Editing Vorticism (section)

== Inventing Vorticism ==
[[File:Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound 01 (brightened).jpg|thumb|180x240px|left|''Hieratic Head of Ezra Pound'' by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, 1914]]
[[File:Workshop-Lewis.jpg|thumb|180x240px|right| ''Workshop'' Wyndham Lewis,  ''c''.1914]]
Ezra Pound had introduced the concept of 'the vortex' in relation to modernist poetry and art early on in 1914.<ref>Initially in correspondence in late 1913 and then in an informal talk at the Rebel Art Centre in April 1914 (Philip Rylands, 'Introduction', in Antliff & Greene (eds.), ''The Vorticists'', p. 25, n. 33).</ref> At its most obvious, for example, London could be seen to be a 'vortex' of intellectual and artistic activity. However, for Pound there was a more specific – if obscure – meaning: '[The vortex was] that point in the cyclone where energy cuts into space and imparts form to it ... the pattern of angles and geometric lines which is formed by our vortex in the existing chaos.'<ref>Ezra Pound in a 1915 interview for the Russian journal ''Strelets'', quoted in Rylands, 'Introduction', p. 23.</ref> Lewis saw the potential of 'Vorticism' as an exciting rallying call that was also sufficiently vague, he hoped, to embrace the individualism of the rebel artists.

Lewis's Vorticist manifesto was to be published in a new literary and art journal, ''[[BLAST (magazine)|BLAST]]'' – ironically, the journal's title had been suggested by Nevinson, who was now persona non grata since the 'Vital English Art' manifesto. The French sculptor, painter and anarchist [[Henri Gaudier-Brzeska]] had met Ezra Pound in July 1913,<ref>Mark Antliff, 'Sculptural Nominalism/Anarchist Vortex', in Antliff & Greene (eds.), ''The Vorticists'', p. 47.</ref> and their ideas on 'The New Sculpture'<ref>Published in ''The Egoist'', [https://modjourn.org/issue/bdr520274/ 16 February 1914], pp. 67–8, and [https://modjourn.org/issue/bdr520295/ 16 March 1914], pp. 117–18.</ref> developed into a theory of Vorticist sculpture. Two artists, [[Helen Saunders]] and [[Jessica Dismorr]], who had turned to 'cubist works' in 1913, joined the rebels – and, although they were not regarded highly by the men, Brigid Peppin argues that Saunders's 'juxtapositions of strong and unexpected colour' may have influenced Lewis's later use of forceful colour.<ref>Brigid Peppin, 'Women That a Movement Forgot', ''Tate, Etc''.  22 (summer 2011), p. 35.</ref>

Another up-and-coming 'English Cubist' using bold, discordant colour combinations was [[William Roberts (painter)|William Roberts]]. Writing much later, he recalled Lewis borrowing two paintings – ''Religion'' and ''Dancers'' – to hang at the Rebel Art Centre.<ref>William Roberts, ''Some Early Abstract and Cubist Work 1913–1920'' (London, 1957), p. 9. Reproductions of these paintings were included in the first issue of ''BLAST''.</ref>