I began researching British Modernism for a research project at UAL. British Modernism is a movement from ‘the early decades of the 20th century which sought a new alignment with the experience and values of modern industrial life.’ (The Tate).
In order to give my research on British Modernism direction, I began researching pieces from The Tate Britain of this period. Three pieces stood out to me in particular which are:
- The Mud Bath, David Bomberg (1914)
- View of a Town, Edward Wadsworth (c.1918)
- 1935 (White Relief), Ben Nicholson OM (1935)
The Mud Bath:
This piece depicts a scene of people using the steam baths near Bomberg’s home in East London. The reason why this piece caught my eye in particular is due to the use of bold contrasting colours paired with white and a more neutral tone to create a harmonious image. I was also fascinated by the way he depicts people through the use of geometric shapes. Bomberg described his process of reducing humans to simple geometric shapes as ‘searching for an intenser expression…where I have used Naturalistic Form I have stripped it of all irrelevant matter.’ (The Tate Britain).
Bomberg belonged to a group of artists known as the vorticists; the intention behind art created by this group was to communicate the modern world by using machines and the modern environment (The Tate Britain).
View of a Town:
The next piece is an abstract view of an industrial town made from interlocking roofs and chimneys. Again, this piece caught my attention due to the use of geometric shapes to depict a scene. There is something fascinating about reducing more complicated elements to simple geometric shapes. In contrast with the first piece, I was drawn to the lack of colour.
1935 (White Relief):
The final piece I began researching is pictured below. Again I was drawn to the shapes used however this time shapes have been used to create an abstract piece. The monochromatic nature of this work makes it even more striking. The simplicity of the art provided an aesthetic model for a possible social harmony (The Tate Britain).