Radical Brits: cover of the Vorticist journal 'Blast No. 1: Review of the Great English Vortex', June 20, 1914.聽Courtesy The Poetry Collection, State University of New York at Buffalo 漏 Wyndham Lewis and the estate of Mrs G A Wyndham Lewis by kind permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust
Edited by Wyndham Lewis, its radical intention was immediately evident when it first appeared. It has an extraordinarily bright pink colour with the title BLAST written across the cover in huge, bold, black letters. Ezra Pound described聽聽it聽as this 鈥済reat MAGENTA cover鈥檇 opusculus鈥. The first section of the journal starts with a sequence of twenty-odd pages which are presented like a manifesto. Each page has a dramatic piece of graphic design, in which the editors 鈥楤last鈥 and 鈥楤less鈥 different things - often these are the same things. It is sardonic and humorous to read, but has a great vitriolic tone as聽well.
Vorticist journal Blast No. 1: Review of the Great English Vortex, p. 11, June 20,聽1914.聽Courtesy The Poetry Collection, State University of New York at Buffalo漏 Wyndham Lewis and the estate of Mrs G A Wyndham Lewis by kind permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust
It lists the things that the Vorticists love and hate. For example one passage reads: 鈥淐urse the flabby sky that can manufacture no snow but can only drop the sea on us in drizzle.鈥 It goes on: 鈥淏last France, Blast England, Blast Humour, Blast the years 1837 to 1900.鈥 In one sentence the whole of the Victorian era is dismissed. And then conversely we read: 鈥淏less England, Bless England for its ships which switchback on blue, green and red聽seas.鈥
Vorticist journal Blast No. 1: Review of the Great English Vortex, p.28, June 20,聽1914Courtesy The Poetry Collection, State University of New York at Buffalo 漏 Wyndham Lewis and the estate of Mrs G.A. Wyndham Lewis by kind permission of the Wyndham Lewis Memorial Trust
One of the other items included in聽BLAST is Lewis聽鈥榮 play聽called 鈥楨nemy and the Stars鈥 which is generally seen to be largely unintelligible and聽certainly聽unperformable.
Chris Stephens is co-curator of The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World, which opens on 14 June, and Curator (Modern British Art) & Head of Displays at Tate Britain.
