Omega Workshops Bibliography

This was a really fascinating subject to research. I felt like there was so much interesting information, I had trouble distilling it into a short presentation. Also the artwork produced is so fascination and so voluminous, I could only show the class a few of my favorite pieces. There is definitely enough information available to do a larger research project on, if someone is in an art hsitory class or anything like that. Our library has some great books too, three of which are listed in my bibliography. I'll also include some examples of their artwork for you to enjoy.

The Omega Workshops: Bibliography

Andersen, Wayne, . "Why Disinterest is Still Interesting: The Case of Roger Fry." Common Knowledge. 14.2 (2008): 258-69. Web. 22 Sep 2009.

Anscombe, Isabelle, . Omegea and After: Bloomsbury and the Decorative Arts. London: Thames and Hudson, 1981. Print.

Collins, Judith, . The Omega Workshops. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984. Print.

Culture 24 Staff, . "Beyond Bloomsbury: Designs of the Omega Workshops 1913-19." Culture 24. 11 Jun 2009. Culture 24, Web. 22 Sep 2009.

Fry, Roger. "Post Impressionism." A Roger Fry Reader. Ed. Christopher Reed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996. Print.

Leonard Woolf: Coming to London

At the end of his memoir, “Leonard Woolf: Coming to London,” Woolf wrote, “I do not propose to say anything about either, because, as Montaigne said so many years ago, it is not the goal, not the destination, not the arrival which is interesting, but the journey.” As was mentioned in class, this saying seems somewhat cliché to us now. But I think Woolf was being very intentional when he situated this quote at the end of his essay. Throughout the essay he reveals to the reader several experiences in his life that contributed to his eventual inclusion in the Bloomsbury group. Here are the steps that Leonard Woolf indicates as a part of his journey:
1. A chance encounter in a Putney barbershop
2. St. Paul’s
3. Trinity College
4. The Strachey’s
5. The Sitwell’s dinner parties
6. The embarrassing dinner party
All of these experiences contributed to Woolf’s passion and respect for literature. Reading about these experiences makes it clear to me that Leonard Woolf really does belong in the literary world of England. For instance, most young boys would not consider a chance encounter with a well-known author something of any great importance. But Woolf remembered the exact details of the scene even years later. The fact that he felt a deep connection with literature even at St. Paul’s is also significant. At this point in his life, Woolf considered his passion something that needed to be hidden, yet he could not extinguish it. When he got to Trinity College he discovered that he fit in with fellow students that enjoyed intellectual pursuits. Up to this point it seems clear that Leonard Woolf has great potential to become one of the great members of British literary society.
But the final two stepping stones indicate why Woolf did not consider himself to be a part of true literary society. With the Sitwells, which was a series of small scale dinners, Woolf said that he felt inferior to the other members—that he felt like a small time amateur. In Woolf’s mind one must be a respected, established writer to be considered a member of a ‘literary world’. The later dinner party that Woolf described is a social disaster for himself and Virginia. They do not fit in with the sophisticated, religious people that make up the British literary elite. Since he does not fit this particular mold, Woolf considers himself to be a permanent outsider in the literary world of England. Today we do not have such a limited view of what it means to be an important member of ‘literary London.’ In fact the reason we remember Leonard Woolf and other members of the Bloomsbury group is because they set out to be different. They had their own ideas and based literary merit not on age and prestige, but on the originality of ideas. I think that Leonard Woolf would be pleasantly surprised to learn of the respect that admirers have for him today.

Florence Nightingale did NOT want to get married...

The passage that struck me when I was reading Strachey’s work is on page 115. It is a quote from Florence Nightingale and she is referring to the idea of marriage.
“To be nailed to a continuation and exaggeration of my present life… to put it out of my power ever to be able to seize the chance of forming for myself a true and rich life-“
Marriage would be a continuation of her life of society, parties, vacations, and other frivolities of life. It would be an exaggeration because as the matron of a household she would have even greater responsibilities, including raising her own children to follow the same code of conduct.
If that is how Nightingale felt about marriage it is easy to see why she found it difficult to find common ground with other Victorian women. This was an age where matrimony was the most important goal. For women especially it was where they would find their identity for the rest of their lives. In fact only a few pages earlier, page 111, Strachey wrote, “It was only natural to suppose that Florence would show a proper appreciation of them by doing her duty in that state of life unto which it had pleased God to call her- in other words, by marrying.” This statement reveals the rigid structure of Victorian structure, as it dictated the path of the lives of its citizens based on class, wealth, and gender. Strachey’s implied criticism is easy to pick out here, and it seems that this may be one area in which Strachey applauds Nightingale. For while other women in her position looked on to the prospect of marriage as not only inevitable but also desirable, Nightingale considered to marriage to be similar to death. Strachey quotes her as saying, “What is to become of me? A desirable young man? Dust and ashes! What was there desirable in such a thing as that? In my thirty-first year, I see nothing desirable but death.” Since marriage was the highest ideal for Victorian women, and Nightingale looked on the institution with such disdain, it follows that she would find many women intolerable. In fact on page 150 Strachey references the letters in which she berates women for being stupid and inept, among other things.
Nightingale’s unhappiness at the thought of marriage reveals her single-mindedness. At this point in her life she had not yet realized her dream of being a nurse and a powerful woman of influence, but she knew that she wanted something other than the norm. She knew that whatever life she was seeking, it would not be found in conventional Victorian society. Whatever other faults Florence Nightingale had, she always knew what she wanted and was willing to sacrifice all social orthodoxies to get there.