Editing Eric Gill (section)

=== Ditchling Village 1907–1913 ===
In 1907 Gill moved with his family to Sopers, a house in the village of [[Ditchling]] in Sussex, which would later become the centre of an artists' community inspired by Gill. Although by April 1908 Gill had established a workshop in Ditchling and dissolved his business partnership with Lawrence Christie, he continued to spend time in London visiting clients and delivering lectures while his wife, Ethel, organised their household and smallholding in Sussex.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|120}} In London Gill would stay at his old lodgings in Lincoln's Inn with his brother Max or with his sister Gladys and Ernest Laughton, her future husband.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|122}} Gill continued to concentrate on lettering and inscriptions for stonework and employed a pupil for his signwriting business.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|126}} He also began to use wood-engraving techniques for his book illustration work, including a 1907 edition of ''Homer'' for Count Kessler.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|126}}
[[File:Gill Mother and Child 26 June 2018 2.jpg|thumb|''Mother and Child'', 1910]]
Late in 1909 Gill decided to become a sculptor.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|126}} Gill had always considered himself an artisan craftsman rather than an artist. He rejected the usual sculpture technique of first making a model and then scaling up using a [[pointing machine]] in favour of directly carving the final figure.<ref name="FMC2006"/><ref name="RCribb">{{cite web|url=http://www.antiquesandfineart.com/articles/article.cfm?request=717 |title= Eric Gill at the Victoria and Albert Museum New Sculpture Display|year=2007 |author= Ruth Cribb |website=Antiques & Fine Art Magazine |access-date=18 February 2022}}</ref> His first sculptures included ''Madonna and Child'' (1910), which the art critic [[Roger Fry]] described as a depiction of "pathetic animalism",<ref name="M&C">{{Cite web |title=Madonna and Child |url=https://museum.wales/collections/online/object/999b28f1-8be7-32c8-90d9-c4fa5de356db/ |publisher=National Museum Wales |access-date=23 January 2022}}</ref> and the almost life-size work now known as ''[[Ecstasy (Gill sculpture)|Ecstasy]]'' (1911).<ref name="FMC2006" /> The models for ''Ecstasy'' were his sister Gladys Gill and her husband, Ernest Laughton.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|104}}<ref name="fm">{{cite news |author=Fiona MacCarthy |author-link=Fiona MacCarthy |date=17 October 2009|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/17/eric-gill-exhibition-fiona-maccarthy|title=Mad about sex |newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|access-date=17 October 2009}}</ref> The incestuous relationships between Gill and Gladys that continued during their lives had already begun at this point.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|104}}<ref name="FMC2006" /> There is also some evidence, from Gill's own writings, of an incestuous relationship with Angela, another of his sisters.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|105}}<ref name="fm"/>

An early admirer of Gill's sculptures was [[William Rothenstein]] and he introduced Gill, who was fascinated by [[Architecture of India|Indian temple sculptures]], to the [[Sri Lanka|Ceylonese]] philosopher and art historian [[Ananda Coomaraswamy]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vimeo.com/arrowsmith/cosmopolitanism-and-modernism|title=Video of a Lecture at London University detailing Gill's interest in Indian Sculpture |publisher=[[London University School of Advanced Study]]|date=March 2012}}</ref> Along with his friend and collaborator [[Jacob Epstein]], Gill planned the construction in the Sussex countryside of a colossal, hand-carved monument in imitation of the large-scale structures at [[Gwalior Fort]] in [[Madhya Pradesh]].<ref>{{Cite book |author=Rupert Richard Arrowsmith |title=Modernism and the Museum: Asian, African, and Pacific Art and the London Avant-Garde |date=2010 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|isbn=978-0-19-959369-9 |pages=74–103}}</ref> Throughout the second half of 1910 Epstein and Gill would meet on an almost daily basis, but eventually their friendship soured very badly. Earlier in the year they had held long discussions with Rothenstein and other artists, including [[Augustus John]] and [[Ambrose McEvoy]], about the formation of a religious brotherhood.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|102}} At Ditchling Epstein worked on elements of [[Oscar Wilde's tomb]] in [[Père Lachaise cemetery]], for which Gill designed the inscription before sending Joseph Cribb, who had moved to Ditchling in 1907, to Paris to carve the lettering.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|135}}<ref name="SSSmith" />

Gill had his first sculpture exhibition in 1911 at the Chenil Gallery in London.<ref name="M&C" /> Eight works by Gill were included in the Second Post-Impressionism Exhibition organised by Roger Fry at the [[Grafton Galleries]] in London during 1912 and 1913.<ref name="SSSmith">{{cite web|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T032249|title=Gill, (Arthur) Eric (Rowton)|year=2003|author=Stephen Stuart-Smith |website=Grove Art Online|doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T032249|access-date=21 January 2022}}</ref>

By 1912, while Gill's main source of income was from gravestone inscriptions, he had also carved [[Madonna (art)|Madonna]] figures and was widely assumed, wrongly at that time, to be a [[Catholic Church|Catholic]] artist. As such he was invited to an exhibition of Catholic art in Brussels and on route stayed for some days at the [[Benedictine]] monastery at [[Mont-César Abbey]] near [[Louvain]].<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|94}} Gill's experiences at Louvain, seeing the monks at prayer and hearing [[plainsong]] for the first time, persuaded him to become a Catholic.<ref name="DVBarrett">{{cite news |url=https://catholicherald.co.uk/eric-gill-a-moral-problem/|title=Eric Gill: a moral problem |author=David V Barrett |date=5 August 2021|work=The Catholic Herald |access-date=12 February 2022}}</ref> In February 1913, after religious instruction from English Benedictines, Gill and Ethel were received into the Roman Catholic Church and Ethel changed her name to Mary.<ref name="FMacCarthy" />{{rp|147}}