Page 22 - Studio International - April 1967

anti-passéisme and dynamism.'
`Puce monster' of Lewis's social milieu and activities. Having Marinetti's views provided a sparking-off-
broken with Roger Fry and the Omega
Workshops in 1914, Lewis and his backer, point for Blast, which was influenced by the
The two issues of Blast, their effects Kate Lechmere, founded the Rebel Art typographic style and propagandist methods
as Vorticist propaganda and how Centre in Great Ormond Street. Here it was of early Futurist documents. Although the
the rebellious image faded. proposed that Lewis, with such artists and division between Futurist and Vorticist
writers as Gaudier-Brzeska, Pound, Wads- creeds was emphasized in Blast, much of the
worth, Nevinson and Etchells should give controversy seems to have arisen from group
exhibitions and lectures, although these barely rivalry. Hence, Pound, who in Blast I
materialized. Lewis was engaged on several referred to Marinetti as a 'corpse', supported
murals and decorations—in Violet Hunt's Futurism in 1933. Nevinson, a contributor to
house, and the famous 'Cubist Room' of Lady Blast, exhibited as a Futurist at the Vorticist
Drogheda (part of which was photographed exhibition of 1915.
in Blast I). He also decorated the 'Cave of the Blast was launched at the Blast dinner of
Margaret Tarratt Golden Calf' — the night-club run by Mme. July 15, 1914 at the Dieudonné Restaurant.
Strindberg, where the Rebel Art Centre held Its bizarre appearance aroused immediate
its 'evenings'. The invitation for one such astonishment. Described by Pound as 'the
evening ran: great MAGENTA cover'd oposculus' and by
"Kill John Bull with Art!" I shouted. And `The Manifesto of Rebel Art will be read to the Lewis as:
John and Mrs Bull leapt for joy in a cynical sound of carefully chosen trumpets.' `. . . that hugest and pinkest of all magazines
convulsion. For they felt as safe as houses. So (Violet Hunt, I Have this to Say) Blast—whose portentous dimensions and violent
(Blasting & Bombardiering, 1937)
did I.' Here were danced what Edgar Jepson des- tint did more than would a score of exhibitions to
cribes as `Vorticist Dances' and `Vorticist make the public feel that something was happen-
(Rude Assignment)
This is Percy Wyndham Lewis's mocking assaults on the drama were enacted'. ing'
assessment of his role at the time of Blast's The influence of Futurism on the Vorticist
publication in 1914. He saw himself during group (so named by Ezra Pound in 1913) It had a page area of 12 by 9+ in. The title
these years as and on the conception of Blast, was crucial. was slanted across a shocking pink cover in
`. . . a man of the tabula rasa. I thought every- Marinetti, the Futurist leader, was frequently black letters nearly 3½ in. tall and over in.
thing could be wiped out in a day, and rebuilt in London between 1912 and 1914 and knew thick. Most memorable features are the Mani-
nearer to the heart's desire.' (Letter of 1940) Lewis and his circle. He gained publicity festos and the series of 'Blasts' and 'Blesses'
from the spectacular activities of his group. that leap up in anarchic type.
He characterized the period of Blast as a time Marinetti was heckled by Lewis, Gaudier- The major manifesto was signed by Richard
when 'life was one big bloodless brawl prior Brzeska and Wadsworth at one of his Aldington, L. Arbuthnott, Lawrence Atkin-
to the Great Bloodletting' and the major lectures at the Dore Gallery in 1914. His son, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Jessie Dismorr,
target was the Futurist Manifesto, printed in the Observer Cuthbert Hamilton, Ezra Pound, William
`. . . triumph of the commercial mind in of June 7, 1914, addressed from the Rebel Roberts, Helen Sanders, Edward Wadsworth
England, Victorian"liberalism" , the establishment Art Centre and also signed by C. Nevinson, and Lewis. Richard Aldington met Lewis
of such apparently indestructible institutions as the was repudiated by Lewis, Gaudier, Pound, through Ezra Pound and their associations
English comic paper Punch, the Royal Academy Wadsworth and others. Lewis commented in with the periodicals The Egoist and The New
and so on—' (Blasting & Bombardiering) Rude Assignment (1950) : Age. Atkinson and Gaudier-Brzeska had
`A great deal of avant garde propaganda appeared dissociated themselves from the 1914 Futurist
The impact of the magazine's two issues to me to be pretentious and silly; and I heartily Manifesto and exhibited with the Vorticists
must be understood against the background detested and had violently combatted Marinetti's in 1915. Hamilton assisted Lewis with the

Far left: cover of Blast II, July 1915, which was
war-dominated and explored the position of art
and the artist in war time. Contributions included
poems by Pound, T. S. Eliot and Ford Maddox Ford.
Left: page from Blast 1. Its most memorable
features are the Manifestos and the series of
'Blasts' and 'Blesses' that leap up in anarchic type.