[Vwoolf] News relevant to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury

Thu Sep 13 18:34:26 EDT 2018

From: Brenda S. Helt [mailto:helt0010 at umn.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2018 3:03 PM
To: 'Todd Nordgren'
Cc: harish.trivedi at gmail.com; vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: RE: [Vwoolf] News relevant to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury

Thanks Todd.  I want to emphasize, though, that my list is honestly lazy and extremely not thorough.  Interest in Eastern and Asian art, culture, aesthetics, and religion was fairly common to the core Bloomsberries, in various degrees, and if you expand “Bloomsbury” to include folks like Plomer (or Vita, for that matter), it’s very wide-spread.  So the below is fascinating, but my msg really was very lazy and deplorably partial and incomplete.  I’ll now lazily add Christopher Reed’s recent book Bachelor Japanists: Japanese Aesthetics & Western Masculinities to the list for those interested in what Todd says below.  A marked interest in Japan and Japanism (so Western ideas about Japan) was a way for gay men of the early 20th C (and earlier, and later) to connect with each other.  To covertly out themselves to each other.  But it’s a good-sized book with many complex and thoughtful arguments, case-studies, solid historical scholarship so my sentence about it is merely meant as a glimpse.  Reed is also a Woolf and Bloomsbury scholar, so his sections on modernism are appropriate to what Todd says below, though the book is not really about the Bloomsberries and doesn’t mention Plomer.

Brenda

Brenda Helt

Co-editor Queer Bloomsbury (with Madelyn Detloff)

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-queer-bloomsbury.html

Fine artist

http://www.brendahelt.com <http://www.brendahelt.com/>  

From: Todd Nordgren [mailto:toddnordgren at u.northwestern.edu] 
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2018 1:00 PM
To: helt0010 at umn.edu
Cc: harish.trivedi at gmail.com; vwoolf at lists.osu.edu
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] News relevant to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury

To Brenda's thorough list I would also add William Plomer, a novelist and poet of the younger generation, who lived in Japan for three years (1926-29) after leaving his homeland of South Africa. Plomer's interest in Japanese culture, too, stemmed from his association of Japan with queer sexualities. His biographer, Peter Alexander, provides a delightful story about Virginia bringing Plomer to Quentin Bell's 19th birthday party at Charleston only a few months after he arrived in England from Japan, where he first met Roger Fry, Duncan Grant, Vanessa, and Clive, among many others of the group. The Woolfs and Forster showed deep interest in his thoughts on Japan and Japanese art and literature, and he often gave talks on the subject. In Japan, Guan Yin is often called "Kannon" or "Kwannon" (which, as I just learned from a bit of diving on wikipedia, was the inspiration for the name of the camera company, Canon).

On Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 2:08 PM Brenda S. Helt via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

Indeed, several of the Bloomsberries were very interested in, even fascinated by, Asian religions, in large part because they understood some of them to maintain positive queer religious ideas and traditions.  You could see for instance Antony Copley’s A Spiritual Bloomsbury on this topic.  Forster’s interest is perhaps most well-known, thanks to the popularity of A Passage to India.  Wendy Moffat’s biography of Forster, A Great Unrecorded History delves into that interest in detail.  Some of the essays in Queer Forster also discuss this.  Bill Maurer discusses Maynard Keynes’ and Duncan Grant’s interests in Eastern art, aesthetics, and religions (which are not really different things, entirely) in an essay in Queer Bloomsbury whose title makes it seem not to be at all about this topic:  “Redecorating the International Economy: Keynes, Grant and the Queering of Bretton Woods.”  And Simon Watney discusses Grant’s interest repeatedly and in detail in his The Art of Duncan Grant.  And all this is just me being a little lazy and also promoting my baby, Queer Bloomsbury, as that’s just what I turned around and quickly pulled from my shelves.  Others will surely chime in and add to this for you.

Slàinte!

Brenda

Brenda Helt

Co-editor Queer Bloomsbury (with Madelyn Detloff)

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-queer-bloomsbury.html

Fine artist

http://www.brendahelt.com <http://www.brendahelt.com/>  

From: Vwoolf [mailto:vwoolf-bounces+helt0010 <mailto:vwoolf-bounces%2Bhelt0010> =umn.edu at lists.osu.edu] On Behalf Of Harish Trivedi via Vwoolf
Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2018 11:04 AM
To: kschepis at gmail.com
Cc: vwoolf listserve
Subject: Re: [Vwoolf] News relevant to Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury

Many thanks, Krista Schepis, and that is not only prompt but also quite convincing and conclusive! 

Kuan Yin, more often spelt Guan Yin, is indeed the Chinese goddess of mercy and compassion. Before getting transported and transformed to China, she was a he in India, a frequently depicted Buddhist deity called the Avalokiteshvara (aka Padmapani, the Lotus-in-Hand figure). One of the most famous representations of this deity is from the caves of Ajanta in central India. (For starters, Wikipedia has a sound enough entry, including a reproduction of this iconic mural.) 

A kitsch statue I bought of Guan Yin some years ago in Hong Kong showed her holding a pot in one hand with its narrow mouth facing down, from which water would drip, drop by slow drop, into the mouth of a crocodile lying at the feet of the goddess. "It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven..."  And this was supposed to go on perpetually, until the water needed to be replenished in our hot climate. 

I look forward to seeing a sharper image of the figure at Charleston. 

Did Roger Fry ever write about this or any other Indian/Chinese figures?    

Best wishes.     

Harish Trivedi 

On Thu, 13 Sep 2018 at 22:49, Krista Schepis <kschepis at gmail.com> wrote:

Greetings,

I believe I have found information about this statue on this page, https://www.charleston.org.uk/charleston-room-by-room/, clicking "The Studio" as the room of interest. 

This site tells us: "The walls are deliberately painted in neutral tones as a background for paintings. The fireplace decorations, a pair of florid caryatids painted by Duncan Grant onto wooden panels around 1935, provide a focus for the room. The tiles behind the stove are by Vanessa Bell, c.1925-30. The figure of the Chinese Goddess of Mercy, Kuan Yin, on the mantel shelf is a cast of a sixth century AD original which was owned by Roger Fry."

Not sure if that's the one you were thinking of....

Best,

Krista Schepis

On Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 1:11 PM Harish Trivedi via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

Would anyone know what that Hindu/Buddhist statue is right in the centre of the mantelpiece? I had no idea any of the Bloomsbury group were into appreciating Indian art, much less collecting it. 

Any info most welcome. A sharper image of that sculpture would be welcome too. 

Best wishes to all.  

Harish Trivedi 

On Thu, 13 Sep 2018 at 21:37, Neverow, Vara S. via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu> wrote:

Greetings,

Three articles on Charleston--the expansion and the acquisition of Duncan Grant's famous women plates. One on the Bloomsbury Hotel.

Vara

https://thespaces.com/the-bloomsbury-groups-storied-charleston-house-expands/

 <https://thespaces.com/the-bloomsbury-groups-storied-charleston-house-expands/> 

 <https://thespaces.com/the-bloomsbury-groups-storied-charleston-house-expands/> The Bloomsbury Group’s storied Charleston house expands

thespaces.com

With a new gallery by Jamie Fobert Architects

https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/bloomsbury-group-s-country-home-to-open-all-year-round 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/sep/06/famous-women-orlando-charleston-review-grant-bell-bloomsbury

 <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/sep/06/famous-women-orlando-charleston-review-grant-bell-bloomsbury> 

 <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/sep/06/famous-women-orlando-charleston-review-grant-bell-bloomsbury> Famous Women/Orlando at Charleston review – the fundamental daftness of Grant and Bell

www.theguardian.com

A jokey Famous Women Dinner Service and a faint celebration of Woolf’s novel Orlando are lightweight openers for the Bloomsbury Group shrine’s spacious new galleries

And...one more review of the Bloomsbury Hotel. 

https://sg.asiatatler.com/life/hotel-review-tatler-checks-into-the-bloomsbury-hotel-in-london

Vara Neverow
Department of English
Southern Connecticut State University
New Haven, CT 06515
203-392-6717
neverowv1 at southernct.edu

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-- 

Todd Nordgren
Visiting Assistant Professor

Department of English
Northwestern University

 <mailto:toddnordgren at u.northwestern.edu> toddnordgren at u.northwestern.edu

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