Eminent post-Victorians : the Bloomsbury circle and the visual arts
Date
1978
Authors
Wright, Patricia Ann
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Abstract
The thesis proceeds from the twin assumptions that, much critical history to the contrary, neither "Bloomsbury" nor "Victorian" is properly a pejorative term. It suggests that the ideas, work and lives of the art critics and painters among the highly creative, much admired and much maligned "Bloomsbury circle" of friends may be a valuable source of understanding of the Victorian-rooted, upper-middle class milieu they shared in the England of the early 20th century. The body of the essay, then, addresses the subject of the Bloomsbury circle and the visual arts from theoretical, practical, and biographical points of view. It examines in turn the formalist theory and criticism of Roger Fry and Clive Bell; the applied arts practice and patronage of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell; and the life of Vanessa Bell as revealed in her painting, correspondence and memoirs. Although these artists and critics, as did their literary friends, related themselves to the modern movement in conscious rejection of the Victorian past, their ideological connections with that past--the elitism of Clive Bell and the religiosity of Roger Fry; the additive, humanistic, and non-doctrinaire practice of the Bloomsbury decorators: and the view of women offered to and internalized by Vanessa Bell--are seen throughout this thesis as crucial to an understanding of these figures and their period.