Bloomsbury, Part II

Clive Bell's Study at Charleston

I knew I wanted to write a follow-up on my recent post about the Bloomsbury Group, and decided there's no time like the present! The earlier post seemed somehow incomplete without an exploration of "Charleston"--Vanessa Bell's country house in England, where she and her Bloomsbury friends hung out. And believe me, they did more than just hang out. They decorated virtually every surface of the house with murals, pictures and designs. Look around: walls, mantles, bookcases, door panels, furniture--no surface was spared! They even made their own pottery tablewares.

Dining Room at Charleston, with stenciled walls and pottery by Quentin Bell

Charleston is located in the Sussex countryside. The original reason for going there in 1916 was rather practical: Duncan Grant and David Garnett were conscientious objectors in World War I, and to be exempted from fighting, they were

So Very Bloomsbury!

Photo of Study at Charlotte Street Hotel,
courtesy Charlotte Street Hotel

On my recent trip to London, I stayed in the Bloomsbury district. My hotel, Charlotte Street Hotel, featured interior design inspired by The Bloomsbury Group, who lived and met in the area, and took their name from it. Staying there, I definitely started to get the Bloomsbury vibe! 

A loose confederation formed in the early 20th century, The Bloomsbury Group (or "Bloomsberries", as they sometimes called themselves) included artists, poets, writers, economists, and intellectuals of various stripes. Radicals and Bohemians all, they mounted a full-fledged rebellion against all the conventions of the Victorian era--political, religious, sexual, philosophic and artistic. 

Painting by Vanseea Bell, in Library at Charlotte Street Hotel

"Basket of Flowers"

Vanessa Bell

Scratch the surface, and you will find a thousand connections among the Bloomsberries, and some familiar names as well. One prominent member, Vanessa Bell, was the sister of the

It's Black and White

Arthur Wesley Dow

I have recently been thinking a lot about notans, and trying to use them more in my painting process. What, you might ask, is a notan?  "Notan" is a Japanese word that means, roughly, "light-dark balance". I think of a notan as a black and white image of the subject. I am coming to believe that the notan is an invaluable tool in making good compositions, and therefore good paintings.

Left: James McNeill Whistler, "Symphony in White No. 2,
The Little White Girl", oil on canvas, 1864

A painting involves many elements. But at its heart, it's the arrangement of dark and light shapes that makes or breaks the painting. A painting that is broken up into a bunch of random areas of dark and light appears "dot-y" and busy. It's