Woman's Art Inc.

Vanessa Bell and Dora Carrington: Bloomsbury Painters

Author(s): Gillian Elinor
Source: Woman's Art Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1984), pp. 28-34
Published by: Woman's Art Inc.
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1357882
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 Vanessa Bell and Dora Carrington:
Bloomsbury Painters

GILLIAN ELINOR

Vanessa Bell and Dora Carrington are the most tionism,

cele- fed by lack of encouragement, prevented her from
brated women painters of the "Bloomsbury Circle," ashowing
group work, especially her oils, except perhaps to family
andwell-
best known as an association of literary figures. So close friends in her later years. She received her first
documented and celebrated are they that, in the words of a
retrospective in 1970, followed in 1978 by Carrington: Paint-
recent critic, Bloomsbury may "produce boredom in ings,
some."1Drawings and Decorations, a volume written and com-
Their togetherness may pall, the cleverness itch, butpiled,
never- although not critically assessed, by her brother Noel.
On the other hand, she was a central figure in several well-
theless they represent most famously certain intellectual,
moral, and artistic attitudes prevalent in the first publicized
three love affairs,4 and was celebrated in novels and
decades of the 20th century in England. These are stories
the as the epitome of the bright and liberated young
heroes, and a few heroines, who took moral and thing literary
she imaged in her youth. 5She has been most famous,
stands-usually in public-and apparently lived their perhaps,
lives as Lytton Strachey's "perfect housekeeper and a
dedicated
according to these stands. In the early 1930s Carrington remi- cook, parlormaid and housemaid"6 and, more
nisced on Bloomsbury: recently, as one he enslaved to her death (by suicide) a few
weeks after his own (from cancer). Her character and person
Their taste in humour and style is impeccable. After reading
.a great many letters I suddenly felt the quintessence have
of been variously patronized and assassinated through
pages of Bloomsbury biography. With the publication in
what had so often puzzled me. It was a marvellous combina-
1970 of her own Letters and Diaries, editor David Garnett
tion of the highest intelligence and appreciation of literature
with a lean humour and tremendous affection. They gave it
attempted to raise her status to that of "Woman of Letters,"
backwards and forwards to each other like shuttlecocks, only
and so add her-despite spelling and syntax-to the Blooms-
the shuttlecocks multiplied as they flew through the air.2
bury constellation, from which she always felt herself an
Their cohesive togetherness, impeccably presented outsider.
withGarnett's "Preface" still notes: "What makes her
"taste" and "style," has intrigued several generations of and fascinating to subsequent generations is her
interesting
relationship with Lytton Strachey."7
readers. According to Quentin Bell, at least part of Blooms-
bury was concerned only with the "civilization of the mind," 3
Vanessa Bell (1879-1962), no doubt because she was born
an apolitical attitude which has become even less fitting
into (rather than usurping a position in) Bloomsbury, has not
with time, and which may account for some of the been assassinated as was the outsider. She has been valued
"boredom."
and esteemed for her mothering qualities (exercised on
That Vanessa Bell and Dora Carrington should be better behalf of Virginia Woolf, Clive Bell, Roger Fry, and Duncan
known for their association with the literary group rather Grant especially, as well as her three children), her organiz-
than for their contributions to the visual arts is an instruc- ing ability, her high intelligence and "lean humor," and her
tive comment on the two traditions in England. The English charm and presence. She exhibited her paintings through-
have always possessed a spectacular and dynamic literary out her life in both London and Paris, and has been consis-
tradition, one which has been able to express some of the tently praised for producing innovative works during her
social relations and collective perceptions of the people. That early maturity and for important contributions to design
same dynamism and its discourse have been absent in the work later on. There have been several memorial exhibitions
visual arts, which has to some extent limited and obscured since her death, the last in 1983. Until recently it has been
the work of all English painters and sculptors. Bloomsbury difficult to find good reproductions of her paintings.8 How-
would not carry its mythical aura had it not been primarily ever, in Frances Spalding's Vanessa Bell (1983) geightof her
involved with morality and literature. And thus lighted by paintings are reproduced beautifully in color, with black
the luminaries of literature, Vanessa Bell is known first as and white illustrations of many others. Her decorative work
the sister of Virginia Woolf, and Dora Carrington as the has been given proper attention in Isabelle Anscombe's
associate of Lytton Strachey. Omega and After: Bloomsbury and the Decorative Arts
Carrington's work received no critical comment during (1981). ?lBoth Anscombe and Richard Shone (in Bloomsbury
her lifetime (1893-1932). In fact, her diffidence and perfec- Portraits) treat her work in appropriate critical fashion;

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 Woman's Art Journal 29

Shone, however, deals less than adequately with moveher late

from the gloomy family home that the Bloomsbury
paintings. Spalding triumphs: she discusses Bell's complete
group was established around the friendships of the Ste-
oeuvre, and combines critical assessment and detailed anal- phen children, especially Thoby's friends from Cambridge.
ysis, along with biography. With the support of this group, and in particular that of
Carrington-she was thus addressed by even her Thoby, Vanessa herself initiated in 1905 an artists' discus-
intimates-has been treated as a slightly scandalous par- sion and exhibiting society-the Friday Club. She gathered
venu whose art work was insignificant. On the other hand, friends and relatives, as well as fellow artists,s8 for discus-
Vanessa Bell exemplified the feminine virtues of Blooms- sions and lectures. The group continued to exhibit work until
the early 1920s, although Vanessa lost interest around 1910,
bury; praised for the work of her early maturity, it is sug-
gested that family demands prevented her from pursuing soon after meeting Roger Fry.
innovative "mainstream" work. It has been said of Carring-Thoby died in 1907 from typhoid fever, and perhaps here
ton that "she had a gift as a painter without the dominant
Vanessa's will to independence faltered; two days after her
creative need of an artist," 11 and of Bell that she lacked "the
brother's death she accepted a marriage proposal from Clive
vanity of self-obsession."12 The "creative need," otherwise
Bell. She had rejected Bell previously on the grounds that
"self-obsession," is generally regarded as prerequisite for
she was not in love. She now accepted him, in part because
the great performances of genius. Carrington is chastisedhe had been so very close to her brother. Clive was reason-
for not having this important quality, and Bell praised ably intelligent, well-traveled, and cultured; he proved also to
because she sacrificed it in the interests of family and be an inveterate philanderer-starting with Virginia.
friends. These values seem also to have informed their viewsVanessa, in time, developed for herself a rather traditional,
of each other. Certainly, Carrington seems hardly to have upper-class life-style within her marriage; it gave her free-
impinged upon the consciousness of Bell. Bell, who did dom not to live and work in comfort, and did not require her to
bother with those who did not deeply interest her, made onlyshoulder any more of the emotional weight of Clive than she
passing, personal references to Carrington in connection
chose to take. Some years later Vanessa took as her lover
with Lytton Strachey; 13there are no comments on Carring-Roger Fry, whose enthusiasm for the early Italian masters,
ton's work. For much of her life with Strachey, Carrington
for French Post-Impressionism, and for her own work was
was involved in exchanges with Virginia Woolf, but no such
crucial to her development as an artist. He gave her the
intimacies were shared with Bell, nor did she commentdialogue
on she needed to create innovative works in what can
Bell's work. She speaks longingly of the art talk available at
be termed English Post-Impressionism. When she later
Charleston 4 (the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant),
turned from Fry as lover, she kept him as a friend-a feat
but it is a Grant, not a Bell, that she asks Strachey to acquire
Fry acknowledged with admiration. 19She then settled with
for their walls at home. 5Carrington does mention BellDuncan
in Grant, a painter of ambiguous sexuality six years
her letters, usually in association with good food and drink,
her junior.
not with good art. '6Apart from the umbrella of their associa-
Vanessa had two sons with Clive: Julian, born in 1908,
tion with Bloomsbury, Bell and Carrington nevertheless
was killed in Spain in 1937; Quentin was born in 1910. With
share, in common with many women, a diversity in their
Duncan Grant she had a daughter, Angelica, born in 1918.
work and interests which has led them to be valued retro-
Clive publicly assumed paternity for Angelica and it was not
spectively more for their place in history than for their work.
until she was in her mid-teens that Angelica was told the
But perhaps too, both these women, when young, possessed truth of the matter. She later caused anguish to Duncan in
that linear intensity apparently necessary for artistic
particular, when at age 24 she married David Garnett, 26
achievement, which later, and for different reasons, dissi-
years her senior, and a former lover of Duncan's. Indeed,
pated in them.
Garnett had made up the threesome of the early years of the
liaison between Vanessa and Duncan, for throughout their
years together, ending with Vanessa's death, Duncan had
Vanessa was born into the elite, intellectual Stephen fam-
ily in 1879. Her father, Sir Leslie Stephen, had married need of a triangle. But Vanessa's anxieties were largely
Julia Duckworth, nee Jackson, in 1878. Julia had brought unknown to her friends and family, and she emerges from
three children to the marriage, George (born 1868), Stellathe literature as a strong, though reserved, woman. Fry
(1869), and Gerald (1870); Leslie had one daughter, Laura wrote of her: "You go straight for things that are worthwhile
. . . you get all the things you need for your own develop-
(1870). Julian Thoby was born in 1880, followed by Virginia
(1882) and Adrian (1883). Julia died in 1895 and two yearsment. . . . You have genius in your life as well as your
work."20 He claimed later: "she was so intense, so concen-
later, on the death of her elder step-sister, Stella, Vanessa
took over management of the household. The weight of that trated and in a way so narrow in her vision." 21Clive Bell said
responsibility was particularly heavy in terms of emotional that his wife had "what most would deem a will of iron."22
negotiation with her indomitable and irascible father, whose These descriptions seem to convey the single-dimensionality
weekly scenes over household expenses she endured until his of the conventional view of genius. Indeed, in his edition of
death in 1904.17 Apart from household management during Virginia's letters, 23 Nigel Nicholson claimed that Vanessa
these years, Vanessa took on responsibility for her younger was the more powerful sister, though it is Virginia who has
siblings, in particular Virginia, who suffered her first ner- been assessed the genius.
vous breakdown after her father's death. She also deter-
minedly acquired training for herself as a painter, attending
When Carrington decided to live with Lytton Strachey,
the Royal Academy Schools and, briefly, the Slade. During her motives were possibly similar to those which prompted
this period George Duckworth tried to introduce her into
Bell into liason with Grant. Carrington said of herself later
proper society, the forms of which she nevertheless rebelled
that she had a "predestined inability to have intimate rela-
against throughout her life.
tions with anyone," 24that she "dreaded jealousy and posses-
It was after the death of her father and the subsequent siveness,"25 and that she could "never completely give

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30 Woman's Art Journal

It mattered to them all "so much" for the same reason they
put her into their novels and stories, and then later attacked
her when she showed signs of aging.30 Carrington in her
youth possessed qualities regarded as ideal by these older
contemporaries of Bloomsbury. She looked and behaved in
ways that these middle-class revolutionaries of Victorian
upbringing could applaud, the exception being her insis-
tence on the preservation of her virginity. David Gadd
labeled her attitude "prudishness."31 Virginia Woolf wrote
Carrington: "It's odd that painting should appeal to your
modesty as personal chastity appealed to our grandmothers.
You young things are not to escape the curse of Eve as easily
as all that. Nature will have her rights."32 Despite this let-
ter's implications, part of Carrington's motivation for avoid-
ing greater involvement with Gertler then (and with others
later) was her desire to pursue her work. "Yes it is my work
that comes between us . .. if I had not my love of painting I
should be a different person,"33 she wrote Gertler in 1917
The literature suggests, however, that Carrington claimed
her freedom to paint in order to circumvent current prob-
lems; that, for example, she lied to Gertler about her work in
FIG. 1. Dora Carrington, The Mill at Tidmarsh (1918), oil order to avoid confessing her current pleasure in the com-
on canvas, 28" x 40". Private Collection.
pany of Strachey. In this case, it may have been her motiva-
tion for writing to Gertler as she did, but it does not deny the
probability that she was right to turn down the "selfish"
[her] self away."26 Carrington's early experience of a domi- Gertler, whom she suspected of valuing her more for her
nating and prying mother within a provincial, bourgeois "acute" criticism of his own art than he did for herself-or
family seems to have acted on her in a more extreme wayfor her work. 34
than did Bell's experience of a self-centered father. While
both women faced a similar "obstacle race" in personal The first major decision that Carrington made was in
terms, Carrington's proved insurmountable. 1916, when she moved from her family home in Hampshir
and returned to London. She shared Maynard Keynes's
Carrington's father Samuel married in his fifties, having house in Gower Street with her friend Dorothy Brett from
retired to England from the East India Company. His bridethe Slade, and with novelists Katherine Mansfield and Mid-
in 1888 was Charlotte Houghton, governess to his niece's dleton Murray. Gilbert Cannan said that her decision to
children and more than 20 years his junior. The couple had escape from "the meaningless tradition of gentility" she had
five children, Sam, Lottie, Teddy, Dora, and Noel. Dora wasbeen born into toughened her. He added: "Of the two [she
her father's favorite, but she was mistrusted by her mother and Gertler] she had the better brain and indeed the
and later disapproved of by her sister also. Her favorite stronger character." 35 This fits with artist and friend from
brother, Teddy, was killed in World War I; Noel, the youn- the Slade Paul Nash's assessment of her at the time, as being
gest, became her biographer. Carrington won a scholarship to "a dominant personality." 36 She felt she had achieved inde-
the Slade School of Art and attended there from 1911 to
pendence and freedom in leaving home, and told Gertler she
1913. She did well enough as a student, gaining second prize thought marriage would destroy her independence as an
in the Melville Nettleship competition for figure composi-
tion in 1912, and first prize for painting from the cast the
following year. John Rothenstein, in his chapter on Mark
Gertler in Modern English Painters, notes: "Among his
friends at the Slade was a girl of exceptional talent . . hers
was a complex and highly independent nature"; he further
judges that she was "a highly gifted painter and an acute
critic."27
It was with Gertler that Carrington moved into the
Bloomsbury circle. At this time Lady Ottoline Morrell, a
leading hostess anxious to annex Bloomsbury to her own
circle, was making her way as a patron of artists and intel-
lectuals, and in this role she welcomed the Slade students.
Carrington was welcomed for her "sun-bleached, shaggy
head of hair," 28 for her apparent carefree and independent
spirit, and because Gertler, a favorite, was in love with her.
In her autobiography Lady Ottoline tells how Gertler spent
much time and energy trying to seduce Carrington, and how
he persuaded others to support his pursuit. Lady Ottoline
and her husband were willing conspirators. Carrington
commented at the time: "But this attack on the virgins is like
the worst Verdun onslaught and really I do not see why it FIG. 2. Dora Carrington, Giles Lytton Strachey (1916), oil on can-
matters so much to them all."29 vas. Courtesy Mrs. Frances Partridge.

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 Woman's Art Journal 31

individual and her freedom as an artist.

Her decision to live with Strachey was probably right for

her at the time too, particularly in view of the fact that she
eventually identified her sexuality as "hybrid"; 37Strachey's
homosexuality gave her room to maneuver. She wrote to
Gerald Brenan in 1925: "You know I always hated being a
woman. I think I mind much more than most women... I
am continually depressed by my effeminacy.. . ." 38It was
tragic for her, however, that her relations with Strachey
were never fully secure and that the tenuousness she felt,
feelings that were fostered by members of Bloomsbury,
made it difficult for her to organize her life satisfactorily. A
letter to Strachey from 1925 which refers first to her support
of his work, also describes her conflict:

And yet ... I have felt these conflicting emotions are destroy-
ing my purpose for painting. That perhaps that feeling which
I have had ever since I came to London years ago, that I am not
strong enough for this world of people and paint, is a feeling
which has complete truth in it. And yet when I envision leav-
ing you and going. . . into isolation, I feel that I should be so
wretched that I should never have the spirit to work.39

She was then living and continued to live most of her life
in the company of literati. As Garnett stated: "It did not
occur to Lytton Strachey or Ralph Partridge that her paint-
FIG. 3. Dora Carrington, Mountain Rangesfrom Yegen, Andalusia
ing should be put first."40 And Strachey's biographers,41
(c. 1924), oil on canvas, 27" x 31". Courtesy Mrs. Frances Partridge.
anxious to bolster the eminence of his reputation, either
dismiss Carrington as Mrs. Partridge-housekeeper for the
1917 to 1924, The Mill at Tidmarsh (1918; Fig. 1) is as
literary-or as in the case of Michael Holroyd insist: "Lytton
Strachey always encouraged her with painting." 42Carring- personal and intimate as the portrait of Strachey himself
ton's diary and letters deny both versions. There is also the
(1916; Fig. 2). Both are expressions of Carrington's passions,
fact that she felt intellectually inadequate with Strachey's
her visual perceptions conceptualized by desire. Strachey is
friends. Holroyd claims that Strachey was "bored with Car-shown in profile, lying prone, in a moment of repose, read-
rington's lack of intellect," 43but Carrington remarked: "Lyt-
ing, and not as an irascible and defensive wit, as with the
ton has the effect of making me feel stupid and hopeless more famous portrait by Henry Lamb in the Tate Collection.
about myself." 44Carrington was advised by her Bloomsbury In Carrington's painting, which is cropped below the hands,
friends (in particular the "Wolves" as she named Virginia
Strachey's alert eye and firm mouth signify a considered
and Leonard) to marry Ralph Partridge, 45so that by setting
intellect, yet one whose sensuous fingers gain from the feel of
up a menage a trois, she would ensure the continuation ofa her
beautifully bound book as his mind gains from its contents.
liaison with Strachey. The minage evolved into one of Carrington
a has painted something of her possession of him:
quatre, cinq and six, and although Carrington and Strachey
the picture shows him wrapped and tempered by her
were always at the center, for her the emotional traumas warmth and values.
took a heavy toll. Certainly, her relations with all except So the portrait of Tidmarsh responds to her love too. It is a
Strachey became, in the words of Lady Ottoline, "a tangled celebration of her home painted for her own delight. The
and matted skein."46
black opaqueness of windows and tunnel hold interior prom-
Carrington did not produce a body of work that can beise, and are compositionally linked to the out-house reflec-
locked into place as part of the steady "progress" of "main- tion, and to the swans. Noel Carrington called the swans "an
stream" art in England. Much of what she made would not
imaginative introduction";50 they lend exoticism and ro-
be called art at all. Her productions included "curious Victo- mance to the view while, at the same time, they underpin the
rian style pictures made from colored tin-foil and paper."47 composition and hold its balance in check from steep reces-
She also illustrated letters with pen sketches to amuse her sion and movement in the water. It is typical of Carrington's
friends, and produced wood blocks, which were widely landscape imagery that she blends the facts of visual percep-
admired. 48She painted pub signs and murals; decorated and tion with interior desires and fantasies and creates a tension
painted on glass, ceramics, fireplaces, even tin trunks; and between the two, between her interior and the external
painted a few portraits and landscapes in oils on canvas.worlds. There is tension too between naivete and sophistica-
Carrington's work cannot be judged by those mainstreamtion in the composition and in the handling of paint. The
standards that exalt linearity in art, and which inform anbuildings here are straightforward, compositional ele-
accepted concept of taste. 49'That concept has more to do withments, but are set within ambiguous space of considerable
power relations than with art, and nothing to do with the sophistication. The predominant oranges of the building are
lives and works of many women. in hot contrast to the cool blues and greens of sky and field.
Carrington's landscape imagery, for example, is quite The Farm At Watendlath (1921) exhibits some of the
personal, and in some ways it can be linked to Surrealism.same devices. Again there is a very high skyline and ambig-
But hers is a profound, felt determination to make public heruous foreground, made seemingly narrow by the dominat-
inwardness-and even domesticity can lead to the sublime. ing hills behind, with yet the possibility of opening out into
Her portrait of the home she shared with Strachey fromdetailed space. There is again tension between naivet--in

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32 Woman's Art Journal.

the figures, still flags of white wash, squat buildings and

stone-wall tracery-and the sophistication of space and
light, rendered in analogous blues and blue-greens. The hills The moe1yN
themselves are monumental, neither simply an exterior
image nor just a feast of visual perception; there is here anc)
a orher e5Say5
sense of the inwardness of hills pushing through their high
roundness.

With Mountain Ranges from Yegen, Andalusia (c. 1924;

Fig. 3) varying perspectives again unfold: the intimacy of
the foreground, the voluptuousness in middle distance, the
glamour of magical peaks behind, this time with the hint of a
view beyond. The magic, the fantasy, is posited here to deny
a split in realities-it is after all a mere shift in perspective-
and Carrington is determined to hold them together. The
mountains of the middle distance carry an increased inten-
sity; the skin of earth cracks to just retain its hold. The color
and texture stretching over these middle mountains are of
human skin, which adds to the personal made public.

Unlike Carrington, Vanessa Bell always painted. She

took on commissions for murals, furniture, ceramics, tex-
tiles, even whole interior decors. She was a director of Roger
Fry's Omega workshops, begun around 1912 in an effort to
support commissionless young artists and to introduce new
design work to the public. She designed book-jackets, sets
and costumes, and she applied oil paint to canvas. Most
critics have judged that her "serious" work (on canvas)
waned, was diluted, after about 1919; that time eroded her
linear strength for "uncompromising, solid blocks of form
and colour"; 5lthat her later work, having lost intensity, slips
from the grandeur it might have achieved; that the demands
of a life "packed like a cabinet of drawers, Duncan, children,
painting, Roger,"52 had sapped her creativity in works on
canvas. Isabelle Anscombe quotes accepted wisdom when
Virginia Woolf
FIG. 4. Vanessa Bell, cover design for The Moment and Other
she comments that "in artistic terms one may regret the Essays (1947). Courtesy Vanessa Bell Estate and Hogarth Press.
influence of Duncan on Vanessa's work," and that this influ-
ence led her into "partly abandoning her more serious and
considered stance." Anscombe claims too that Bell "lost off from Duncan by his love for Bunny; she spent most of the
much of the compelling gravity of her work, or at least failed
day alone... .56
to develop satisfactorily in her later paintings." 53The point
Spalding has presented a history of art related to social and
that an artificial break has separated the work on canvas personal experience.
from that which is labeled "decorative" emerges from the
The "solid blocks" of color do break down in Bell's later
wealth of biographical material introduced by Frances
works, but that which informed them-her interest in archi-
Spalding. Spalding's analysis of the decorative relates
always to Bell's other works in hand. For example, she dis- tectural composition, her boldness of conception-remains
to the end and is visible as much in the decorative works as in
cusses Bell's work on the Chateau d'Auppegard thus: "in
Vanessa's noticeably more static pastoral scenes the vertical the canvases of the 1920s and 30s. For example, the cotton
figures balance the horizontal lines in the landscape and sky, fabric designed for Allan Walton in 1933-34, a repeating still
revealing her preferences for stillness and detatchment."54 life of vase and flowers with lamp, is propelled through a
Evidence for this preference is offered in design work as strong diagonal design with bold patches of color. Her
design work for the Hogarth Press, which involved her in all
well as in painting. Again, when discussing The Tub (1918),
of the dust-jacket work for Virginia's books, exemplifies her
Spalding writes that the tub "is so severely tilted up towards
combination of the graphic and painterly arts. In the design
the picture plane that it creates an almost perfect circle. The
circle was a motif frequently employed by Vanessa in her for The Moment and other Essays (Fig. 4), the lush and
decorative work which, in its combination of fullness and drooping flowers spill through the vertical edging, and the
stability, she must have found particularly satisfying."55 lettering is as casual, with the tension of the transitory, as is
What makes Spalding's book particularly satisfying for us the moment. Poppies and Hollyhocks, a still life painting of
is that the author relates the works to the life, the former not around 1940, shows a monumental design of vase with flow-
being allowed to exist in a vacuum. She continues on the ers and fabric, detailed intricacies of petal formation with
subject of The Tub: embroidery. The work is one of balanced architectural
arrangement which includes her realistic portrayal and
It is therefore possible that the strained relationship between feeling for the subject.
the tub and the standing figure in this large painting is an
unconscious expression of her own incompleteness. . . . her Another quality that Bell demonstrated from her earliest
position at this time was one of relative isolation; she was cut works was an ability to endow her most simplified and sche-

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 Woman's Art Journal 33

matic canvases with emotional presence, with human mean-

ing. The atmosphere of the barest landscape or interior
possesses evidence of human life. In Nursery Tea (1912; Fig.
5) the architecturally-placed, arbitrary color nevertheless
composes a picture of children's lives and movements. The
figures are arrested in continuous movement as the girl
turns towards the dish of food being offered by the central . .. t e ,I~~~~~~~I
figure, and the younger child too has thrust forward his head
. I :r - -re
with the same attention; the circle of glances around the
JI - . ,.
table is concentrated on the maternal figure and her han- ... , ? .
dling of food. Realistic detail is exalted in her later work but ... - _ , ....

I
t- A \ . .~~~~~~~~~~~~
never at the expense of compositional boldness and strength.
The Nursery (1930-32; Fig. 6) is an arrangement of circles .r

(heads, dishes, and knees) and ellipses (glances and toys)

contained within the verticals and horizontals (standing and
sitting figures, mantle, and drapes). These formal arrange-
ments portray, too, a charged atmosphere which is about
maternal love, about the nature of children, and about the
nostalgia of age.

FIG. 5. Vanes a Bel , Nursery Tea (1912), oil on canvas, 30" x 41

Did these two artists, Carrington and Bell, dissipate
1/2". Courtesy Dr. Frances Spalding. their
potential for genius attainment through diversity? Or have
they, because they did diversify, offered a richness that is
denied in the products of mainstream linearity? The dis-
course that has been available for assessment of their work artistic expression is an historically constructed
has suggested the former. However, artists create work out phenomenon.
of their social and economic situations, in other words fromThea actual existence of most women's lives has always
personal as well as an historical position. Art historiansbeen
anddiverse, and thus too, their products. Perhaps because
critics apply standards of taste borne from these same situa-
of this, women can view the artworks of Bell and Carrington
tions. The vaunting of "monoculture" as the orthodox formwith
of advantage. ?

FIG. 6. Vanessa Bell, The Nursery (1930-32). Photo: Courtesy Dr. Frances Spalding.

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34 Woman's Art Journal

1. Victoria Glendinning, London Sunday Times, December

26.20, 1981,
Ibid., 25. 33.
27. John Rothenstein,
2. Quoted from her last diary entry by Noel Carrington, Carrington: Paint- Modern English Painters, 2 (London: MacDonald &
ings, Drawings and Decorations (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980),
James, 1956), 216.
31-32.
28. A description given of her by Lady Ottoline in her autobiography,
3. Bell actually quotes an unidentified Mr. Moody in support of a view
Ottoline at Garsington: Memoirs of Lady Ottoline Morrell, 1915-18 (Lon-
which he himself believes to have had some credence in the 20s
don:and 30s;
Faber, 1974), 177.
Quentin Bell, Bloomsbury (London: Futura, 1974), 65. 29. Quoted by J. S. Darrock, Ottoline: The Life of Lady Ottoline Morrell
4. Mark Gertler, Lytton Strachey, Ralph Partridge, and Gerald Brenan.
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1976), 177.
5. Gilbert Cannan, Mendel (London: Fisher, Unwin), 1916,30. a Michael
novel based
Holroyd, Lytton Strachey, 1910-32, 2 (London: Heinemann,
primarily on the life of Mark Gertler; Aldous Huxley, Chrome Yellow
1968), 479, where Holroyd states that Carrington "allowed her appear-
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1921), a novel in which Carringtonance to deteriorate"
figures as when she felt secure at Ham Spray (the farmhouse
Mary Bracegirdle; and D. H. Lawrence, "None of That" in The Woman
she shared with Strachey from 1929). The evidence in her letters and
Who Rode Away and Other Stories (London: Martin Secker, diaries 1928),
suggests that she was unhappy for much of that time. Holroyd
where Carrington was the model for Ethel Cane. further associates her loss of attractiveness-wearing no lipstick and
make-up
6. As described by Leonard Woolf in his autobiography, Downhill andthe
All becoming "dumpy looking"-with the growth of her les-
Way: 1919-39 (London: Hogarth, 1967), 70. bian feelings.
7. David Garnett, Carrington: Letters and Extractsfrom Her31. Gadd, Loving
Diaries Friends, 134.
(Lon-
don: Jonathan Cape, 1970), 10. 32. From a letter dated August 11, 1918, in Nigel Nicholson, ed., The
Question
8. In Richard Shone, Bloomsbury Portraits: Vanessa Bell, Duncan of Things Happening: Letters of Virginia Woolf, 1912-22, 2
Grant
(London: Hogarth, 1976), 267.
and Their Circle (London: Phaidon, 1976), 37 of the 169 reproductions
are given to Bell, only 2 in color. See also "Vanessa Bell: A 33. From a letter from Carrington to Mark Gertler, quoted by N. Carring-
Retrospective
Exhibition" (Davis & Long Co., New York, April 18-Mayton, 24,Carrington,
1980). 24.
9. Frances Spalding, Vanessa Bell (London: Weidenfeld 34.
and Rothenstein,
Nicolson, Modern English Painters, 216, labels Gertler thus.
1983). The critical reception of this book indicates that35.
despite some
Quoted by Noel Carrington, ed., Mark Gertler: Selected Letters (London:
boredom, Bloomsbury has captured the imagination of yet another gen-
Rupert Hart-Davis, 1965), 35.
eration of readers.
36. Quoted by Gadd, Loving Friends, 55.
10. Isabelle Anscombe, Omega and After: Bloomsbury and the Decorative
37. Carrington actually describes herself as a "hybrid monster" in a letter to
Arts (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981). Alix Strachey, October 1929; Garnett, Flowers of the Forest, 472.
11. David Gadd, Loving Friends: A Portrait of Bloomsbury (London:
38. Brenan, Personal Record, 111.
Hogarth, 1974), 82.
39. Garnett, Carrington: Letters and Diaries, 170-71.
12. David Garnett, The Flowers of the Forest (London: Chatto & Windus,
40. Quoted by N. Carrington, Carrington, 34.
1955), 26.
41. For example, C. R. Sanders, The Strachey Family: 1588-1932 (Durham,
13. Perhaps the most striking sentiment expressed by Bell was in a rare
N.C.: Duke University, 1953).
letter to Carrington written on the death of Strachey in 1932, where she
addresses her as "Dearest, dearest" and "darling creature"; quoted by 42. Holroyd, Lytton Strachey, 478.
Spalding, Vanessa Bell, 257. 43. Ibid., 192.
14. Carrington says for example, "I would not have missed that one day for 44. From a letter from Carrington to Brenan, Personal Record, 59.
any attractions you literary people could offer me!"; Garnett, Carring- 45. Partridge, "keen-witted and intellectually curious .. . handsome,
ton: Letters and Diaries, 104. strong and virile," was a friend of her brother Noel's from Oxford.
15. Ibid., 211. Carrington and Partridge became lovers in 1919, and he moved in with
16. For example, Ibid., 21, 56, 237. Carrington and Strachey in 1920. Carrington married Partridge in
1920; N. Carrington, Carrington, 37-38.
17. After reading Virginia's 1927 novel To the Lighthouse, she wrote to her
sister that the nightmare was penetratingly described in the demanding 46. Ottoline Morrell, Memoirs, 258.
egotism of Mr. Ramsay. 47. This is a description given of her work by Nicolette Devas, Two Flam-
18. Sometime members of the Friday Club included Derwent Lees, Max- boyant Fathers (London: Collins, 1966), 99.
well Lightfoot, John Curie, Claire Atwood, Saxon Sideny-Turner, Kath- 48. Garnett, Carrington: Letters and Diaries, 72.
erine Cox, Marjorie Strachey, Beatrice Mayor, Thobey and Adrian 49. For another artist who was dismissed by critics for diverging from the
Stephen, together with ex-Slade students David Bomberg, Mark linear flow in art, see Clare Rendell, "Sonia Delaunay and the Expand-
Gertler, John and Paul Nash, Christopher Nevinson, Edward Wads- ing Definition of Art," WAJ (S/S, 1983), 35-38.
worth, plus an older generation from the Slade, J. D. Innes, Albert 50. N. Carrington, Carrington, 53.
Rutherston, Henry Lamb, and Edna Clarke Hall.
51. Devas, Fathers, 159. Here it is said that Vanessa Bell is "built," i.e., looks
19. He wrote Vanessa Bell in 1917: "You have done such an extraordinary
like the "solid blocks" in her paintings, with the implication that both are
thing without any fuss: cut through all the conventions, kept friends "Bloomsbury period pieces."
with a persnickety creature like Clive, got quit of me yet kept me your
52. Nigel Nicholson, ed., A Change of Perspective: 1923-28, Letters of Vir-
devoted friend"; Denys Sutton, ed., Letters of Roger Fry, 1878-1913, 1
ginia Woolf, 2 (London: Hogarth Press, 1977), from a letter to Jacques
(London: Chatto & Windus, 1972), 415-16.
Raverat, 1925.
20. Ibid.
53. Anscombe, Omega and After, 112.
21. Denys Sutton, ed., Letters of Roger Fry, 2 (London: Chatto & Windus),
54. Spalding, Vanessa Bell, 220.
from a 1926 letter to Helen Anrep, 597.
55. Ibid., 171.
22. Clive Bell, Old Friends (London: Chatto & Windus, 1956), 85.
56. Ibid.
23. Nigel Nicholson, ed., Flight of the Mind: Letters of Virginia Woolf,
1888-1912, 1 (London: Hogarth, 1975), xvii. GILLIAN ELINOR is a senior lecturer in Art History in the School
of Art and Design, North East London Polytechnic. She also works
24. From a letter by Carrington to Gerald Brenan in his Personal Record:
1920-72 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1974), 172. with Britain's Women Artists' Slide Library and Feminist Art
25. Ibid., 178. Neu ,s.

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