The Bloomsbury Set at Charleston by Judith Allnatt

I recently had the opportunity to visit Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex,  which was home to some members of the Bloomsbury group including Vanessa Bell who was a painter and the sister of Virginia Woolf. 

Both sisters were fragile. In 1911 Vanessa had a mental breakdown following a miscarriage and was nursed by Virginia. Virginia, of course, suffered from depression and was tragically to take  her own life in 1941. 

In this photo of Vanessa, which sits on the mantelpiece in her studio, one can clearly see the family likeness, not only physically but in the pensive expression, both sisters having rather soulful eyes. Virginia and Leonard Woolf had a home nearby, Monks House at Firle. They were playfully referred to as 'the Woolves' by the Charleston household. 

Vanessa settled at Charleston in 1916 with her two sons, her art critic husband Clive Bell, the painter Duncan Grant and the writer David Garnett. (Grant and Garnett were lovers). Vanessa and Clive Bell had an open marriage, reflecting the freedoms espoused by the Bloomsbury group who were searching for new ways of living and loving. Vanessa had previously had an affair in France with Roger Fry (whom Virginia was also in love with) and later had a  relationship at Charleston with Duncan Grant. 

I was interested in the complex relationships playing out within the group and wanted to find out what drew them to Charleston.  They were a fairly affluent set, at home in London or Paris, whereas Charleston was an isolated rundown farmhouse with no hot water, electricity or telephone. After reading around this, two main factors seem to be involved. The group perhaps wanted a secluded place where they could feel free to pursue their unconventional art and lifestyle but also, at the height of the First World War, men were either conscripted or had to find 'Work of National Importance'  such as farming; Grant and Garnett were able to do the latter living at Charleston.

Visiting the house one feels as if its twentieth century inhabitants have just popped outside for a moment. Everywhere there is evidence of their artistic life. Many paintings, mainly portraits, hang in every room,  but also doors, tables, mantlepieces and cupboards are painted with figures or decoration. The studio, where Duncan and Vanessa painted side by side, is still scattered with paintbrushes and oils and, in a parlour, fire bricks have been  built out onto the hearth in a DIY effort to draw heat into what must have been a freezing room in winter. 

Charleston also houses a collection of dinner plates commissioned by Kenneth Clark the art historian. Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant were commissioned to decorate them with paintings of famous women. There are four sets of twelve comprising famous Queens, famous beauties, famous writers and famous performers, plus two portraits of the artists themselves. The slant towards the arts is noticeable here -  no mathematicians such as Émilie Du Châtelet or scientists such as Marie Curie. Although the artists were avante garde, perhaps their view of gender was still  influenced to some extent by the assumptions and prejudices of the time.

One also cannot help but question whether the complicated sexual relationships brought freedom equally to both genders. Duncan Grant was the father of Vanessa's third child, Angelica. However, Angelica was not told of this until she was seventeen and had grown up believing that Clive Bell was her father. In her 

memoir 'Deceived by Kindness', she describes the unease she felt as a child, created by an awareness  that the adults were keeping something from her. It also appears that neither man really took on the responsibilities of fathering and that this lack affected her  profoundly. 

On top of this complicated emotional situation, in her twenties Angelica was pursued by David Garnett, (her father Duncan Grant's one time lover).  Angelica, inexperienced and full of doubts was nonetheless persuaded by the older man to marry him, much against the wishes of both Vanessa and Clive Bell.  David Garnett's comment years before on seeing the newborn Angelica was : "I think of marrying it. When she is 20, I shall be 46 - will it be scandalous?" Presumably at the time it was seen as a flippant joke but one wonders whether the whole idea had its roots in jealousy, perhaps over Duncan's relationship with Vanessa or even because of a rejection by Vanessa of Grant's own advances. (Angelica writes that " . .  he had proposed bed to Vanessa and been rejected" and that his purpose in marrying her daughter, "at least in part, was to inflict pain on Vanessa".)

As well as giving a beautifully rendered account of life at Charleston, the memoir shines a strong light on some of the members of the iconic Bloomsbury Set: their personalities, relationships and all-too-human failings. 

 

For those interested in finding out more, "Deceived by Kindness"  by Angelica Garnett is published by Pimlico, Penguin Random House

'Life in Squares' - how I learned to love the Bloomsbury Group - by Christina Koning

I must confess that I started watching ‘Life in Squares’, the new three-part drama about the Bloomsbury Group, which was recently shown on BBC2, with considerable reservations. What on earth was there left to say about these - to be frank - rather self-indulgent and privileged people, that hadn’t already been said in a host of books by and about them, and latterly, in films and television programmes in which the whole gang - the Woolfs, the Bells, Duncan Grant, Keynes, Strachey, Roger Fry - were made much of? Wasn’t it time to call for a moratorium on the Bloomsburies and all their acolytes, past and present? From which it may be obvious that, with certain honourable exceptions (yes, I mean you, E.M. Forster), I’m not a fan of this particular ‘set’, whose achievements, though undeniably impressive, seem to me to have been over-valued, to the detriment of other, no less impressive, talents in twentieth century Art and Literature.

‘Life in Squares’, I thought, would be just another breathless hagiography, celebrating the already over-celebrated lives of the Blessed Virginia and her crowd. I promised myself I’d give it ten minutes, and then switch over to something more enjoyable. An hour later, I was still watching - and unashamedly riveted by - the successive dramas unfolding in Amanda Coe’s treatment of the lives of what was then a disparate group of Cambridge friends (and their sisters), meeting for tea and chat about art and books, in the Gordon Square house belonging to the orphaned Stephen siblings. With so many characters to incorporate - the list above is only partial, leaving out quite a few of the era’s major figures (no mention of D. H. Lawrence, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, or Wyndham Lewis) - Coe wisely chose to focus on the central relationship, between Virginia Stephen (later Woolf), and her sister Vanessa. Interestingly enough, and despite Virginia Woolf’s far greater posthumous fame, it is Vanessa who emerges as the more dominant character. From her impetuous - and soon to be regretted - marriage to the philandering Clive Bell, to her no less extravagant love for the painter Duncan Grant, she comes across as passionate, headstrong and likeable.

Part of this is due, no doubt, to Phoebe Fox’s sympathetic portrayal - helped by her strong physical likeness to the beautiful Vanessa. Nor is she the only piece of great casting in this superior mini-drama: James Norton gave a wonderfully dissolute performance as Duncan Grant, convincing this viewer, at least, to reconsider him, not only as an artist, but as a key figure in what was to become a kind of blueprint for the Bohemian lifestyle, as the Bloomsburies metamorphosed into the ‘Charleston set’. Having visited Charleston - home to the Bells and Duncan Grant - and Monk’s House, at Rodmell, where the Woolfs established themselves during the same period, I was delighted to see both places featuring strongly in this television drama. That gave me another reason for continuing to watch, as well as the fact that I was now hooked on the tangled love affairs and intermittent crises which were unfolding. The period covered - from the 1900s to the 1940s - is one in which I have been interested for a long time. I was glad to see it reconstructed so accurately and (dare one say it?) aesthetically. From the Art Nouveau silks and velvets sported by Vanessa as a young woman, to the more austere wartime garb worn by her older self (of which more later), this was a feast of period detail: beautifully lit and shot. 

Of course, there were a few things I’d like to have seen done differently. The decision to cast a second group of older actors - with the wonderful Eve Best playing Vanessa - in order to convey the passage of time, was not wholly successful, and might have caused confusion to anyone not familiar with the story. The need to compress the events of forty years into three hours led, inevitably, to certain things been glossed over - or left out altogether. The 1920s and 1930s - arguably the most important period, as regards the literary and artistic output of the group - was shown only in passing. Individual episodes - such as Duncan Grant’s decision to become a conscientious objector, at the outbreak of the First World War - were barely touched on. The relentless focusing on the Grant/Bell menage meant that even Virginia Woolf’s suicide got short shrift. But overall, this was a well-written and engaging dramatisation of a fascinating period. It certainly converted this Bloomsbury sceptic to a more appreciative frame of mind. Now - where’s my copy of To the Lighthouse?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0649cyj