Vanessa Bell, Studland Beach - Essay Example

Vanessa Bell, Studland Beach, (1912 A Modernist Work of Art The Modernists belonged to a period of art where the nature of art was in question, the compositional and colour stories of the work expressing a shift away from reality towards the meaning of artistic expression. There were many avenues of discovery during this time period. One of the developments that occurred during this time was that female artists began to have more an artistic voice, their work considered for its value rather than dismissed or sidelined away from the public. Vanessa Bell was an artist who was able to use her artistic voice to express her position in the Modernist aesthetic. Her work is reminiscent of Matisse, the shapes and uses of colour reflecting the simplicity of expression (Tate Collection). The piece, Studland Beach (1912) (Fig. 1) is a solid example of the type of work that was emerging during the Modernist period of art. Studland Beach (1912) currently is part of the Tate Collection and is an oil on canvas that measures 898 by 1153 mm. The location of the painting is in Studland Beach, which is a quiet bay in Dorset. The concept of going to the beach as a form of leisure was a new concept that emerged at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th, thus the modernity of Bell and her group was in evidence merely by revealing this activity as a subject for her piece of art. The nature of the piece of art is that it represents a type of work that the Modernists, and more specifically the Bloomsbury Group of which Bell was a part, identified as ‘significant form’. This theory suggested that art could represent form over subject, the need for the shapes to have preeminence supplying the meaning that was defined within the piece of work (Tate Collection). Vanessa Bell was writer Virginia Woolf’s sister, her place within the Bloomsbury Group helping to define her position in British art history. She was born Vanessa Stephen, but married Clive Bell in 1907. Their marriage represented some of the new aesthetics that was a result of cultural re-envisioning that was taking place during this time period as they conducted an open marriage. Her third child was openly that of a lover who raised that child as his own (Rowley). The new avenues of thought that were appearing during this time period allowed for an expansion of the ideas of art, just as the ideas of sexuality, social convention, and science were being tested at this time. Secularism had freed the artists from solely addressing religious themes, thus social, sexual, and cultural themes could be explored for the meanings that could be defined from them which began to become expressions of artistic meanings that were outside of any context provided by the subject matter. It is probable that the distaste for the materialism, the bourgeois concepts of capitalism and the consumer aesthetics inspired artists away from the importance of subject matter, the nature of art becoming focused on meaning through colour, shape, and the defining of space (Cottington 32). Bell’s work can be seen as influenced by both Matisse and Cezanne, the work developed through the concept of shape as it defines the subject, colour as it defines the space. The nature of the work not about the scene it represents, but about the artistic meanings that are present. According to Rowley, Richard Shone described Bell’s work Studland Beach, (1912) as “in its move towards abstraction…one of the most radical works of the time in England” (31). Vanessa’s husband, Clive Bell, had termed the concept of shape and form over subject as ‘significant form’, the piece representing “an aesthetic purged of narrative sentiment or circumstantial detail” (Rowley 31). However, despite the idea that narrative sentiment and circumstantial detail are missing, like Virginia Wolfe’s fictional work, To the Lighthouse, Bell’s work is filled with the ‘hauntings’ of Julia Stephens, their mother. Even in trying to search for form over meaning, the nature of the work reveals something of Bell’s childhood. Within the piece are the memories of the beach of St. Ives where their mother used to take them (Rowley 31). The narrative is not fully expunged from the work. Perry suggests that Maud Sulter suggested that the haunting words “if only” were repeated over and over within the painting. The serene nature of the scene as it is reflective of the memories of a mother who died too young and too early in the life of Bell are symbolically present within the work (160). This becomes further extended as the nature of being an artist, the representation of how an artist works, dipping the brush and expressing something of the past, is reflected through Wolfe’s fiction, and expressed in Bell’s painting. Because of the complexity of the representations of their mutual histories in both of the works, “the beach thus becomes a complex site of creative work, memory, desire and death” (Perry 160). Therefore, even in the nature of Modernist aesthetics where the meaning is placed within the form over the subject matter, a narrative can be discovered within the history of the artist as it compares to the work. The nature of the painting, however, provides context for the emergence of form and colour as they became central to the narrative. The nature of the work is in the “tightening of forms and an organization of colour” (Perry 160). However, this has implications on the meaning of the work, the back story that underlies the event of the moment within the framework of the canvas space. This can be examined through the concept of solitary space as it is described as “a place where dreams and visions enter and sometimes a place where nothing happens” (Robinson 636). The work, Studland Beach, (1912) by Vanessa Bell represents aspects of the Modernist period through the use of form and colour, creating a narrative that is less complex than the meaning of the narrative. As a casual observer, the influences of Matisse and Cezanne are clearly evident, although the work is far more social and less sexualized than was typical for either artist. The nature of the painting is through the expression of serenity, the feeling of something just slightly sorrowful, but with the impression of the day creating a complexity that is somehow just out of reach. This emotional content, the implications that are evoked rather than told to the viewer provide context for the Modernist aesthetic. The relationship between the viewer and the artist connected through the meanings that each has brought to the experience. Works Cited Cottington, David. Modern Art: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford [England: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print. Perry, Gill. Difference and Excess in Contemporary Art: The Visibility of Women's Practice. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Print. Robinson, Hilary. Feminism-art-theory: An Anthology, 1968-2000. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Print. Rowley, Alison. Helen Frankenthaler: Painting History, Writing Painting. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007. Print. Spalding, Frances. Vanessa Bell. Stroud: Tempus, 2006. Print. Tate Collection. Vanessa Bell 1879-1961. Tate Online. 2011. Web. 24 May 2011. Fig. 1 Read More