Vorticist hatred of Society
"A Canadian Gun Pit" by Wyndham Lewis, 1918
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Vorticist hatred of Society |
| Wyndham Lewis believed that the human "body becomes of less importance everyday" ("The New Egos" 141). The Vorticists were in agreement with Lewis, and believed the world to be "hostile to individualization" (Kush 54). The reason for this de-individualization, according to the Vorticists, is that a person "identifies himself with the inert forms of his surroundings" (Kush 73). Since people are susceptible to being absorbed into their environment, it is no wonder that Vorticists despised the horrors and warfare that could be achieved through industrialization. Being absorbed into a world of pastures and rolling hills might not be a less than desirable state, but being absorbed into the machine of a violent modern society is not an optimal situation. The tension of Lewis'’ work, is created in the human being, a "creature who oscillates between rigid self determination and possible absorption with his world" (Kush 40). In the human creature there is a battle between the "desire for freedom and the human desire to behave mechanically" (Kush 23). The aesthetic of the Vorticists was exploring this relationship between autonomy and the incorporation of self into the machine aesthetic. There was a war in the Vorticists’ world between "Individualism and collectivism" (Foshay 50). |
"A Canadian Gun Pit" by Wyndham Lewis, 1918 |
Vorticist Hatred of Society |