![]() ![]() His adventurous life, as re-created in this beautifully written, absorbing biography, is disturbingly relevant to our time. ![]() This charismatic firebrand was a renegade Fabian socialist, a bohemian friend of Augustus John and Bertrand Russell. In MacCarthy's candid portrait, Gill, who preserved the outward image of a devout father-figure, was neither saint nor humbug, but a highly sexed creative artist trapped by his Victorian concept of masculinity. He rationalized his penile acrobatics by inventing a bizarre pseudoreligious theory. 83 Fiona MacCarthy Byron: Life and Legend, (London: Faber & Faber, 2003) p.105 84 Doris Langley Moore The Late Lord Byron: a biography, (New York: Harper & Row, 2011) p.15 38 some minds are cast in so sombre a mould, that they seem naturally disposed to delight in gloom, mysteries, and terrors. Yet there was another side to the man, downplayed by previous biographers: a fervent convert to Catholicism and leader of three Catholic arts-and-crafts communes, Gill had a hyperactive libido which extended to incest with his sisters and daughters, as well as numerous extramarital affairs, according to British writer MacCarthy. ![]() He is remembered today for his fine engravings and stone carvings, his legendary typefaces and book designs for the Golden Cockerel Press. An English artist-craftsman in the tradition of William Morris, Eric Gill (1882-1940) exemplifies the search for a lifestyle to heal the split between work and leisure, art and industry. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |