Bloomsbury and France: Art and Friends

by Mary Ann Caws, Sarah Bird Wright

Overview

"Bloomsbury on the Mediterranean," is how Vanessa Bell described France in a letter to her sister, Virginia Woolf. Remarking on the vivifying effect of Cassis, Woolf herself said, "I will take my mind out of its iron cage and let it swim.... Complete heaven, I think it." Yet until now there has never been a book that focused on the profound influence of France on the Bloomsbury group. In Bloomsbury and France: Art and Friends, Mary Ann Caws and Sarah Bird Wright reveal the crucial importance of the Bloomsbury group's frequent sojourns to France, the artists and writers they met there, and the liberating effect of the country itself. Drawing upon many previously unpublished letters, memoirs, and photographs, the book illuminates the artistic development of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Clive Bell, David Garnett, E. M. Forster, Lytton Strachey, Dora Carrington, and others. The authors cover all aspects of the Bloomsbury experience in France, from the specific influence of French painting on the work of Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, and Vanessa Bell, to the heady atmosphere of the medieval Cistercian Abbaye de Pontigny, the celebrated meeting place of French intellectuals where Lytton Strachey, Julian Bell, and Charles Mauron mingled with writers and critics, to the relationships between the Bloomsbury group and Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Andre Gide, Jean Marchand, and many others. Caws and Wright argue that Bloomsbury would have been very different without France, that France was their anti-England, a culture in which their eccentricities and aesthetic experiments could flower. This remarkable study offers a rich new perspective on perhaps the most creative group of artists and friends in the 20th century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199923632
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/02/1999
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	13 MB
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About the Author

Mary Ann Caws is Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature, CUNY Graduate School and is the author of Women of Bloomsbury: Virginia, Vanessa, and Carrington. She lives in New York City. Sarah Bird Wright is an independent scholar and the author of many books, including Edith Wharton A to Z: The Essential Guide to the Life and Work. She lives in Midlothian, Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

This richly illustrated volume documents the influence of all things French on the lives and work of some of the major figures in the Bloomsbury group, including Roger Fry, Lytton Strachey, Dora Carrington, Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell, and Virginia Woolf. Relying heavily on memoirs, diaries, and letters--some of which remain unpublished--Caws (comparative literature, CUNY) and Wright (Edith Wharton A to Z) provide a detailed account of the group's activities on the other side of the channel: the foods they ate, the wines they drank, the plays they attended, and the people they befriended. They argue that, despite differences in language and cultural heritage, Bloomsbury's encounter with French artists and intellectuals, from Andr Gide to Charles Mauron, "resulted in a remarkable reshaping of their aesthetic and literary ideals." A solid piece of scholarship, this thorough study is best suited for graduate students and scholars, particularly those interested in a comparative approach.--William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

"My lifelong devotion to Bloomsbury has been to Bloomsbury in England. Here, to my delight, I find all there is to know about Bloomsbury in France. This is an original, readable, and compelling account of Bloomsbury across the channel. A book not to be missed."—Carolyn Heilbrun, Professor Emerita, Columbia University, and author of Writing a Woman's Life

"This is an original and excellent idea—to link Bloomsbury to France. For although every memoir and biography of members of this famous group of friends mentions their frequent excursions to France, this is the first time that a proper emphasis has been given to their delight in French civilization and culture. For all of them, France was their second country. They were drawn to it as if by a magnet, and its influence on Bloomsbury literature and art deserved to be celebrated, as it has been in this magnificent book."—Nigel Nicolson, Editor, Letters of Virginia Woolf

From the Publisher