Russian Ballet (book)
Encyclopedia
David Bomberg
David Garshen Bomberg was an English painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys.Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks, and which included Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, C.R.W. Nevinson and Dora Carrington...
published in 1919. The work describes the impact of seeing a performance of Diaghilev's
Sergei Diaghilev
Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev , usually referred to outside of Russia as Serge, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise.-Early life and career:...
Ballets Russes
Ballets Russes
The Ballets Russes was an itinerant ballet company from Russia which performed between 1909 and 1929 in many countries. Directed by Sergei Diaghilev, it is regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century. Many of its dancers originated from the Imperial Ballet of Saint Petersburg...
, and is based on a series of drawings Bomberg had done around 1914, whilst associated with the Vorticist
Vorticism
Vorticism, an offshoot of Cubism, was a short-lived modernist movement in British art and poetry of the early 20th century. It was based in London but international in make-up and ambition.-Origins:...
group of avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
artists in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Centred around Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham Lewis
Percy Wyndham Lewis was an English painter and author . He was a co-founder of the Vorticist movement in art, and edited the literary magazine of the Vorticists, BLAST...
and Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, the movement flourished briefly 1914-1915, before being dispersed by the impact of the First World War. The only surviving example of a vorticist artist's book, the work can be seen as a parody of Marinetti's
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti was an Italian poet and editor, the founder of the Futurist movement, and a fascist ideologue.-Childhood and adolescence:...
seminal futurist
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...
book Zang Tumb Tumb
Zang Tumb Tumb
"Zang Tumb Tumb" is a sound poem and concrete poem written by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an Italian futurist. It appeared in excerpts in journals between 1912 and 1914, when it was published as an artist's book in Milan. It is an account of the Battle of Adrianople, which he witnessed as a reporter...
, using similar language to the Italian's work glorifying war, (Methodic discord startles..), but instead praising the impact of watching the decidedly less macho Ballets Russes in full flow.
'Bomberg was the most audacious painter of his generation at the SladeSladeSlade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton, who rose to prominence during the glam rock era of the early 1970s. With 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number ones, the British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles...
, proving... that he could absorb the most experimental European ideas, fuse these with Jewish influences and come up with a robust alternative of his own. His treatment of the human figure, in terms of angular, clear-cut forms charged with enormous energy, reveals his determination to bring about a drastic renewal in British painting.' Richard Cook
The book was the last time that Bomberg would work in a vorticist idiom. After witnessing the carnage of the First World War at first hand, he was to lose his faith in modernism and instead develop a looser, expressive style, based predominantly around landscapes.
Vorticism and the English avant-garde
Bomberg had been expelled from the Slade art school in 1913 due to his modernist leanings, and after a brief flirtation with Futurism, had put on a major one man exhibition of Abstract art at the Chenil Gallery, Chelsea, July 1914. The exhibition included paintings such as The Mud Bath and Ju-Jitsu. The show was enthusiastically reviewed by TE Hulme. Visited by Raymond Duchamp-VillonRaymond Duchamp-Villon
Raymond Duchamp-Villon was a French sculptor.Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Haute-Normandie region of France, the second son of Eugene and Lucie Duchamp. Of the six Duchamp children, four would become successful artists...
, Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
and Marinetti amongst others the exhibition earned 'him the admiration of many experimental artists both in London and abroad'
The foreword of the Chenil Gallery catalogue, 1914, contained a defiant text not dissimilar to Wyndham Lewis' Manifesto in BLAST 1, and one that could just as easily apply to the drawings done around this time that would serve as the basis of Russian Ballet;
'I appeal to the Sense of Form. In some of the work I show in the first room, I completely abandon Naturalism and Tradition. I am searching for an Intenser expression. In other work in this room, where I use naturalistic Form, I have stripped it of all irrelevant matter. I look upon nature, while I live in a steel city. Where decoration happens, it is accidental. My object is the construction of Pure Form. I reject everything in painting that is not Pure Form. I hate the colours of the East, the Modern Mediævalist, and the Fat Man of the Renaissance.' David Bomberg, 1914
Whilst usually considered a vorticist, Bomberg had refused to sign the Vorticist manifesto published in BLAST, July 1914, or allow Lewis to reproduce his work in the magazine alongside contributions from TS Eliot, Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, Edward Wadsworth
Edward Wadsworth
Edward Alexander Wadsworth was an English artist, most famous for his close association with Vorticism. He painted, often in tempera, coastal views, abstracts, portraits and still-life...
, Ford Maddox Ford and Jacob Epstein
Jacob Epstein
Sir Jacob Epstein KBE was an American-born British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British citizen in 1911. He often produced controversial works which challenged taboos on what was appropriate subject matter...
, amongst others. The only official connection was when he agreed to exhibit with the Vorticists at their single English exhibition at the Doré Gallery, London, July 1915. His work was placed in a separate room as part of the 'invited to show' section.
Origins of Russian Ballet
The first series of watercolours of Dancers came about when Bomberg followed his then-girlfriend Sonia Cohen down to SouthbourneSouthbourne
Southbourne may refer to:*Southbourne, Dorset - a suburb of Bournemouth*Southbourne, West Sussex - a village in West Sussex*Southbourne Railway Station - the railway station located in Southbourne, West Sussex...
to watch her 'cavorting around' in an open-air summer dance school. A bit later, whilst Bomberg was living in a 'house for artists' in Primrose Hill
Primrose Hill
Primrose Hill is a hill of located on the north side of Regent's Park in London, England, and also the name for the surrounding district. The hill has a clear view of central London to the south-east, as well as Belsize Park and Hampstead to the north...
, he met Alice Mayes, a dancer for Kosslov’s Ballet Company (stand-ins for Diaghilev’s company) who had been invited to the house to demonstrate 'Russian Dance Steps.' One of these drawings was reproduced on the cover of his friend John Rodker's
John Rodker
John Rodker was a British writer, modernist poet, and publisher of some of the major modernist figures. He was born in Manchester into a Jewish immigrant family, who moved to London while he was still young.-Career:...
first edition of poetry, 1914.
Diaghilev's company had first visited London in 1911, returning regularly before war broke out. In 1914, when the drawings are thought have been done, their London programme included Strauss'
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
La légende de Joseph and Rimsky-Korsakov's Le Coq d'Or, with sets designed by Natalia Goncharova
Natalia Goncharova
Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova was a Russian avant-garde artist , painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer. Her great-aunt was Natalia Pushkina, wife of the poet Alexander Pushkin.-Life and work:...
. After the war, the ballet made a triumphant return to London with the premiere of La Boutique Fantasque by Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
with sets by André Derain
André Derain
André Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.-Early years:...
. It seems likely that this much-heralded return prompted Bomberg to revisit the earlier drawings and publish them as a book, cashing in on the attendant publicity. If so, the plan failed; Bomberg, his wife Alice Mayes and a friend were ejected from the stalls when Diaghilev discovered them attempting to sell the newly-printed book to the assembled patrons;
"Russian Ballet” was not a programme, nor even a Souvenir. It was an effort of David's while he was hanging about waiting for the Canadians to decide what they would do about his drawings for the War Memorial, just to keep him happy and relaxed. ... In one of his madcap moods, he and a friend (and I) went among the people in the stalls pretending to be selling programmes at 2/6d a time. Of course Diagileff soon got wind of what was going on and naturally would have none of it, the buyers were re-imbursed and the “programmes” collected and together with David and friend and myself, were chased up into the nine-penny gallery where we belonged. David took his hundred unsold copies to Henderson's Bomb Shop in Charing Cross Road, where they were put out for sale and about ten were sold [until] Henderson withdrew them as unsaleable." Alice Mayes
The book
—Methodic discord startles
—Insistent snatchings drag fancy from space
—Fluttering white hands beat—compel. Reason concedes
—Impressions crowding collide with movement round us
——the curtain falls—the created illusion escapes
—The mind clamped fast captures only a fragment, for new illusion
Bomberg, who had trained as a lithographer, printed the images; his wife sewed the binding.
The book was supposedly printed in an edition of 100. After being withdrawn from Henderson's Bomb Shop, Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road...
, the remaining stock was bought by Jacob Mendelson, who had helped finance the project in the first place with a £30 investment. These remainders stayed in storage until the 1960s, when interest in Bomberg began to be rekindled. No sooner had Mendelson started to sell off the copies which had been in storage for 40 years, than most of the remaining books were destroyed in a fire.
Demobilization
Bomberg had spent time in the trenches of the Western Front, first with the Royal Engineers from November 1915, then with the King's Royal Rifle CorpsKing's Royal Rifle Corps
The King's Royal Rifle Corps was a British Army infantry regiment, originally raised in colonial North America as the Royal Americans, and recruited from American colonists. Later ranked as the 60th Regiment of Foot, the regiment served for more than 200 years throughout the British Empire...
from 1916. The experience destroyed his faith in mechanized progress. He was demobbed in 1918, and given a commission by the Canadian War Memorials Fund, though he was warned to ’steer clear of Cubism and Futurism’.
His first version of ‘Sappers at Work: A Canadian Tunnelling Company’ retained 'much of the freedom of colour and structure he had developed in the pre-war period, but [introduced] recognizable figures that no longer conform to the mechanistic vision of the Mud Bath.' It was rejected out of hand as a 'futurist abortion.' It was while he was going through the protracted negotiations that led to the acceptance of the second version, an almost photorealist
Photorealism
Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic...
work, that he decided to revisit the drawings that became Russian Ballet. This return to Vorticist ideas would be the last time Bomberg dealt in abstraction
Abstraction
Abstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
; despite being one of the very first artists in Europe to develop a fully realised abstract style, the new work he developed in the twenties would tend toward expressive, loosely handled landscapes.
Posthumous Reception
More-or-less ignored for the rest of his life, Bomberg's reputation has continued to grow since his death in 1957. His work is now held in a number of major museums worldwide, including the TateTate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
, National Galleries of Scotland
National Galleries of Scotland
The National Galleries of Scotland are the five national galleries of Scotland and two partner galleries. It is one of the country's National Collections.-List of national galleries:* The National Gallery of Scotland* The Royal Scottish Academy Building...
, National Gallery of Canada
National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
, Ashmolean, Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Cleveland Museum of Art is an art museum situated in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on Cleveland's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyptian art, the museum houses a diverse permanent collection of more than 43,000...
and Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
. Russian Ballet has entered a number of prestigious collections including the V&A, British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, Tate
Tate
-Places:*Tate, Georgia, a town in the United States*Tate County, Mississippi, a county in the United States*Táté, the Hungarian name for Totoi village, Sântimbru Commune, Alba County, Romania*Tate, Filipino word for States...
, UCLA and the National Gallery of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
.