Vanessa Bell Essay

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CHAPTER 3
AN EXPERIMENT IN ABSTRACTION (1910-1915)

This chapter focuses on Bell’s abstraction of the domestic interior following the first Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1910. Sections in this chapter will be devoted to images of women indoors, portraiture, and still life and will conclude with the series of entirely non-representational works that Bell painted from late 1914 to early 1915. Together, these works focus not only on Bell’s pursuit of pure abstraction but also on the design of interior space as an ongoing source of inspiration in developing alternative models of modernity. Her works during this period present a new vision of the feminine interior in which the modern ideologies of domesticity, where the home was seen as the …show more content…
Encountering the exhibition for the first time, Vanessa Bell would famously remark that she had experienced a “possible path” and a “sudden liberation and encouragement to feel for oneself which were absolutely overwhelming.” One of the first artists in England to pursue pure abstraction, it is this sentiment which marked the theme of Bell’s work produced at this time. As noted earlier, the exhibition focused on works by French artists practicing and experimenting in abstraction in the period following Impressionism. Among these artists were Manet, Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso, and Gauguin. All of these artists would became points of reference for Bell, who, intent on developing new ways of representing and validating the domestic interior within modernity, would begin to cultivate and then expand this modern style into her domestic scenes. During this time, her …show more content…
Whether depicting a scene of women and children, women in intimate conversation, or women in their studios, Bell used abstraction to explore the site of the home and with it, new models for negotiating modern spaces. As noted in chapter one, rather than the strict environment of the Victorian home, the early twentieth-century domestic interior became a site for creativity for
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