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Vorticism & the Vorticist
Because Vorticism was created as a backlash to Futurism, one of the best ways to describe the ideals of the Vorticists is to compare them with the ideals of the Futurists. The Vorticist Manifesto, contained within the pages of Blast, stated how much of "humanity was fleeing from the mechanized world of science into an imaginary world" (Materer 20). Both the Futurists and Vorticists thought that they were different from other artists, as they confronted the new aesthetic of technology instead of retreating like the rest of the world into a universe of romantic nostalgia. As is written in the manifesto in Blast, "curse with expletive the whirlwind the Britannic Aesthete" (Blast 15). The Futurists however, according to the Vorticists, maintained the same old aesthetic in a disguised way, describing the machine age in a style of "sentimentality and romance" (Materer 41).

wpe2.gif (30828 bytes) Cover of   first issue Blast 1 1914
The futurist is a sensational and sentimental mixture of the aesthete of 1890 [refers to symbolism] and the realist of 1870." (Blast "Long Live the Vortex")

 

"Automobilism (Marinettism) bores us. We don’t want to go about making a hullo-bulloo about motor cars, anymore than about knives and forks, elephants or gas pipes." (Blast "Long Live the Vortex")

 

As the backward British poets still spat romantic verse praising the beauty of roses, the Vorticists believed that Futurists praised the beauty of motor cars in the same manner.

 

We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath…(Marinetti "Manifesto of Futurism")

 

Futurists humanized "their machines" (Wees 349). At the very least, as can be seen from the example above, Futurists gave machines an organic, living creature status. Where as Futurists personified their machines however, "Vorticists mechanized the human form" (Wees 349). Wyndham Lewis and his followers were not interested in personification, but rather were concerned with absorbing "the machine into aesthetic consciousness" (Weistein 31).

One of the most drastic differences between Futurism and Vorticism, is while Futurists celebrated the utopian portrayal of modernity, the Vorticists were known to use "abstract and mechanical forms to express a violent hatred of contemporary society" (Wees 349).

Vorticist Hatred of Society

The Vortex

Vorticism & the Vorticist

Vorticist Drama

Conclusion & Links