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Men Without Art
Book by Lewis, Wyndham
- GenresEssays
Paperback
First published January 1, 1934
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About the author
Wyndham Lewis
107 books155 followers(Percy) Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) was a novelist, painter, essayist, polemicist and one of the truly dynamic forces of the early 20th century and a central figure in the history of modernism. He was the founder of Vorticism, the only original movement in 20th century English painting. His Vorticist paintings from 1913 are the first abstract works produced in England, and influenced the development of Suprematism in Russia. Tarr (published in 1918), initiated his career as a satirical novelist, earning the praise of his contemporaries: "the most distinguished living novelist" (T.S. Eliot), "the only English writer who can be compared to Dostoevsky" (Ezra Pound).
After serving as an artillery officer and official war artist during the First World War, Lewis was unable to revive the avant-garde spirit of Vorticism, though he attempted to do so in a pamphlet advocating the modernisation of London architecture in 1919: The Caliph's Design Architects! Where is your Vortex? Exhibitions of his incisive figurative drawings, cutting-edge abstractions and satirical paintings were not an economic success, and in the early 1920s he devoted himself to study of political theory, anthropology, philosophy and aesthetics, becoming a regular reader in the British Museum Reading Room. The resulting books, such as The Art of Being Ruled (1926), Time and Western Man (1927), The Lion and the Fox: The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare (1927) and Paleface: The Philosophy of the Melting-Pot (1929) created a reputation for him as one of the most important - if wayward - of contemporary thinkers.
The satirical The Apes of God (1930) damaged his standing by its attacks on Bloomsbury and other prominent figures in the arts, and the 1931 Hitler, which argued that in contemporary 'emergency conditions' Hitler might provide the best way forward in Germany damaged it yet further. Isolated and largely ignored, and persisting in advocacy of "appeasement," Lewis continued to produce some of his greatest masterpieces of painting and fiction during the remainder of the 1930s, culminating in the great portraits of his wife (1937), T. S. Eliot (1938) and Ezra Pound (1939), and the 1937 novel The Revenge for Love. After visiting Berlin in 1937 he produced books attacking Hitler and anti-semitism but decided to leave England for North America on the outbreak of war, hoping to support himself with portrait-painting. The difficult years he spent there before his return in 1945 are reflected in the 1954 novel, Self Condemned. Lewis went blind in 1951, from the effects of a pituitary tumor. He continued writing fiction and criticism, to renewed acclaim, until his death. He lived to see his visual work honored by a retrospective exhibition at London's Tate Gallery in 1956, and to hear the BBC broadcast dramatisations of his earlier novels and his fantastic trilogy of novels up-dating Dante's Inferno, The Human Age.
After serving as an artillery officer and official war artist during the First World War, Lewis was unable to revive the avant-garde spirit of Vorticism, though he attempted to do so in a pamphlet advocating the modernisation of London architecture in 1919: The Caliph's Design Architects! Where is your Vortex? Exhibitions of his incisive figurative drawings, cutting-edge abstractions and satirical paintings were not an economic success, and in the early 1920s he devoted himself to study of political theory, anthropology, philosophy and aesthetics, becoming a regular reader in the British Museum Reading Room. The resulting books, such as The Art of Being Ruled (1926), Time and Western Man (1927), The Lion and the Fox: The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare (1927) and Paleface: The Philosophy of the Melting-Pot (1929) created a reputation for him as one of the most important - if wayward - of contemporary thinkers.
The satirical The Apes of God (1930) damaged his standing by its attacks on Bloomsbury and other prominent figures in the arts, and the 1931 Hitler, which argued that in contemporary 'emergency conditions' Hitler might provide the best way forward in Germany damaged it yet further. Isolated and largely ignored, and persisting in advocacy of "appeasement," Lewis continued to produce some of his greatest masterpieces of painting and fiction during the remainder of the 1930s, culminating in the great portraits of his wife (1937), T. S. Eliot (1938) and Ezra Pound (1939), and the 1937 novel The Revenge for Love. After visiting Berlin in 1937 he produced books attacking Hitler and anti-semitism but decided to leave England for North America on the outbreak of war, hoping to support himself with portrait-painting. The difficult years he spent there before his return in 1945 are reflected in the 1954 novel, Self Condemned. Lewis went blind in 1951, from the effects of a pituitary tumor. He continued writing fiction and criticism, to renewed acclaim, until his death. He lived to see his visual work honored by a retrospective exhibition at London's Tate Gallery in 1956, and to hear the BBC broadcast dramatisations of his earlier novels and his fantastic trilogy of novels up-dating Dante's Inferno, The Human Age.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 20, 2013
The artist, it is well to remember, is a very sensitive and intelligent man, in touch with natural forces of a very considerable voltage. His responsibility is therefore very great
Hmmmm. Well, one thing is certain, Wyndham certainly adores himself. He has a very high opinion of his own thoughts, ideas and writings. He reminded me a little of the story about the preface Lord Longford is supposed to have written for a re-publication of one of his books in which he is said to have written
'I wrote a book on humility a few years ago, in my opinion nobody has written a better one since'.
Now i have never actually found a copy of that sentence even though i scour copies of his work everytime I find one in a second hand book shop but i live in hope. With dear Mr Lewis the scouring is not the problem. His arrogant self conceit sings fairly discordantly throughout this collection of extended essays on various writers ranging from Hemingway and Faulkner to Woolf and Henry James.
He dissects and reflects on the influence for good and ill of these writers and he has an extended defence of the centrality to the well being of society of Satire and Art. His argument being that contemporary art, for contemproary read 1934, is largely satiric or comic and is an assault on the philistinism and short-sighted blandness of his peers and so the two things go hand in hand.
This was a hard going book for breakfast reading, I really need to pick some lighter stuff to aid my digestion sometimes. (It is an unwritten rule for myself that I do not read novels at mealtimes and as I live alone that means i get to read quite a lot then.) He is supremely dismissive of 'the Plain reader who he has saying
A novel, that is art I suppose. I like a good novel - I am a youngish Plain Man and I don't mind a spot of love, but I prefer mystery; give me a good gory murder all the time.......
he continues on in this vein on the very first page for a paragraph or two and probably thus succeeded in alienating anyone who had picked his book up to try to stretch their minds a little. All that person would encounter would be a sneering disregard towards them because they were 'not the right sort....badly educated' or at the best infantile and closed. Now this arrogance always drives me to distraction wherever i find it.
Lewis does not seem to have set out to educate or help or encourage or enhance but sneer and self congratulate. Yes, his book was full of witty phrases which had me smiling and yes there were really insightful moments in which I found myself thinking 'wow, i had never thought of it like that' and yes he is quite evidently an intelligent and courageous thinker but my overriding feeling was....'you are an arrogant prick' which perhaps made me not as open to him as I ought to have been. However he has to play a part in that failure because holding forth and belittling just drives people back into corners and once in corners most of us will fight bullies and Mr Lewis is an intellectual bully and i did not like him.
He has the underlying anti-semitism of the upper echelons of so much of Western Society of the 1920's and 1930's almost without his seeming to realize it. Speaking of certain words entering the lexicon, these
...have come from the Jews, whose progress in business is a good deal faster than their progress in English
This awkward statement just imbibes archetypes or caricatures without even thinking and yet he comes down like a ton of bricks on other authors' lazy thinking or writing.
His comments can be funny if scathing: Two examples.
On Oscar Wilde
when he was engaged in stealing from foreign authors or pillaging less-known English ones
on realist writers
Their Arthuriads tend to convert the grail into a pot de chambre - not of the Maids of Honour, but of the small house-drudge
but overall i found him arrogant, sneery and singularly attractive I know that, in itself, should not take away from what he was saying but i am afraid it did alienate me and so i cannot be arsed to write anything approaching a proper review. There was insight and interest here but Wyndham Lewis deserves a rant rather than anything more substantial......so there.
Hmmmm. Well, one thing is certain, Wyndham certainly adores himself. He has a very high opinion of his own thoughts, ideas and writings. He reminded me a little of the story about the preface Lord Longford is supposed to have written for a re-publication of one of his books in which he is said to have written
'I wrote a book on humility a few years ago, in my opinion nobody has written a better one since'.
Now i have never actually found a copy of that sentence even though i scour copies of his work everytime I find one in a second hand book shop but i live in hope. With dear Mr Lewis the scouring is not the problem. His arrogant self conceit sings fairly discordantly throughout this collection of extended essays on various writers ranging from Hemingway and Faulkner to Woolf and Henry James.
He dissects and reflects on the influence for good and ill of these writers and he has an extended defence of the centrality to the well being of society of Satire and Art. His argument being that contemporary art, for contemproary read 1934, is largely satiric or comic and is an assault on the philistinism and short-sighted blandness of his peers and so the two things go hand in hand.
This was a hard going book for breakfast reading, I really need to pick some lighter stuff to aid my digestion sometimes. (It is an unwritten rule for myself that I do not read novels at mealtimes and as I live alone that means i get to read quite a lot then.) He is supremely dismissive of 'the Plain reader who he has saying
A novel, that is art I suppose. I like a good novel - I am a youngish Plain Man and I don't mind a spot of love, but I prefer mystery; give me a good gory murder all the time.......
he continues on in this vein on the very first page for a paragraph or two and probably thus succeeded in alienating anyone who had picked his book up to try to stretch their minds a little. All that person would encounter would be a sneering disregard towards them because they were 'not the right sort....badly educated' or at the best infantile and closed. Now this arrogance always drives me to distraction wherever i find it.
Lewis does not seem to have set out to educate or help or encourage or enhance but sneer and self congratulate. Yes, his book was full of witty phrases which had me smiling and yes there were really insightful moments in which I found myself thinking 'wow, i had never thought of it like that' and yes he is quite evidently an intelligent and courageous thinker but my overriding feeling was....'you are an arrogant prick' which perhaps made me not as open to him as I ought to have been. However he has to play a part in that failure because holding forth and belittling just drives people back into corners and once in corners most of us will fight bullies and Mr Lewis is an intellectual bully and i did not like him.
He has the underlying anti-semitism of the upper echelons of so much of Western Society of the 1920's and 1930's almost without his seeming to realize it. Speaking of certain words entering the lexicon, these
...have come from the Jews, whose progress in business is a good deal faster than their progress in English
This awkward statement just imbibes archetypes or caricatures without even thinking and yet he comes down like a ton of bricks on other authors' lazy thinking or writing.
His comments can be funny if scathing: Two examples.
On Oscar Wilde
when he was engaged in stealing from foreign authors or pillaging less-known English ones
on realist writers
Their Arthuriads tend to convert the grail into a pot de chambre - not of the Maids of Honour, but of the small house-drudge
but overall i found him arrogant, sneery and singularly attractive I know that, in itself, should not take away from what he was saying but i am afraid it did alienate me and so i cannot be arsed to write anything approaching a proper review. There was insight and interest here but Wyndham Lewis deserves a rant rather than anything more substantial......so there.
July 26, 2021
kinda unfocused like quite a lot of his criticism seems to be but there's some good observations and interesting passages in here. the chapters on faulkner, hemingway and ts eliot are particularly good.
April 22, 2020
Lewis is an Artist.
An artist wielding a sword of contradictory qualities.
An artist playing the role of a kshatriya.
Lewis shows the value of Art that once was, and the commercial and popularized child's play that art now is.
art now has become an aphrodisiac of dyspeptic and deracinating kind spread amongst the masses in a guise of an overly moralizing and empty aesthetic, covered in a thick rosy slime of romanticism.
You will be hard pressed to categorize his political beliefs, and so would I.
To sum it up Lewis is near to what is known nowadays as "third position".
Prophetic Art at its best.
An artist wielding a sword of contradictory qualities.
An artist playing the role of a kshatriya.
Lewis shows the value of Art that once was, and the commercial and popularized child's play that art now is.
art now has become an aphrodisiac of dyspeptic and deracinating kind spread amongst the masses in a guise of an overly moralizing and empty aesthetic, covered in a thick rosy slime of romanticism.
You will be hard pressed to categorize his political beliefs, and so would I.
To sum it up Lewis is near to what is known nowadays as "third position".
Prophetic Art at its best.
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May 4, 2017classic
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews