and so forth. But only once did this great connoisseur make a mistake in sheer hurry. He wrote" five artists in France…" But he mentioned names of six of them.
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