The cover of the first edition of BLAST, 1914. This copy is in the Tate Collection.

BLAST was the short-lived literary magazine of the Vorticist movement in Britain. It had two editions, the first published on 2 July 1914^[1][2][3] and the second a year later. Written primarily by the Anglo-American artist Wyndham Lewis and covered by a notorious pink cover referred to by Ezra Pound as the "great MAGENTA cover'd opusculus",^[4] the magazine has become famous as emblematic of the first modern art movement in England,^[5] and is now recognised as one of the seminal texts of 20th-century modernism.^[6][7] The magazine originally cost 2/6.

[edit] Origins

The Italian futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti had visited London in 1910,^[8] as part of a series of well-publicised lectures aimed at galvanizing support across Europe for the new Italian avant-garde. His speech at the Lyceum Club, in which he addressed his audience as "victims of.... traditionalism and its medieval trappings,"^[9] electrified the assembled avant-garde. Within two years, an exhibition of futurist art at the Sackler Gallery, London, brought futurism squarely into the popular imagination, and the press began to use the term to refer to any forward-looking trends in modern art.

Initially galvanized by Marinetti's verve, Wyndham Lewis — like many other members of the London avant-garde —had become increasingly irritated by the Italian's arrogance.^[10] The final straw was the publication of the English Futurist manifesto Vital English Art, published in the Observer in June 1914. Co-authored by Marinetti and the 'last remaining English Futurist' CRW Nevinson, Wyndham Lewis' name, amongst others, had been added to the signatories at the end of the article without permission, in a blatant attempt to assimilate the English avant-garde for Marinetti's own ends. On June 12^th, during recitations of this manifesto and a performance by Marinetti of his poem The Battle of Adrianople, with Nevinson accompanying on drums, Lewis, Hulme, Epstein, Gaudier-Brzeska, Wadsworth, and five others roundly interrupted the performance with jeering and shouting.^[2] Wyndham Lewis wrote in an article written a few days later, using typically vitriolic language, "England practically invented this civilisation that Signor Marinetti has come to preach to us about".^[11]

The final riposte came with the publication of Blast (later known as Blast 1), written and illustrated by a group of artists assembled by Lewis from "a determined band of miscellaneous anti-futurists". ^[11] The name Vorticism was coined by the poet Ezra Pound, a close friend of Lewis and the group's main publicist.^[12]

Writing to James Joyce in April 1914, Pound had described the magazine in ambiguous terms: "Lewis is starting a new Futurist, Cubist, Imagiste Quarterly.... I cant tell, it is mostly a painters magazine with me to do the poems".^[13] By July, the magazine had a name, a home-grown movement to support, and a typographic style all its own, and it had forged a distinctly English identity, confident enough to praise Kandinsky, question Picasso,^[14] and openly mock Marinetti.

The first section of Wyndham Lewis' Manifesto, Blast 1, 1914

[edit] Blast 1

BLAST 1 was edited and largely written by Wyndham Lewis with contributions from Ezra Pound, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Jacob Epstein, Spencer Gore, Edward Wadsworth, and Rebecca West and included an extract from Ford Madox Hueffer's novel The Saddest Story, better known by its later title The Good Soldier (published under his subsequent pseudonym, Ford Madox Ford). The first edition was printed in folio format, with the oblique title BLAST splashed across its bright pink soft cover. Inside, Lewis used a range of bold typographic innovations and tricks to engage the reader, that are reminiscent of Marinetti's contemporary concrete poetry such as Zang Tumb Tumb.

The opening twenty pages of Blast 1 contain the Vorticist manifesto, written by Lewis with assistance from Ezra Pound and signed by Lewis, Edward Wadsworth, Pound, William Roberts, Helen Saunders, Lawrence Atkinson, Jessica Dismorr, and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. Jacob Epstein chose not to sign the manifesto, although his work was featured. There is also a (positive) critique of Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual In Art, a faintly patronising exhortation to suffragettes not to destroy works of art, a review of a London exhibition of Expressionist woodcuts, and a last dig at Marinetti by Wyndham Lewis:

Futurism, as preached by Marinetti, is largely Impressionism up-to-date. To this is added his Automobilism and Nietzsche stunt, With a lot of good sense and vitality at his disposal, he hammers away in the blatant mechanism of his Manifestos, at his idee fixe of Modernity ^[15]

[edit] The Manifesto

The manifesto is primarily a long list of things to be 'Blessed' or 'Blasted'. It starts:

1. Beyond Action and Reaction we would establish ourselves.
2. We start from opposite statements of a chosen world. Set up violent structure of adolescent clearness between two extremes.
3. We discharge ourselves on both sides.
4. We fight first on one side, then on the other, but always for the SAME cause, which is neither side or both sides and ours.
5. Mercenaries were always the best troops.
6. We are primitive Mercenaries in the Modern World.
7. Our Cause is NO-MAN'S.
8. We set Humour at Humour's throat. Stir up Civil War among peaceful apes.
9. We only want Humour if it has fought like Tragedy.
10. We only want Tragedy if it can clench its side-muscles like hands on its belly, and bring to the surface a laugh like a bomb.

[Blast 1] included the now famous pages of subjects either 'Blasted' or 'Blessed' depending on how they were seen by the fledgeling Vorticists. 'Blast' pages generally had a go at [Roger] Fry, the Bloomsbury set, the average art critic, and Putney (for some reason). Amongst those being Blessed are hairdressers and mariners. The latter two professions were celebrated because they both battle against elemental nature. Tonks, the Slade drawing tutor has the unique honour of being both 'Blessed' and 'Blasted'. Vorticism Online ^[16]

The first edition also contained many illustrations in the Vorticist style by Jacob Epstein, Lewis and others.

The second, War Number, edition of blast featured one of Lewis's vorticist woodcuts on the cover.

[edit] Blast 2 (The War Number)

The second edition, published on 20^th July 1915, contained a short play by Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot's poems Preludes and Rhapsody on a Windy Night. Another article by Gaudier-Brzeska entitled Vortex (written from the Trenches) further described the vorticist aesthetic. It was written whilst Gaudier-Brzeska was fighting in the First World War, a few weeks before he was killed at Verdun.

[edit] WW1 and the end of vorticism

Thirty-three days after BLAST 1 was published, war was declared on Germany. The First World War would destroy vorticism;^[17] both Gaudier-Brzeska and TE Hulme were killed at the front, and Bomberg lost his faith in modernity.^[18] Lewis was mobilised in 1916, initially fighting in France as an artillery officer, later working as a war artist for the Canadian Government. He would try to re-invigorate the avant-garde after the war; Lewis wrote to a friend after the war that he intended to publish a third edition of BLAST in November 1919.^[19] He organised an exhibition of avant-garde artists called Group X^[20] at Heal's Gallery March-April 1920, and later published a new magazine, The Tyro, of which only two issues appeared.^[21] The further issue of BLAST failed to appear, and neither of the other two ventures managed to achieve the momentum of his pre-war efforts. Richard Cook writes:

When Lewis returned from the trenches, he hoped to revivify the Vorticist spirit, planning a third issue of Blast and regaining contact with old allies. But the whole context of pre-war experimentation had been dispersed by the destructive power of mechanized warfare, which persuaded most of the former Vorticists to pursue more representational directions thereafter. By 1920 even Lewis was obliged to admit that the movement was dead. ^[17]

[edit] Public collections

Both editions have been reprinted a number of times and are shortly to be made available again by Thames and Hudson; original copies are in the collections of the V&A, Tate, Wake Forest University, University of Delaware, Chelsea College, and others.

[edit] References

• BLAST 1 and 2 reprinted in reduced format by Black Sparrow Books (1982), ISBN 0-87685-521-4 and ISBN 0-87685-523-0
• Gingko Press description of their facsimile editions.
• Vorticism Online
• Manifestoes By Janet Lyon, 1999
• From Vortex To Vorticism; Ezra Pound
• Blasting The Future! Black, Philip Wilson Publishing, 2004
• Breaking The Rules, Stephen Bury, British Library, 2007

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Scans of all pages of BLAST
• Blast 1 pdf
• Blast 2 pdf
• WWI anthologies
• August 9, 1914, New York Times VORTICISM THE LATEST CULT OF REBEL ARTISTS; It Goes a Step Further Than Cubism and Futurism, and Is Sponsored by Brzeska, Epstein and Others. Its Official Mouthpiece Is a Cerise Magazine Called Blast.