Oxford University Press

Review: The Myth of the Artist

Author(s): Claire Glossop
Review by: Claire Glossop
Source: Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 21, No. 2 (1998), pp. 202-205
Published by: Oxford University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1360625
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Reviews
1. EzraPound,Gaudier-Brzeska:
A Memoir (John
Lane:London,1916), p. 17.
2. RogerFry, 'Gaudier-Brzeska',
Burlington
vol. XXIX,pp. 209-10, 1916.
Magazine,
202 OXFORD ART JOURNAL 21.2 1998
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cultural practices not normally considered in an art historical study - cultural
criticism, design journalism, the work of 'lesser' artists, and popular cultural
forms. The advantage of this broader cultural analysis is that it makes better
sense of features of the period which are identified as distinctive - its
conservatism, tendency to privatization, loss of interest in the political, and so
on. The move from art history to visual studies is, amongst other things, the
result of a recognition that a narrowerfocus cannot illuminate general trends in
the same way. Although Corbett's emphasis on the experience of the war, as
critical in social and aesthetic transformation, may be criticized for presenting
too mono-causal an account of history, he does show the direction we must
follow if we are to pursue the necessary project of a sociology of modernism in
general, and to understand the particular characteristics of English art in the
inter-warperiod in particular.
The Myth of the Artist
Claire Glossop
Evelyn Silber: Gaudier-Brzeska: Life and Art (Thames and Hudson: London,
1996), 168 b&w illns, 16 colour illns, 304 pp., hardbackISBN 0-500-09261-3,
?40.00
On June 5th 1915, at Neuville St Vaast in the trenches of the FirstWorldWar,the
young french sculptor HenriGaudier-Brzeskalost his life. Forthe members of the
London-basedartworldof whichhe had brieflybeen a partGaudier'sdeath at the
age of 24 came to symbolize the 'war waste'.' The repercussions for the
understanding and reception of his sculptural oeuvre have been similarly
coloured by knowledge of this tragic event. Evelyn Silber's new monograph and
catalogue raisonn6 sets out to unravel the myths and legends which surround
this tragic figure; offering an exhaustive and scholastic contribution to a debate
which has fuelled the imagination of artists and art historians alike for over
eighty years.
Dying so young, even his ceaseless energy and power of work could leave us but few examples
of his talent. But those few were sufficient to justify those hopes of a great future which all his
friends conceived ... Brzeska's talent was sufficiently formed, his future sufficiently outlined to
make us feel how terrible a waste the loss of such a life is.2
Roger Fry's observations quoted above highlight the central problems
precipitated by Gaudier's premature death. Gaudier's career was brief, three
or four years at best - of which very little detail is known, and the survivingbody
of works can offer but 'few examples of his talent'. And the works which survive
have acquired a disproportionate sentimental importance as a result of the
circumstances of his short life.
Evelyn Silber's essay amply demonstrates that despite the brevity of his
career Gaudier experimented with many of the major strands of Modernism
including Rodinesque Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, direct carving,
industrial design and Classicism in addition to his involvement with the Vorticist
group for which he is best known. The primitivistfervour of Red Stone Dancer
(1913, Tate Gallery, London)- a semi-abstract woman whose body contorts with
a perpetual spiralling momentum - or the phallic idolatryof The Hieratic Head of
ErzaPound (1914, PrivateCollection, USA)may have secured a place for Gaudier
at the centre of the eroticized Modernist carving enterprise, alongside the figures
 Reviews

of EricGilland Jacob Epstein.But formallyconservativeworkssuch as Dancer

(1913, TateGallery,London)and Torso(1913, TateGallery,London)fall outside
the Modernistcanon. Fromportraiture to poster-designthere was nothing,Silber 3. Sophie Brzeskawas a Polish woman many
argues, the youngGaudierdid nottry.Such a varietyof styles and motifsmaynot years Gaudier's senior with whom he moved to
be unusualfor the earlyyears of an artist's careerand had Gaudiernot died in Englandin 1911. The couple met in Paris and
assumed the identity of brother and sister with
1915 these works would probablybe seen as juvenilia;an interestingand
many of their acquaintances.
promisingpreludeto a more accomplishedbodyof 'mature'work.
AfterGaudier'sdeath the London-basedart worldunited in the belief that
these worksgave rise to 'hopes of a great future'and lamentedthat in losing
Gaudierthe arts had sufferedone of the heaviest casualties of the war.There
was less agreementaboutwhatthis futurewouldhave heldforGaudier'sartistic
development, and against the backdrop of the postwar 'returnto order'
speculation was rife. There followed a proliferationof accounts and articles,
beginningin 1916 withEzraPound'sGaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir,whichclaimed
to offerthe definitiveaccountof Gaudier'slife and artand to revealthe direction
Gaudier'sworkwouldhavetaken had he survivedthe war.Fryand the immigrant
artistHoraceBrodzsky- bothof whomlikePoundhad knownGaudier-published
their own opposing interpretationsof his work,layingclaim, as had Pound,to
privilegedaccess and insight into Gaudier'sintentions. Laterin 1930, using
Gaudier'spartnerSophie Brzeska's3diaries and unpublishedmanuscriptsfor
her novel Matka,the Tate curatorH. S. Ede wrotethe most famous account of
Gaudier'slife and artwhichhe reprinteda yearlaterunderthe melodramatictitle
Savage Messiah. Althoughprofoundlydifferent in style and intention these
accounts share a commonfascinationwithGaudier'slife. He is presentedas the
archetypalModernartist,a foreignerinexile, a bohemianwhodied in a tragicand
heroicearlydeath. Throughthese writtenaccounts the figureof Gaudiercame to
embody'genius'; his short life a testament to his artisticcredentials.
EvelynSilber'sbookGaudier-Brzeska: Lifeand Arttackles this mythologisingof
Gaudier'slife head-on.In a chapterdevoted to the examinationof 'Mythsand
Realities'popularlegends aboutGaudier'slife and his relationshipswithPound,
Epsteinand Sophie Brzeskaare de-bunkedbythoroughhistoricalresearch. But
is it notjust the criticswho are guiltyof exaggerationand mythologising;Silber
drawsourattentionto the varioustales Gaudiertold to his acquaintancesoften
with the intentionof convincingthem of his bohemianism.The most blatant
instance of Gaudier'sembroideringof the truthis his change of name on arrival
in Londonfrom 'HenriGaudier'to the impressive and mysterious-sounding
'Gaudier-Brzeska'. Silberquotes a letterto Sophie in whichGaudierrecountshis
pleasure at dupingthose aroundhim:
I have been telling the tallest stories. The Americans calls me Brzeska, and several of the
French when they heard that I was 'polonais' [polish] said to me that I spoke English like a
Russian, and several others who had thought I was Italian saw very clearly from my type and my
walk that I was a Slav. What fools! What asses!

Gaudier's apparent complicity with the bohemian myth may well have
encouragedthe tone of portrayalssuch as Ken Russell's film based on Ede's
Savage Messiah and the melodramaof RogerCole's monographon Gaudier,
apparentfromits verytitle Burningto Speak,butthe legendhas longout-livedthe
man.Whatbegan as youthfulaffectationand avant-gardeposturinghas grownto
such a proportionthat it has obscuredand overshadowedinterest in Gaudier's
art. The time has come for an examinationof Gaudier'swork without the
distractionof his charismaticbiography.The impact of Silber's book on the
debate willbe reflectedin the extent to whichshe succeeds in turningattention
awayfromthe legend and focusing on the workitself.

OXFORD ART JOURNAL 21.2 1998 203

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Reviews

The publishing of a thoroughly researched and complete catalogue of

4. This material forms the basis of the Kettle's
Yard Collection.
Gaudier's sculpture is clearly an important foundation for this reappraisal of
his work. David Finn's photographs complement the catalogue handsomely, and
combine with Silber's monograph section to give a good sense of the breadth of
Gaudier's activity. For her catalogue raisonn6 Silber, like most of her
predecessors, has relied primarilyon Gaudier's own list of works prepared
shortly before he left for the trenches in 1914. In common with Jeremy Lewison
the curator of the most recent major exhibition of Gaudier's work (Kettle's Yard,
1983), Silber is hesitant in her dating of a number of key works. The chronology
of Gaudier's oeuvre is highly politicised, it has been manipulated to imply a
stylistic evolution culminating in a 'mature style'. The dispute centres around two
works in particular:the bust of Mile Borne (cat. 106) and the Seated Woman(cat.
106). Both sculptures are stylistically 'regressive'. Although Mile Borne does not
appear in Gaudier's list of works Seated Woman is dated 1914 and both
Brodzsky and Frysee this as evidence that by the time he left for War Gaudier
had left behind Vorticism as an experimental phase and had settled on a more
classical style. Other writers have sought to challenge this dating and attribute
these works to 1912-13. Silber, emphatic in her portrayal of Gaudier as a
paradoxicalfigure and loathe to make predictions about this future development,
is content to accept the documentary evidence which suggests both works
belong to 1914 - alongside formally radical works such as Birds Erect (1914,
MoMA,New York).
The consideration of Gaudier's influence on the development of British
Sculpture in the 1920s and 1930s is possibly the weakest section of Silber's
book. One glaring omission is link between Gaudier and a circle of British
sculptors based around the South Kensington Museums in the late 1920s
provided by the figure of Richard Bedford. Bedford knew Gaudier and later
became involved with John Skeaping and Barbara Hepworth during a formative
period of their careers.
Silber also fails to acknowledge that Gaudier's attraction for future
generations, notably Moore and Hepworth's, laid less the direct influence of
his sculptures (only a handful of which were then in public collections in this
country) but in his mesmeric writings and his legendary status. Pound's virtual
canonization of Gaudier, his phallocentric discourse of genius, and his promotion
of direct carving as the ultimate expression of Modernist thought was
assimilated by the generation of writers, including Adrian Stokes, Herbert
Read, R. H. Wilenski and Stanley Casson, who became advocates of the British
carvers in the 1930s. Whereas in terms of stylistic influence Gaudier's role
extends only to early animalier carvings by Moore and John Skeaping his 'Vortex
Gaudier-Brzeska', originallyprinted in Blast and re-printedin Pound's book, was
to have an infinitely more profound and enduring effect. His dictum 'Sculptural
energy is the mountain' captured the imagination of an entire generation of
carvers, and it could be argued, was the direct inspiration for Moore's famous
treatment of the reclining female figure as landscape.
The brevity of Gaudier's career and his relative obscurity at the time of his
death begs the question why has Gaudier become a majorfigure in this country?
Silber attributes the circumstances surrounding the Estate and in particular
Ede's intervention as the single mainl factor. After Gaudier's death Sophie
inherited the Estate. When Sophie died in 1925, after a protracted mental
illness, the works came under the supervision of the Tate Gallery. A number of
sculptures were acquired by the Tate and in 1931 Jim Ede purchased the
remaining sculpture, drawings and papers.4
The de-mythologising of Gaudier began with the 1983 Kettle's Yardexhibition.

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 Reviews

Silber's most significant contributionto this debate comes in the incisive chapter
'Myths and Realities' in which she turns to consider the reasons for Gaudier's
posthumous success. Hitherto, Silber argues, the importance of Sophie Brzeska
for Gaudier's work and career has been underestimated. Referringto Brzeska's
texts for Matka and her diaries, which form the basis of Ede's book and are also
the primary source for historians researching Gaudier's work, Silber reveals
Sophie to be an independent and creative woman whose own artistic ambitions
were not supported by Gaudier. Nevertheless, and no doubt as a result of her
gender, successive critics have been quick to dismiss Sophie's own artist
ambitions as fanciful and have seen her relationship with Gaudier as detrimental
to his career. In reality, according to Silber, without Sophie's writings it is unlikely
Gaudier would have achieved the reputation he now enjoys. Havingset out to re-
establish Gaudier's reputation, ironicallyit is Sophie who emerges from Silber's
book as a figure who now merits our attention.

Bibliography
Pound, Ezra, Gaudier-Brzeska:A Memoir, London, 1916.
Brodzsky, Horace, Henri Gaudier Brzeska, London, 1933.
Ede, H. S., Savage Messiah, London, 1931.
Cole, Roger, Burningto Speak: The Life and Artof Henri Gaudier-Brzeska,Oxford,
1978.

SuppressingHistory
Robert Williams

Michael Ann Holly, Past Looking: Historical Imagination and the

Rhetoric of the Image (Cornell University Press: Ithaca and London, 1996),
214 pp., 60 b&w illns, paperbackISBN 0-8014-8302-6.
In Past Looking Michael Ann Hollyundertakes to argue that works of art in some
way 'prefigure'the kinds of things that art historians say about them. She is well
aware that such a thesis seems to fly in the face of much contemporary theory.
Her point is to prove that scholars committed to new interpretative methods
need not give up entirely on the idea of touching the past, that despite the fact
that our interpretations are always new constructions, some are better than
others, and the insights they offer represent a kind of genuine communion with
the object in question, a real effect of its rhetorical power. By the same token,
she seems to want to reassure art historians of a more traditional kind, anxious
to protect their investment in the past, that they really have nothing to fear from
'theory'.
Her first example of the way the process works is Burckhardt'scultural history
of the Italian Renaissance. In this case, no single picture, but the compositional
principles of Renaissance art generally, especially as embodied in one-point
perspective, are said to have structured Burckhardt's account. It is not just, as
has been often observed, that his book presents us with a 'picture' of the age, or
even that he admitted to having thought in terms of images; it is that 'the
narrative composition of [his] text is derived . .. from Renaissance principles of
pictorial composition' (p. 78). As a result, his history 'not only depicted the
Renaissance but also in a sense was itself depicted by the Renaissance' (p. 56).
Hollyis keen to establish the specifically visual nature of the influence images
exert and the 'iconic' quality of the texts that result. Rather than attributingthe

OXFORD ART JOURNAL 21.2 1998 205

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