Speculations Essays on Humanism and the Philosophy of Art

Speculations ESSAYS ON HUMANISM AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF ART By T. E. IIULME Edited by HERBERT READ With a Frontispiece and Foreword by JACOB EPSTEIN LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER CO., LTD. NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE COMPANY, INC. 1936 T. K. HULME From n Bronze by Jacob Epstein. CONTENTS Frontispiece Portrait of the Author from a Bronze by Jacob Epstein PAGE FOREWORD . . . . vii INTRODUCTION . . . ix AUTHORS PREFACE .... xvi HUMANISM AND THE RELIGIOUS ATTITUDE I MODERN ART AND ITS PHILOSOPHY . . 73 ROMANTICISM AND CLASSICISM . . Ill BERGSONS THEORY OF ART . . .141 THE PHILOSOPHY OF INTENSIVE MANIFOLDS I I CINDERS ..... 215 APPENDICES A. REFLECTIONS ON VIOLENCE . . 249 B. PLAN FOR A WORK ON MODERN THEORIES OF ART . . . .261 C. THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T. E. HULME .... 265 INDEX ...... 269 FOREWORD HUI. ME was my very great friend, and what I can say about him is entirely personal. What appealed to me particularly in him was the vigour and sincerity of his thought. He was capable of kicking a theory as well as a man downstairs when the occasion de manded. I always felt him to be my chief bulwark against malicious criticism. He was a man who had no regard for personal fame or notoriety, and he considered that his work lay entirely in the future. His whole life was a preparation for the task of interpre tation which he had set himself. He would make reckless sacrifices to possess works of art which he could not really afford he bought not only my own works, but also those of Gaudier-Brzeska and this long before Gaudier was well known. Hulme was a terror to fumistes and charlatans of all kinds. His passion for the truth was uncontrolled. I recall dozens of little personal thingscharacteristic of the man but particularly our first meeting. I was at work on the Wilde monument. Hulme immediately put his own construction on my work turned it vii SPECULATIONS into some theory of projectiles. My sculp ture only served to start the train of his thought. Abstract art had an extraordinary attraction for him his own brain worked in that way. At one time, in company with a group of imagists, he composed some short poems with which, had he gone on, he would have made what would be called a literary success. But this seemed to him too facile. lyike Plato and Socrates, he drew the intellectual youth of his time around him. We have no one quite like him in England to-day. JACOB EPSTEIN. Vlli INTRODUCTION THOMAS ERNEST HUI ME was born on the i6th September 1883, at Gratton Hall, Endon, North Staffordshire. He was educated at the High School, Newcastle-under-L, yme, and at St Johns College, Cambridge. In March 1904 he was sent down from Cambridge, along with other undergraduates, for indulging in a brawl. He spent the next two years in L, ondon, studying in accordance witli his own inclinations. In July 1906 he went to Canada, where he stayed three months. He returned to England for a few weeks, and early in 1907 he went to Brussels, where for seven months he taught English and learned French and German. When he came back to London he began definitely to study those subjects on which his interest was settling. In April 1911 he attended the Philosophical Congress at Bologna and stayed in Italy travelling for about three months. Early in 1912 he sought to return to Cambridge, and he was readmitted largely through the intervention of Professor Bergson, whose letter ofrecommendation on that occasion is some indication of the impres sion Hulme was already creating ix SPECULATIONS Je me fais un plaisir de certifier que je considere Mr T. E. Hulme comme un esprit dune grande valeur. II apporte, a retude des questions philosophiques, de rares qualities de finesse, de vigueur, et de penetration. Ou je me trompe beaucoup, ou il est destine d produire des ceuvres inter essantes et importantes dans le doni aine de la philosophie en general, et plus particulicrement peut-etre dans celui de la philosophie de Vart...