work cited

Spalding, Frances. Vanessa Bell. New Haven and New York: Ticknor & Feilds, 1983. Print.

Shone, Richard, James Beechey, and Richard Morphet. The Art of Bloomsbury: Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, and Duncan Grant. London: Tate Gallery, 1999. Print.

Gillespie, Diane F. The Sisters’ Arts: The Writing and Painting of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 1988. Print.

Bell, Quntin. Bloomsbury Recall. New York: Columbia U Press, 1995. Print.

Marsh, Jan, and Frances Partridge. Bloomsbury Women: Distinct Figures in Life and Art. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.

Vanessa Bell’s style Today

Bell had a brought an uncommon style to life in her time, although it was not disliked in her time it took a while for it to be fully appreciated.  Today there are many references to her style, Burberry did a fashion show dedicated to her design work

There is also a building in Falls Church near my house that hold similar qualities to Bell’s designs

Post-Omega Workshop

The Omega workshop had made an impact on Bell like most of her fellow artists that participated in the venture.  Here in this painting we see that Bell experiment with just color, no figurative aspcts at all.  Even in the Omega Workshop Bell rarely worked in this abstract style.  This painting was show cased and even received positive reviews, but Bell her self found that this is not where she wanted to continue with her art.  She did however adopt a less figurative form for a time for her still lifes.

  abstract painting 1914

 still life on corner of mantle piece

a much later self portrait shows the mixes of influence from the past from renaissance of northern Italy to characterization of the face as with Ingres and contemporary brush stroke techniques of painterly impressionistic qualities.  She was a woman of many styles and constant development, just to fit her own need to show her personal ideas on art.

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 self portrait 1958    

Ingres “louis Betin” 1832

painting of grandchild 1956

Omega art

The Bloomsbury group undertook a business venture together, started by Fry, they made a craftsmen business.  Here they made furniture and decorations and the true values of Bloomsbury shines through.

Bell had to change up her style or at least accommodate it to fit a more design orientated picture.  This style is meant to just be pleasant to look at, a design is meant to fit in with the decorum of the house and not to pop too much, so with the color it is muted and the over all scene is disturbed and turned into more geometric shapes to fit the art nouveau style.

Summer Camp 1913

Vanessa Bell, Tents, 1913

early still life

 Icelandic Poppies 1908

Icelandic Poppies is an early work of Bell that received positive feed back for being a genre piece.  The aspects of a new artist show through in this work with her reliance on her academic teachings of detailed lighting, triangular composition, and local color.

Apples: 46 square 1909

Here we see Bell be come more comfortable with her style with a more painterly approach, playing with color, and a more complex relationship of objects and space.  The background and the foreground work together to create a view from inside to out side, not just a view out the window.

Heroes and Rivals

One positive influence for Vanessa’s work was that of John Signer Sargent.  “confident style of painting so suited to the ‘swagger’ portrait, which concentrated on tone rather than line and built up pictorial effects with fluid, well-loaded brush.” (marsh 10)  He did not draw on the canvas unless it was with a brush and focusing on modern genre scenes and portraiture.

 Carnation Lily Lily Rose 1885 – 1886

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925), The Piazzetta with Gondolas,

Bell also had a influence from a rival of hers, whose art work she found to be a waste of time with its strong ties to academia, modern composition built on techniques passed down for centuries “When I paint a picture I want to give a message and I care comparatively little about how good the art is.” (Spalding 1) She wanted her art to speak for it self not have the didactic, or linear aspect over shadow her expression through the art.  It is Watts that helps define what Bell is not and what she wants to achieve with her art.

 George Fredrick Watts Orpheus and Eurydice

Vanessa Bell

Vanessa Bell (1879-1961) was trained academically, but chose to work against academic teachings. Her anti conservative social nature is shown in her work through her love of still life, non local color, and emphasis on design she was able to make her own path in art with the group. Vanessa worked as an artist and a craftsman with paintings and decorating various furniture. Her effort over all is astonishing, for women at the time their personal goals were set a side once marriage and children entered the frame.  Bell however never stopped and children only gave her new inspiration for drawings. Bell has even defined her basic process “Prepare a cavas with a red ground. Sketch in the drawing in any neutral colour, then paint quite directly and leave it.’ Too many layers or too much re-working and picture was liable to lose its freshness,” (Marsh 10-11)

And her stance on style and development as an artist “I believe all painting is worth while so long as one honestly expresses one’s own ideas,” (Marsh 11) This show cases her foundational dislike of pure academic tradition and why she needed to find her own path.

  Julian asleep 1908

Bloomsbury

The Memoir Club 1943 by Vanessa Bell

Bloomsbury was a early 20th century social, business, and artistic group.  The artists that formed its ranks shared similar values that disrupted conservative social and artistic normalities.  The group modeled naked for each other, accepted different forms of sexuality and taboo liberal opinions on political matters like war.  Interestingly enough while going against the grain they still were respected by their more traditional contemporaries.  The group acted as a closed circuit of inspiration, development and acting as their own critics.  What distinguished this group was the consensus of the purpose of art, which was an emphasis on aesthetic appeal no matter the medium or inspiration.“Our Vortex is not afraid of the Past, it has forgotten its existence.” Member Wyndham Lewis