Bergson in Britain, Edinburgh University Press, 2023
Demonstrates the central role of Bergson for modernist art and intellectual history in the UK
Brings to light new evidence of British artists’ direct engagement with Bergson, opening new avenues of research and interpretation for the artists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, John Duncan Fergusson, and artist-writers Roger Fry and Wyndham Lewis
Based on archival material in Paris and US not previously accessed (Bibliotèque Jacques Doucet, Isabella Gardner Museum, Boston and Wyndham Lewis’ marginalia in his editions of Bergson’s texts at The University of Texas at Austin), in addition to primary sources in UK (Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, London, and Strathclyde), and US (Universities of Cornell and Texas at Austin)
Changes art history’s standard readings of these artists as the evidence of their knowledge of and engagement with Bergson is irrefutable
Explores concepts of duration, intuition, creativity; the image and perception as they were formulated by Bergson and understood by his contemporaries
Demonstrates Bergson’s relevance to key problematics for Art History: temporality, intuition, subjectivity, representation, the image.
Charlotte de Mille shows that the reception of the philosophy of Henri Bergson by British artists and critics was far more wide spread and of far greater importance in the UK than has been previously thought.
Based on archival material in Paris and the US, not all previously accessed, along with primary UK sources, she opens new avenues of research and interpretation on the work of artists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant, John Duncan Fergusson and artist-writers Roger Fry and Wyndham Lewis.
De Mille demonstrates the profound impact of Bergson’s work in UK culture immediately prior to World War One. Her interdisciplinary approach integrates philosophy, art criticism and art history. An Epilogue considers the proximity of Bergson’s thought on temporality, perception, intuition and subjectivity to art history, from Alois Riegl and Aby Warburg, to practitioners today.
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‘a dexterity and aptitude for conceptual analysis that is dazzling. An extraordinary achievement.’
– John Ó Maoilearca, Kingston University
‘Bergson in Britain interpolates the first synthetic study of the French philosopher’s multifaceted impact on the visual arts in Britain with an experimental form of art writing, building upon the author’s innovative interpretation of Bergson’s "philosophy of immanence." Based on extensive archival research, this timely book is certain to stimulate cross-disciplinary debate.’
– Mark Antliff, Duke University
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Introduction: The ‘Age of Bergson’
Chapter 1: Bergson in Britain?
‘I am not an "Intuitionist’’’
The Independent Review: Considering the world from a moral point of view
The Reality of Time
The UK Lectures
Society of Psychical Research
T. E. Hulme’s original sin
Karin Costelloe’s ‘Interpenetration’
Multiple Modernities?
The Bergson Phenomenon
Being British and Bergsonian
Chapter 2: Metaphysics of Non-Representation: Bloomsbury’s Bergson
‘Our tactile imagination’
Bergson’s intuition
Fry’s Essay in Aesthetics
Intuition in Post Impressionism
‘Art is philosophy’: Matthew Stewart Prichard
Art writing philosophy
Bathing with the Byzantines
Embodying Experience: Grant’s Scroll
Temporality in Painting and the Cinematic Challenge
Plurality in painting and multiple memory
Re-Membering the thing
Chapter 3: New Spirits: Moina MacGregor
‘Psychical phosphorescence’
Psychic Vertigo
‘A wild phantasmagoric dance’
'A bizarre assemblage of images’
Re-tracing steps
Chapter 4: Rhythmist (E-)Utopias: Fergusson’s Bergson and the evolution of creation
Bergsonian Origins
Durational Portraiture
Intuitive (E-)utopias
‘Primordial’ perception and Neo-Barbarism
Rhythmist élan vital in Fergusson’s Rhythm (1911): a new deity?
Immanence against Symbolism
From rhythm to crystallisation
Conclusions
Chapter 5: Blasted Devolution: Wyndham Lewis and Henri Bergson
Devolution and Mediocrity: Laughter
Lewis in Paris
The Wild BodyCreative Evolution inside out: Lewis’s marginalia
Autocracy: Timon in Athens (1912-13)
Blast
The Crowd (1915)Multiplicity of self in Bergson and Lewis
Transgression: Bergson’s consciousness contra Enemy of the Stars (c.1913)
Imaging the all-embracing
Conclusion
Epilogue: - ‘a momentary displacement of our equilibrium’
Recapitulating Art History
Bergson and History
Immanence and Art History
Animating Art History
Towards a holobiont history of art