Page 30 - Studio International - April 1967

On June 12, 1914, Marinetti and Nevinson lectured on `anti', and proselytizing in attitude—are distinguishable
`Vital English Art', having printed excerpts from their from Cubism in these respects.
manifesto in the June 7 issue of the Observer. Claiming It has been noted that the most immediate and obvious
they were against 'the worship of tradition... the com- influence of the Futurist 'vision' on English painting was
mercial acquiescence of English artists, the effeminacy to be found in the work of C. R. W. Nevinson who, until
of their art, and their complete absorption towards a 1914, was closely associated with Vorticism. To a large
purely decorative sense,' Marinetti and his new 'Futurist' degree, Nevinson was the most successful manipulator of
chided the 'sham revolutionaries of the New English Art Futurist devices, employing the simultaneous images
Club, who, having destroyed the prestige of the Royal already pointed out in his Gare St Lazare and Arrival. But
Academy, now show themselves grossly hostile to the he was also skilful in capturing the dynamism and move-
later movements of the advance guard.'13 ment emphasized by the Italians and most graphically
The Vorticists replied: 'There are certain artists in practised in Balla's Dynamism of a Dog on Leash: Leash in
England who do not belong to the Royal Academy nor Motion (1912) and Rhythm of the Violinist (1912). Here, as
to any passéist groups, and who do not on their account in Nevinson's On the Way to the Trenches (1914), illustrated
agree with the futurism of Sign. Marinetti ...'14 When in Blast (II, July 1915, p. 89),18 the forms are worked
Blast appeared on June 20, the Manifesto of Vorticism gradually across the two dimensional surface; there is no
claimed that Futurism was 'the latest form of Impres- attempt to show three dimensional simultaneity, but
sionism... equated with Automobilism.' Although Lewis rather to employ techniques from the cinema to show
admitted that Severini and Balla were 'good painters', animation of form. It was this type of Futurist device
he concluded that Futurism was 'a picturesque, super- which Nevinson most satisfactorily used in his finest
ficial and romantic rebellion of young Milanese painters `Futurist' works, the war paintings of 1914-17. His
against the academies which surrounded them.'15 `In any success in subsequent exhibitions of this type of Futur-
case,' Ezra Pound wrote to H. L. Mencken in 1915, 'you ism earned him enormous popularity, but by the early
might keep in mind that Vorticism is not Futurism, most 1920s he had abandoned the style, and his reputation
emphatically NOT.'16 receded accordingly. But there were other contemporary
British artists who were influenced by Futurism during
III the 1910-14 period.
Contrary to Sir John Rothenstein's thesis (that 'Vorti- The late 1912 and early 1913 experiments in interior
cism had little in common with Futurism, [that] the design developed at Roger Fry's Omega Workshops in
English Movement rejected the principal tenets of the London show an awareness of the Futurist principles of
Italian')," Futurism, especially the Futurist activities in vision. The Omega Workshops included by early 1913
London between 1910 and 1914, played a considerable almost the entire group of artists at one time affiliated
role in forming part of the visual vocabulary of Vorticism, with Vorticism: Lewis, Etchells, Gaudier-Brzeska, Grant,
contributed to its aesthetic theory, and provided an Adeney, Roberts, Nevinson, Dismorr, Wadsworth, Born-
attitude, both literary and philosophic, for the English berg, and others. For a short but productive period, until
movement. Both movements — declamatory, decidedly Lewis and his coterie withdrew from the Workshops in

Omega Workshops
Decorations for Cadena Cafe, Westbourne Grove,
London. c. 1915
Left
C. R. W. Nevinson
Gare St Lazare 1912-13
Present whereabouts unknown