A Feisty Evening with Isobel Dixon, Douglas Robertson and D. H. Lawrence

Isobel Dixon, Douglas Robertson & D. H. Lawrence

 

 

I. 

 

A couple of nights ago, I went to the National Poetry Library - which, for those who don't know, is housed on the fifth floor of the Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre - for what was billed as a D. H. Lawrence celebration, with particular focus being given to the collection of poems entitled Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923).

 

The event also called attention to a recent book by the South African poet Isobel Dixon, produced in collaboration with the highly acclaimed Scottish artist Douglas Robertson who provided a dozen finely detailed illustrations: A Whistling of Birds (Nine Arches Press, 2023).

 

II. 

 

Whilst this work is essentially a response to Lawrence's text - and his short essay 'Whistling of Birds' (1919) lends the book its name - Dixon also invites others, including William Blake, Emily Dickinson and Ted Hughes into the conversation, whilst still finding time to make her own distinctive voice heard. 

 

It's a work that will leave the majority of members of the D. H. Lawrence Society very happy, as it uncritically reinforces the idea of Lawrence as a nature lover in the English Romantic tradition and a poet with an almost uncanny ontological insight into the essence of birds, beasts, and flowers. 

And in their hour long presentation at the NPL, this idea of Lawrence was further reinforced; it was almost as if the important challenge thrown down by the Indian author Amit Chaudhuri twenty-odd years ago to read Lawrence's poetry in light of poststructuralist theory has been completely forgotten [1].

 

Which is profoundly unfortunate in my view. For it results in an interpretation of Lawrence that not only fails to understand the radical nature of his aesthetic, but means he is sold short as a thinker-poet whose primary object is language. 

 

It's because Lawrence writes so well, that we believe he has captured the true nature or being of a snake, for example, when, actually, he dissolves such essentialism based on the idea of a fixed identity into a game of difference and becoming - which is why philosophers including Derrida and Deleuze are such admirers of Lawrence's poetry [2].     

 

 

III. 

 

Just to be clear: I enjoyed the event and wish Dixon and Robertson every success with their book (which has already garnered considerable praise).

 

However, they disappointed by refusing to take Lawrence seriously as a writer; preferring instead to think of him in all too human terms (thus the frequent references to biographical details, as if these somehow might illuminate the text or explain away its complex and often troubling character). 

They also disappointed by dismissing Lawrence's work as a painter in a lighthearted manner, saying it simply wasn't very good. Again, without wanting to go into too much detail here - as I've written at length on this subject elsewhere - this simply betrays an ignorance of what it is Lawrence is attempting to do on canvas; namely, produce an art of sensation that is concerned with the invisible forces and flows that shape the flesh via what Deleuze terms a very special violence. 

 

His is a non-representational depiction of the body without organs and therefore Lawrence is not overly concerned with anatomical fidelity, or reducing figures to the level of optical cliché. In other words, he is not trying capture a likeness and, by his own admission, his pictures are rolling in faults of technique - but that doesn't matter; Lawrence is not so much interested in that which is merely true-to-life, but that which is more true-to-life (we might call this phallic realism).   

 

In sum: just as Lawrence's poetry is primarily involved with language and the assembling of textual abstractions, his painting is involved with colour, line, and the forces of chaos; a violence that works upon the flesh and upon the canvas, distorting and deforming bodies and liberating pictures from the tyranny of the stereotype; a violence that knows nothing of symbolism or signification and cares nothing for narrative or illustration (for if painting has no model to depict, neither has it a story to tell).

 

Lawrence may not be a great painter, or even a very good one. But he's a better one than his critics realise - and a far more intelligent and sophisticated writer than they think him too.   

  

One of Robertson's illustrations for A Whistling of Birds (2023) feat. a squirrel 

next to Lawrence's astonishing Ink Sketch (1929) feat. a nude man and woman 

within a field of rhythm and desire demonstrating how waves 

of inorganic life exceed the bounds of organic activity.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Amit Chaudhuri, D. H. Lawrence and 'Difference': Postcoloniality and the Poetry of the Present, (Oxford University Press, 2003). 

      I have discussed this book and made reference to it elsewhere on this blog: click here. I might not agree with everything Chaudhuri says, but this is an important text whose challenge to the (almost wilfully naive) manner in which Lawrence is usually portrayed and his writing interpreted has still not been met by many within the Lawrence world.

 

[2] See for example Derrida's discussion of Lawrence's poem 'Snake' in volume one of The Beast and the Sovereign, trans. Geoffrey Bennington, edited by Michel Lisse, Marie-Louise Mallet, and Ginette Michaud (Chicago University Press, 2009).

      Readers might also be interested in a post dated 17 July 2015 on Lawrence, Derrida, and the snake: click here.

 

 

Re the use of the word feisty in the title of this post: click here. 

 

This post is for Chloe Rose Campbell and Tamara Ber.   

 

Reflections on Stephen Alexander's 'Lascivious' (1985) - A Guest Post by Sally Guaragna

 

Fig. 1: Stephen Alexander: Lascivious

 Oil on canvas (c. 1985) 

 

 

Stephen Alexander's aureate canvas entitled Lascivious depicting a rather shy and youthful-looking faun sharing a coital embrace with a flame-haired and sexually more experienced nymph, is, sadly, lost to the world: destroyed by the artist's sister in an act of malice that displayed sororal spite, philistine contempt for culture, and a previously unsuspected streak of puritanism [1]. 

 

The painting, which, as the title indicates, is essentially a reimagining of one of Agostino Carracci's erotic prints (c. 1590-95) [2], also betrays the influence of Van Gogh with its dynamic starry night sky and use of warm, radiant golden-yellow [3] (Alexander was at the time an avid reader of the Dutch artist's letters and kept a postcard featuring Vincent's self-portrait with a bandaged ear by his bedside). 

 

We also discover something of D. H. Lawrence's painting style in Alexander's canvas; see for example Lawrence's Fauns and Nymphs (1927) which features a golden-brown satyr embracing a large-breasted sun-nymph; and see also Lawrence's 1928 painting entitled Close-Up (Kiss), which may have influenced Alexander's compositional decision to simply produce a headshot of his mythological lovers (as well as the picture's golden-yellow colouring). 

 

Like Lawrence, Alexander seems primarily concerned with the invisible forces of desire that work upon the flesh and distort and deform bodies, caring little for anatomical fidelity. Deleuze terms such an art of sensation - an art that is neither representational nor symbolist.  

 

Lascivious is not, therefore, the work of an innocent Sunday painter; it's a philosophical gesture born of Alexander's libidinally material - essentially pagan - worldview. Very deliberately and with joy - though perhaps not with great subtlety or success - he promotes a Lawrentian concept of phallic tenderness in a manner that is not so much all'antica (despite the mythological theme) as très moderne.

 

Figs. 2-4

For details see note [4] below. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The digial image shown here is taken from a photo of the painting in the artist's possession.

 

[2] Agostino Carracci (1557-1602) was an Italian artist recognised internationally as one of the finest engravers of his time. 

      Between 1590-1595, he produced a financially rewarding series of fifteen erotic works known as the Lascivie, inspired by a notorious earlier set of prints known as I modi (c. 1524-27) engraved by Marcantonio, after drawings by Giulio Romano and illustrating various sexual acts and positions.

      Whilst enhancing his reputation amongst wealthy collectors of such works, Carracci's prints elicited censure from the Church which inveighed against works of an openly sexual nature even when they were given a mytho-classical veneer in an attempt to make them appear less salacious and the men who took pleasure in contemplating the images seem cultured rather than just pervy.

 

[3] Alexander discusses his love for the colour yellow (with reference to the works of Van Gogh) in a post on Torpedo the Ark entitled 'How Beautiful Yellow Is' (1 May 2024): click here.

 

[4] Fig. 2: Agostino Carracci, A Satyr and Nymph Embracing, print from an engraving (150 x 102 mm), British Museum, London. One of fifteen in the series Lascivie (c. 1590-95).

      Fig. 3: D. H. Lawrence, detail from Fauns and Nymphs (1927), oil on canvas (95 x 80 cm). 

      Fig. 4: D. H. Lawrence, Close-Up (Kiss) (1928), oil on canvas (45 x 37.5 cm). 

 

Art critic Sally Guaragna has written two other posts for Torpedo the Ark. Click here to read  Reflections on Stephen Alexander's 'When the Moon Hits Your Eye' (5 May 2023) and/or here to read Reflections on Stephen Alexander's 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' (6 August 2024). 

On the Ball with D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence: Spring (c. January 1929)

watercolour (30 x 22.5 cm)

 

 

I. 

 

John Worthen's short piece in the latest Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies [1] concerning Lawrence's time as a pupil-teacher in Eastwood, is interesting for the revelation that the latter liked nothing better than to arrange an informal kickabout in the school playground during the lunch break, using bricks - and perhaps even jumpers - for goal posts. 

 

Although it seems Lawrence did not himself participate as a player, he was happy to act as a referee and so clearly understood the rules of the beautiful game - just like any other working-class lad at the time - even if there is no evidence (so far) to suggest he supported a local team [2].

 

Knowing this allows us to look at the above painting - Spring (1929) - with fresh eyes; perhaps Lawrence was not merely painting some local youths in the lovely French seaside resort of Bandol celebrating the scoring of a goal during a soccer match, but also fondly recalling the passion with which his own pupils at the Albert Street School would play the game ...

 

 

II.  

 

Funny enough, this picture by Lawrence is one that Keith Sagar seems to particularly loathe:

 

"Spring is supposed to be a painting of some boys in Bandol playing football, but by removing the blue shirts they wore in the first version of the painting, leaving them wearing nothing but boots, and by having all but one of them engage in activities which, whether homoerotic or not, have certainly nothing to do with the ball, he produces a ludicrous painting." [3]

 

The problem, however, is that whilst Sagar was a great Lawrence scholar, he was not, alas, a very good art critic and he misses the opportunity to recognise Lawrence's importance as a painter [4]. There is, I would suggest, a very special violence - and, indeed, a very special beauty - that emerges from his canvases as part of an art of sensation.

 

Lawrence does not wish to reduce his figures to the level of optical cliché; he is not trying to capture a likeness! Nor is he simply revealing and celebrating the flesh, he is rather pushing it in the direction of deformation and disfiguration (anatomical fidelity is no more an issue for Lawrence than it was for Cézanne).  

And so, returning to Spring ... 

 

Expecting and wanting to see an actual game of football, Sagar is irritated by the fact that Lawrence provides sensation rather than spectacle and that he is as uninterested in the score-line, the colour of the kits, or the intricacies of the offside rule, as the boys who play for the joy felt by healthy young bodies exerting themselves, the love of team mates, the ecstasy of celebration, etc. 

 

Spring demonstrates Lawrence's appreciation of the fact that football - and, indeed, sport in general - expresses and liberates certain vital forces and flows.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See John Worthen, 'D. H. Lawrence as Games Organiser and Football Referee', Journal of D. H. Lawrence Studies, Volume 6, Number 3, ed. Susan Reid  (D. H. Lawrence Society, 2023), pp. 11-16.    

[2] Lawrence might have supported Notts County; the oldest professional football club in the world, formed in 1862; or Nottingham Forest, formed three years later; or Derby County, formed in 1884, and one of the twelve founding members of the Football League in 1888.

 

[3] Keith Sagar, Introduction to D. H. Lawrence's Paintings, (Chaucer Press, 2003), p. 68.

[4] What I mean by this is that Sagar thinks it sufficient to carefully establish the connections between Lawrence's life, writing, and painting, thereby framing the pictures in a bio-literary context. But in simply substituting snippets of biographical detail, personal anecdote, and literary criticism for a genuine analysis of Lawrence's paintings - i.e., one that is written in the terms appropriate to a discussion of a practice primarily concerned with colour and line - Sagar produces a somewhat pointless commentary which not only betrays his own ignorance of the plastic arts, but also his ultimate lack of confidence in Lawrence’s ability to draw.