 |
|
|
| Wyndham Lewis: |
|
|
| Blast 1 |
|
Introduction by Bradford Morrow
Facsimile edition edited by Wyndham Lewis |
|
| '' |
... the Vortex of Lewis:
sun, energy, sombre emotion,
clean-drawing, disgust,
penetrating analysis ...'' Ezra Pound |
|
|
In December 1913, Ezra Pound wrote to William Carlos Williams calling the London art/literary scene ''The Vortex.'' Pound thereafter refined the label to apply to the work of such ''English Cubist'' artists as Wyndham Lewis; Lewis in turn appropriated the term to christen his budding movement in the arts, ''Vorticism.'' Vorticism was baptized on June 20, 1914 in the first issue of BLAST, A Review of the Great English Vortex — Lewis's revolutionary magazine.
BLAST is now considered one of this century's examples of modernist expression and typography, both historically indispensable and a milestone in modern thought. To the artistic audience of its time, the first issue of BLAST came as a brutal shock (Lewis's plan was to create a ''battering ram''), a quality that has been preserved in this first facsimile edition. Described by Lewis as ''violent pink,'' but by some others as the ''puce monster,'' the large format magazine displaying radical typography and design, featuring a ''Vorticist Manifesto'' and eye-popping lists of items to be ''Blessed'' and ''Blasted.'' ''Blasted'' are, e.g., France, English Humor, Victorianism, aesthetes, the Anglican Church, popular writers and composers, do-gooders, sportsmen; ''Blessed'' are British Industry, trade unionists, aviators, music hall entertainers, hairdressers, ports, and members of the avant-garde. Wedged in amid the carefully wild layout of these Vorticist picture-poems are important essays by Lewis, original line cuts by such artists as Lewis, Wadsworth, Roberts, Jacob Epstein and Gaudier-Brzeska, and literary contributions from the likes of Pound (''Poems''), Lewis (''Enemy of the Stars''). Rebecca West (''Indissoluble Matrimony''), Ford Madox Ford (''The Saddest Story,'' later to become 'The Good Soldier', and originally published here under Ford's pre-war name, Ford Madox Hueffer).
This new edition of BLAST documents in its original format the raw energy, violent humor, graphic inventiveness and intellectual hard edge of the most compelling and vital magazine project of the modernist movement. |
|
|
|
168 pages, Paperback, 9'' x 12'' (305 x 230 mm)
33 b/w illustrations, English
ISBN: 0-87685-521-4 |
|
| $ 17.50 |
|
|
|
| About the Editor: |
|
Bradford Morrow, formerly a Danforth Fellow in English Literature at Yale University, has lived and worked in Italy, France, England and the United States. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado in English and comparative literature and has published a number of critical articles about Ezra Pound, Italian lyric poetry, Vorticism and other topics. Mr. Morrow is a specialist and dealer in rare books and manuscripts.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
