— by Yala Spiegel, M.A.
The term avant-garde (French for "vanguard") refers to those artistic movements that, since the late 19th century and especially at the beginning of the 20th century, made a radical break with the traditional concepts of art that had prevailed until then. While academic art long adhered to the ideals of natural imitation, perspective representation, and harmonious composition, the avant-gardes sought new forms of expression that would do justice to the profound social, political, and technical changes of their time. Industrialization, urbanization, scientific innovations, and the experience of the First World War led to a fundamental shift in the worldview and, consequently, to a new understanding of art.
The artistic avant-gardes built upon developments of the 19th century, such as Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, but went far beyond their efforts at renewal. The focus was no longer on reproducing the visible world as faithfully as possible, but on exploring new pictorial concepts and artistic possibilities of expression. Movements such as Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism each developed their own aesthetic strategies: they dissolved forms, experimented with perspective, color, language, and material, or consciously questioned the boundaries between art and everyday life.
Wyndham Lewis, Workshop, 1914, oil on canvas, 76.5x61cm, Tate, London. (Image source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-workshop-t01931)
One of the less well-known manifestations of such avant-garde art movements is Vorticism. In the historiography of the avant-gardes, this short-lived group of artists is rarely mentioned and often forgotten. Vorticism formed in London in the years 1914 and 1915 around its founding fathers, the painter Wyndham Lewis and the writer Ezra Pound. Because the First World War broke out only a short time later, many of their works were lost or destroyed, with the result that only a few Vorticist works can be found in museums today. Of the few works that still survive, the majority are sketches and small gouache works; large oil paintings are scarce.
The visual language of Vorticism is characterized by hard, clear, and constructed lines; it no longer pursued the goal of depicting reality, but attempted to achieve a dynamic effect through line and plane. In doing so, the artists drew inspiration from the urban and mechanized world of the early 20th century and championed the technical progress brought about by the turn of the century.
anne, Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko.
Wyndham Lewis, Composition, 1913, ink, watercolor, gouache, and graphite on paper, 34.2x26.7cm, Tate, London. (Image source: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-composition-n05886)
The followers of Vorticism were particularly concerned with distancing themselves from the Central European avant-garde movements and emphasizing that they differed significantly from Futurism, Cubism, and Expressionism. To make this clear to a broad public in a publicity-effective way, Wyndham Lewis published an issue of the magazine 'BLAST' in both 1914 and 1915. Included therein are not only literary texts and illustrations of Vorticist works, but also the Vorticist 'Manifesto,' which carries the signatures of two female artists and nine male artists, and in which they called for a new, hard, and explicitly English art.
It is particularly remarkable that, with the signatures of Helen Saunders and Jessica Dismorr, two female artists committed themselves to an avant-garde manifesto. Since the Futurist Manifesto was published by Filippo Tommasi Marinetti in 1909, the medium of the manifesto has been used almost inflationarily as a communication medium for the avant-gardes. Their artworks diverged so far from traditional artistic taste that they required additional explanation. However, none of these manifestos were signed by female artists.
Magazine Cover, Blast I & Blast II, 1914 & 1915. (Image source: https://hausofclaires.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/blastmagazinewarnumber.jpg)
By studying the little-known movement of this early pre-war avant-garde, the few scholars and art historians who do so today contribute to preventing entire art movements from being forgotten and uncover new perspectives through which art can be viewed and researched.
Although numerous avant-garde currents, including Vorticism, only lasted for a few years, they permanently changed art history. They expanded the concept of art, questioned traditional viewing habits, and laid the foundation for numerous developments in modern and contemporary art. Engaging with the avant-gardes therefore remains one of the central themes of art history and art studies to this day.