[DOC] Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display by Peggy Levitt at Arts-Photography

Review

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Very well written book about an artist I knew little ...By Albert E. StiegmanVery well written book about an artist I knew little about and; in the end; an artist I ended up caring little about.6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Excellent portrait of a man full of contradictionsBy Ralph BlumenauIn her Introduction Fiona MacCarthy sketches out a picture of Eric Gill (1882 to 1940) which differs greatly from reverent earlier biographies written by fellow-Catholics. These were reluctant to dwell on the contradictions in Gillrsquo;s character - the guru of a simple and spiritual life on the one hand and his rampant sexual life on the other. The author brings out these and many other contradictions very well; and the reader will be torn between admiration and dislike. The book also has many illustrations and photographs; some of which perhaps come out better in the printed edition than they do on the Kindle. They make us familiar with the Gill style.He was the second of thirteen children of a Protestant clergyman who was very Victorian: patriarchal; strict; admonitory; but warm. Although Eric would turn against most of what his father had stood for; MacCarthy traces many of his later interests and attitudes back to his childhood.At the age of 15 he went to an art school in Chichester; where he developed an interest in lettering; which would become intensified and which he practised in both its calligraphic and its carved form when he moved to London at age 18 to study architecture. (It was not until he was in his fifties; in his last years; that he actually designed a building: a church at Gorleston-on-Sea.) He was at that time committed to the Arts and Crafts philosophy and to William Morrisrsquo; socialism; and he saw himself as a working man. He soon got enough lettering commissions (the diplomat Count Harry Kessler; a lover of fine books; was a great patron) to enable him to marry Ethel; the daughter of a Chichester florist; at the age of 22.Already three years later; in 1907; he had the first of many extra-marital affaires; with Lillian Meacham; of which Ethel was quite aware: she accepted that Gill went with Lilian to Chartres. On their return; Lillian became his apprentice; and ldquo;she and her several husbands remained friend with the Gill family throughout Ericrsquo;s liferdquo;. None of his affaires seem to have affected his marriage: his wife accepted them as she accepted her husbandrsquo;s patriarchal views and cheerfully shared all the hardships that his philosophy of life entailed. Her good nature would be the mainstay of the life around him.In 1907 the ever restless Gill and his family moved out of London toa more idealistic rustic life in the small village of Ditchling; near Lewes in Sussex. There he could pursue the plain living which was his ideal - so much so that in 1913 the family moved out of the village and bought a house on Ditchling Common and two acres of land; where he planned to be as self-sufficient and reclusive as possible - while becoming an increasingly well-known public figure both as an artist and as a guru! Nor was he all that reclusive: two of his close friends from London came to live in Ditchling because of him; and they saw a lot of each other. And the place was always full of visitors; disciples and the community of craftsmen who were working with him.In 1909 he took to sculpture; and his work was immediately acclaimed by Kessler; Roger Fry; William Rothenstein and others; and the first exhibition of his sculptures in 1911 was a great success. His sculptures were inspired by Africa; India; and many by an eroticism which would later figure extensively in all the art forms he practised. The models for his erotic sculptures were members of his household who were themselves interested in experimental sex; so much so that his sisters were prepared to enter into incestuous relationships with him. And during the puberty of his three daughters he had incestuous relations with them also. All this he recorded in his diaries. People commented on how close-knit the family was; without realizing quite the extent to which this adjective applied. He was always obsessed with sex in general and the penis in particular; and he slept with many other women; some of them the wives of friends of his. ldquo;He liked to feel all women in the world belonged to himrdquo;; writes the author. And he even recorded in his diary his sexual experiments with a dog.At the same time this complex man had spiritual longings; and this had taken him into the Catholic Church in 1913 (without it having any effect on his eroticism). Ethel converted likewise and changed her name to Mary. Gill became a lay member of the Dominican Order; and his household was run by him like a religious community. He habitually wore a cassock; which was both convenient for his work and also recalled a monkrsquo;s habit. In 1921 he founded a crafts guild called the Guild of SS Joseph and Dominic.He made his great Stations of the Cross for Westminster Cathedral; during the making of which he was excused war service: he was called up only in 1918.Ditchling Common had after all not provided the seclusion that Gill had been wanting; and he felt his authority threatened by some mebers of the community there. So he abandoned it in 1924 and moved; together with two other families; to a far less accessible place; Capel-y-Finn; a dilapidated one time Benedictine monastery; up in the Black Mountains in South Wales.There he moved into wood block printing and into typography; developing the type faces which are arguably his most enduring legacy.In 1928 he was ready for another change; and moved from Wales to Pigotts; a quadrangle of farm buildings in the Chilterns; where the new community included the families of two of his now married daughters. He also employed a number of young carvers; three or four at a time; in his workshop: by now Gill was really famous and had many commissions for the public buildings like the BBCrsquo;s and the headquartersrsquo; of what was to become the London Underground. Life at Pigotts was no longer quite as austere as it had been at Ditchling Common or at Capel-y-Finn.In the 1930s Gill became interested in left-wing and pacifist causes. He designed three huge panels for the League of Nations building in Geneva.Over-work and ill health clouded Gillrsquo;s last few years. In October 1940 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He refused a major operation and was quite serene about his impending death; which occurred on 17th November.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. The Naughty MonkBy Peter BaklavaMy late father kept a book of Eric Gills woodcut engravings in his bureau drawer in the 1950s; hidden under clothing. This probably wasnt such an unusual thing during a period remembered for its repressive attitudes. Gill was ; in Fiona MacCarthys description; a man who tried to reconcile divisions in life.... including the division between the "sacred" and the "profane". " In few other artists of the century are the images of the erotic and the domestic; the sexual and the devotional so closely and disconcertingly related"; MacCarthy writes in the introduction.In truth; my father (who worked in advertising) probably admired Gill for his fastidiousness as much as anything. Gill; who believed in "efficient indulgence"; was a designer of typefaces---notably sans serif; and perpetua; which are still widely used.As other reviewers have noted; Gill was a complete bundle of contradictions. He was a would-be Rabelaisan; or at least a would-be follower of D.H. Lawrence. But for all his flinty masculinism and for all his obsessive note-taking regarding his sexual habits; he remained a kind of tragic figure who looked backward more than he looked forward; as much a reactionary as a revolutionary. He was obsessed about women; but except for one dalliance with a Fabian socialist in Paris; he preferred to make sure that his dealings with women were attached to traditional roles.MacCarthy writes well; but still much of the book is merely recounting of Gills habits in his pursuit of arts and crafts communities in Wales and England; proving that even though Gill was an oddly provocative figure; his lifestyle usually was tilted toward the ascetic; and none-too-colorful.