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Venessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art
瓦妮莎·貝爾:現代藝術的先驅

“As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.”
—-Virginia Woolf

Sometimes even a small exhibition can be employed to through light on fragments of an artist life and this exhibition draws together works collected as part Courtauld Gallery, offering a glimpse of a fascinating episode in the development of English modernity. The Bloomsbury group was an experiment in the formation of what might be termed an ‘aesthetic community’ that aspired to break down distinctions between the fine and applied arts, the visual and literary registers, and within this the play of art and life. Often this resulted in the experiments pertaining to collaborations in which single authorship was effectively erased. There was within this breakdown of such distinctions an embrace of what could be described as minor modes of expression. Indeed, the exploration of the minor could be viewed as a characteristic of English modernity and this is exemplified by the work of Vanessa Bell who moved easily from portraits, to designs for rugs and screens, interiors, abstractions, and book cover designs. This was very much an aesthetic tapestry based upon multiple conversations between the various practitioners aspiring to the exploration of libertarian values. Although there was an aspiration to discover a connection with the Parisian avant-garde (Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso) there wasn’t the impulse to overturn existing values in the sense of a joint political and aesthetic revolution, so there was no polemical manifestoes that might aspire towards universalising values. This feeling is perhaps best captured by a statement by Virginia Woolf in her book The Waves: “How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table.” This statement leads to the notion that modernity opened out the freedom to let things be, and to let attention to reside with such things without a prior disposition.

Whereas James Joyce elected to practice his writing in Paris, Virginia Woolf created her interior exploration of literary syntax within Bloomsbury. With this sense of location, there was a feeling born out of it, of a quiet model of modernity. Coupled with this, was also the retreats from urban life that was expressive of this turn towards cultural or psychological introspection. ‘Charleston’ became both an actual house but also one with a vast memory palace that exceeded place, becoming something closer to a project of libertarian values resistant to tradition. As a creation, it was in part a story born out of lives lived, friendships, art works created, literary projections imagined, decorative productions embedded, and memories cast. As such it remains a narrative that is in part rich in things that might be told but also as a location that contains a hidden storehouse of things that will be retained as undocumented or secret. The first book on the life of Vanessa Bell was only published in 1983 by Frances Yates, which reflects the sense of her life being lived in a shadow region of her sister Virginia Woolf despite the acknowledge of her sister as to her central role within the circle.

The paintings of Vanessa Bell are still resonant with a sense of a modernity that is still in the process of being disclosed, and this small exhibition serves as a timely reminder of this sense. The two still life paintings weave together an object of attention being merged within their settings. Thus, attention is allowed to wander without the imposition of a difference between the gestalt of the figure and ground relationship. In one painting the frame itself becomes a painted continuum of the image. This lends to the idea that the at image is born out of, and sustained by, the play within all the different facets and surfaces of place. It thereby coheres on the level of the unity of all the different registers available to the perceptual apparatus, the observed, the decorative, the abstracted, all of which serving to create a play of light, colour, pattern with a common sensation of substance. Both these paintings have a modesty, but also advance a subtle exploration of both formal and felt disposition of reality, born out a fold of observation and imagination whereby project and place are brought into relationship. In fact, everything rendered is related to relationships: of conversations undertaken, of bodies within imaginary settings, of a dialectic of urban space and natural setting within rural retreat, of lives lived but also imagined again in or as fiction.

 

 

“作为女性,我没有国家。作为女性,我不需要国家。作为女性,我的国家是整个世界。”
—-弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫

 

有時候,即使是一個小型展覽也能揭示藝術家生活的片段。此次展覽匯集了考陶德美術館收藏的作品,讓我們一窺英國現代性發展中的迷人篇章。布盧姆茨伯里小組(Bloomsbury Group)是一個試圖打破藝術與應用藝術、視覺藝術與文學之間界限的實驗,追求藝術與生活的結合。這常常帶來合作項目,模糊了單一創作者的界限。他們接納了各種次要的表達方式。實際上,這種對次要方式的探索是英國現代藝術的一個特點。瓦妮莎·貝爾的作品就是一個好例子,她從肖像畫到地毯和屏風設計、室內裝飾、抽象藝術和書籍封面設計,樣樣精通。這是一種由多個藝術家之間的對話形成的美學拼接,他們都在探索自由的價值觀。儘管他們想與巴黎的先鋒派藝術家(如塞尚、馬蒂斯、畢加索)建立聯繫,但並沒有推翻現有價值觀的想法,因此沒有發表激進的宣言。這種感覺在弗吉尼亞·伍爾夫的書《浪》中的一句話中得到了最好體現:「沈默是多麼美好;咖啡杯,桌子。」這句話表明現代性讓人們能夠自由地關注事物本身,而不需要先入為主的觀念。

詹姆斯·喬伊斯選擇在巴黎寫作,而弗吉尼亞·伍爾夫則在布盧姆斯伯里進行她的文學探索。這種地方感讓現代性呈現出一種寧靜的模式。同時,這種內省也表現為遠離城市生活的傾向。「查爾斯頓」不僅是一座房子,還成了一個龐大的記憶宮殿,超越了地理位置,成為了一個反抗傳統的自由主義價值觀的項目。這種創造部分源於真實的生活、藝術品、文學投射、裝飾作品和記憶。因此,它成為一個包含許多可以講述的故事的敘述,同時也是一個包含未記錄或秘密的地方。瓦妮莎·貝爾的傳記直到1983年才由弗朗西斯·耶茨出版,這反映了她的生活在她姐姐弗吉尼亞·伍爾夫的陰影中,歷史記錄也反映了這一點。

瓦妮莎·貝爾的畫作仍然充滿了現代感,這個小型展覽恰好提醒了人們這一點。這兩幅靜物畫將注意的對象與它們的環境融為一體,讓人們可以自由地欣賞畫面,而不會覺得人物與背景之間有很大的差異。在一幅畫中,畫框本身成為了圖像的一部分。這種處理方式表明圖像是從不同的方面和表面之間的互動中誕生並維持的。因此,它在所有不同的感知層次上形成了一個統一體,包括觀察到的、裝飾的、抽象的,這些都在共同的物質感中創造了光、色彩和圖案的遊戲。這兩幅畫雖然看起來很謙遜,但實際上深入探索了現實的形式和感覺,這種探索來自於觀察與想象的結合,將項目與地點聯繫起來。事實上,所有描繪的事物都與各種關係有關:進行的對話、想象的場景、城市空間與鄉村生活之間的對比、既真實生活又在小說中重新想象的生活。

 

Vanessa Bell: A Pioneer of Modern Art
Until 6 October 2024
Project Space

 

Text by Jonathan Miles

Edited by Michelle Yu

                   

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