Constructing Modernism Periodically: T. E. Hulme’s Essays on Art in The New Age

Abstract

This article analyses essays on modern art written by T. E. Hulme and published originally in The New Age magazine between December 1913 and July 1914. In 1922, Herbert Read published posthumously Hulme’s series of earlier essays entitled “Bergson’s Theory of Art” (originally written in 1911-12) in The New Age. In 1924 he edited a separate volume, Speculations, which republished all essays by Hulme from The New Age, with the addition of “Modern Art and its Philosophy,” which was originally delivered as a lecture at the Quest Society in 1914. Through this writing Hulme came to be known as an avid defender of avant-garde art, as they emerge out of a debate on modern art between the expressivist approach and formalist formula, defending the artwork’s right for autonomy and freedom from representation. Referring to aesthetic theories by Bergson, Berenson, Riegl, Worringer and Lipps, Hulme positions himself within the context of formalist art criticism. Their ideas, including the intensity of reception, subjective approach and direct communication to a work of art, as well as the need for abstraction, were of great importance in the formation of modernist thought in art and literature. These formulations were strengthened by Hulme’s series of reproductions of modernist artworks also appearing in The New Age in 1914. This paper seeks to demonstrate that through his essays published originally in The New Age, which through its editorial policy encouraged critical debate, discussion and exchange of opposing viewpoints, Hulme attempted to promulgate modernist thought in Britain.

Keywords

• modernism
• little magazines
• The New Age
• avant-garde
• abstraction
• Cubism