Manifesto
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Vorticism
Vorticism was introduced with the first issue of BLAST in 1914, which served as the group’s manifesto. Wyndham Lewis was the artist setting the painting aesthetic, while Ezra Pound manned the literary front and is credited with naming the group. The manifesto had made The Futurists the focal point of both negative and positive attention, and Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis thought that they could make an art group to rival The Futurists. The artwork seems similar between the two groups; however, Vorticism depicted life in much more abstract ways with geometric shapes. In poetry the Vorticist, as Pound wrote in his essay, “Vortex”, searched for “the statement that has not yet SPENT itself in expression, but which is the most capable of expressing.” One big divide between two relatively similar groups was with poetic thought; Pound was obsessed with statements that told you something that you did not know before with only the necessary words and Marinetti used fragments of sentences and mathematical symbols to express. Vorticism, like many manifestoed movements, died with the witness of World War I; nevertheless, their art and poetry deserve praise, please enjoy.
Key members of the Vorticist movement were Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, David Bomberg, Lawarence Atkinson, Edward Wadsworth, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Richard Aldington and Jacob Epstein. Of course there are always more, but the galleries of these painters are so powerful that the full force of Vorticism are felt. Below are poems selected from Pound and Aldington.
Images
by Richard Aldington
I
Like a gondola of green scented fruits
Drifting along the dank canals of Venice,
You, O exquisite one,
Have entered into my desolate city.
II
The blue smoke leaps
Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing.
So my love leaps forth toward you,
Vanishes and is renewed.
III
A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky
When the sunset is faint vermilion
In the mist among the tree-boughs
Art thou to me, my beloved.
IV
A young beech tree on the edge of the forest
Stands still in the evening,
Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air
And seems to fear the stars—
So are you still and so tremble.
V
The red deer are high on the mountain,
They are beyond the last pine trees.
And my desires have run with them.
VI
The flower which the wind has shaken
Is soon filled again with rain;
So does my heart fill slowly with tears,
O Foam-Driver, Wind-of-the-Vineyards,
Until you return.
This Richard Aldington poem is more in the vein of the imagist movement, and even shows flashes of William Carlos Williams' imagination deer; regardless, the poem shows the direction Vorticist desired: concise statements to depict the modern world. Aldington is a successful Vorticist poet in that he thrusts forward a moment of change. Ezra Pound sought the to create moments of change by blending temporal planes and to do this he would juxstapose historical figures and different time periods.
Bomberg, David. The Mud Bath. 1914. Oil on canvas. Tate, Britain.
Canto XLV
by Ezra Pound
With Usura
With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luzor
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his tone
weaver is kept from his loom
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand
and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura
nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime
Not by usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man’s courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
CONTRA NATURAM
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.
Wyndham Lewis. Ezra Pound. 1939. Oil on canvas. Tate.
Jacob Epstein. Rock Drill. 1913. Plaster figure mounted on actual rock drill. Original destroyed by scultpor.
A picture of Wyndham Lewis