Adoration of the Golden Calf

The Adoration of the Golden Calf – image from the 

Hortus deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg 

(12th century)

 

I.

 

According to the Book of Exodus [1], the golden calf was a cult idol made by the Israelites when Moses was for forty days and nights at Mount Sinai being entrusted with a ten point list of commandments inscribed by YHWH himself on two tablets of stone. 

 

To be fair, slipping back into bull worship is tempting at the best of times - even when, ironically, the very first two of the above commandments read: Thou shalt have no other gods before me and Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. 

 

Unfortunately, six weeks is a long time for a fanatically religious people to be left without an idol to worship and, fearing Moses might never return, they convinced his brother, Aaron, to make them such. And so Aaron constructed a golden calf and an altar to place before it, declaring: This is your god, O Israel!       

 

Before long, the people were making burnt offerings to their new deity and feasting and dancing in front of the lustrous bull. Happy days ...!   

 

Yahweh, of course, soon discovered what was going on and was not best pleased; he told Moses that he intended to destroy the Israelites. Fortunately, Moses was able to persuade God to be merciful. But when he returned from the mountain and saw the golden calf, Moses found himself in a rage and threw down the Tablets of Stone, breaking them on the ground. 

 

Further, he burnt the golden calf, ground it to powder, mixed this with water, and then forced the Israelites to drink up.   

 

 

II.

 

What has this biblical story got to do with us today? 

 

Quite a lot if, like Jordan Peterson, you passionately believe that such tales still have things of vital importance to teach us; warning, for example, as this tale does, about the dangers of false gods, materialism, and hedonistic self-gratification [2].   

 

If, however, like me, you're not quite so exercised about these things - viewing Abrahamic religions to be far more dangerous in their idealism, self-denial, and claims to absolute Truth than false gods, etc. - then probably not so much. 

I've never seen a golden calf - and certainly never worshipped one. And when I hear mention of the golden calf, I don't think of the ancient Jews messing around in Egypt. I think, rather, of the bohemian set who used to frequent the notorious London nightclub called The Cave of the Golden Calf ... 

Opened in the summer of 1912 by the Austrian writer Frida Strindberg - wife of the famous Swedish playwright - The Cave of the Golden Calf was the last gasp of late-19th century decadence, as epitomised by Oscar Wilde and his gang of aesthetes (i.e., young men who liked to wear nail varnish and drink iced champagne or sip absinthe in order to see the world as they wished to see it, for a short while at least). 

 

Located in the basement of 3-9 Heddon Street, in Mayfair, it was a favourite haunt of aristos, artists, and intellectuals trying to recreate a European caberet vibe. It was decorated by the painter Spencer Gore, with contributions by Jacob Epstein and Wyndham Lewis. Sculptor Eric Gill, meanwhile, designed the club's motif; a phallic Golden Calf - symbol of biblical dissipation and idolatry.

 

Regular guests of the establishment included many of the usual suspects; Ezra Pound, Katherine Mansfield, Ford Maddox Ford, Augustus John, et al. I can't imagine, however, that it would've been the kind of place that D. H. Lawrence would have been happy in, even if he was friendly with several of the above.  

 

The Cave of the Golden Calf - a place given up to gaiety - closed its doors shortly before the outbreak of war in 1914; not as a response to the seriousness of the times, but because it went bankrupt, Mme. Strindberg heading West to the States and leaving a trail of debts behind her. 

 

Today, members of the LGBT community claim The Cave of the Golden Calf as the prototype of London's gay bars and clubs and the site is home to one of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants.      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See Exodus 32: click here for the version found in the King James Bible. 

 

[2] Peterson - wearing his amazing(ly ugly) dreamcoat - insists that worshippers of the golden calf were "dancing around naked, drunk" and describes what went on as a "Pride parade" (i.e., the surrendering to immature instincts). Click here to watch a six minute video on YouTube in which Peterson shares his thoughts (with Russell Brand) on the story of the golden calf. 

A Blast From the Past

Wyndham Lewis photographed by George Charles Beresford in 1913

Front cover of the first edition of his Vorticist magazine Blast (1914)

 

"We start from opposite statements of a chosen world. 

Set up violent structure of adolescent clearness between two extremes."

 

 

I. 

 

Despite the fact that there has been renewed critical interest in his work and he is now regarded as a major British artist and writer of the twentieth century, the figure of Wyndham Lewis doesn't mean a great deal to me.  

 

Indeed, I sometimes confuse him with his friend Ezra Pound (to be fair, both were controversial figures associated with the avant-garde movement known as Vorticism and both were unpleasant characters - talented, certainly, but unpleasant).       

 

This year, however, marks the 110th anniversary of Lewis's magazine Blast and I thought I might say something about this short-lived publication in which he advanced the aesthetic ideals of Vorticism on the one hand and vilified his enemies (which, by this date, included Marinetti) on the other.    

 

 

II. 

 

When I say that Blast was short-lived, I mean it was short-lived. In fact, only two editions were ever published; the first in July 1914 and the second in July 1915. Both were primarily written (and edited) by Lewis - although other contributors included Pound, Epstein, and Rebecca West - and both cost 2/6 (or half-a-crown to you and me). 

Although the second issue doubtless contained some interesting material - including poems by T. S. Eliot and a short play by Pound - it's the first issue with its punk-looking bright pink cover that is recognised as a seminal text of 20th-century modernism - particularly English modernism, whose distinct style it helped create; Lewis's use of bold typographic innovations and fonts again anticipating the punk aesthetic of the 1970s.  

 

The illustrated issue featured a (mostly positive) critique of (and extracts from) Kandinsky's pioneering work, Concerning the Spiritual in Art (newly translated into English by Michael Sadleir); a plea to suffragettes not to destroy works of art; a review of an exhibition held in London of Expressionist woodcuts; and an open attack on Marinetti's model of Futurism (dismissed as little more than an up-to-date Impressionism).

 

The opening twenty pages of Blast 1, however, were taken up with the Vorticist manifesto ...

 

 

III.

 

Written by Lewis, the manifesto is primarily a long list of things that deserved either to be Blessed or Blasted, depending on how he perceived them at the time; one is tempted to say that Lewis woke up one day and suddenly knew which side of the bed he was lying on ... Among those blasted were members of the Bloomsbury Group and among those blessed were hairdressers who, for a small fee, attacked Mother Nature.    

 

Perhaps predictably, the English press was unimpressed, finding the writing dull and describing the artwork and typography as simply a pale imitation of the Futurist style (much to Marinetti's amusement and delight). 

 

Although after the War Lewis attempted to revive the avant-garde and declared his intention to publish a third edition of Blast, essentially the game was up and the world had moved on. Four years of mechanised slaughter and unrelenting horror had put things in perspective and many former revolutionaries were now hoping for a little peace and quiet and looked to more traditional art values. 

 

By 1920, even Lewis had to admit that the age of Vorticism was over and these days Blast is itself a museum piece.