Abstract
Taking Herbert Read's 1942 review of the second edition of On Growth and Form as its starting point, this article explores the artistic response to the work of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson during the 1930s and early 1940s through the frame of the culture of popular science and the powerful current of interest that artists directed towards science at the time. The role of Thomson's work as a bridge between natural science and art, occupying the middle ground between poetry, philosophy and science, is described. Its creative use-value to Modernist artists as a pioneering work of morphology is discussed.
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References
1.See: Botar, Oliver and Wünsche, Isabelle. 2011. Introduction: Biocentrism as a constituent element of Modernism. In Biocentrism and Modernism, eds. Oliver Botar and Isabelle Wünsche, 1–13. Farnham: Ashgate .
2.On Moore's response to Thompson, see: Mundy, Jennifer. 1986. Biomorphism, PhD thesis. London: University of London. 130 and On Hamilton's response to Thompson, see: Thistlewood, David. 1982. Organic Art and the Popularisation of a Scientific Philosophy. British Journal of Aesthetics. 22:4 (Autumn), 311–21 .
3.On the postwar artistic reception of On Growth and Form, see: Thistlewood. Organic Art and the Popularisation of a Scientific Philosophy. British Journal of Aesthetics. 311–21 and Grieve, Alastair. 2005. Constructed Abstract Art in England: A Neglected Avant-Garde. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. 226–8 .
4.Read, Herbert. 1942. The Universal Harmony. The Listener, 6 August : 187 .
5.Thompson, D'Arcy Wentworth. 1946. Letter to Herbert Read. 28 July. University of St Andrews, D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson Archive: MS 45690. I am grateful to Matthew Jarron for drawing my attention to this correspondence .
6.Read, Herbert. 1946? Letter to D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson. Undated. University of St Andrews, D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson Archive: MS 25480 .
7.Read. The Universal Harmony, 187 .
8.Ibid : 187 .
9.Ibid : 187 .
10.Stebbing, Susan L. 1937. Philosophy and the Physicists. London: Methuen & Co. ix .
11.Whitworth, Michael. 1996. The Clothbound Universe — Popular Physics Books: 1919–39. Publishing History 40 : 53 .
12.Bowler, Peter J. 2009. Science for All: The Popularisation of Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 105–7 .
13.Whitworth, The Clothbound Universe, 55 .
14.Sullivan, J.W.N. 1919, Athenaeum. 13 June, 464 .
15.Newbolt, Henry. 1931. Untitled Supplement. The Listener, 18 March. viii .
16.Anonymous advertisement for The Science of Life. 1931. The Listener. 18 November, 886 .
17.Hammer, Martin and Lodder, Christiana. Constructing Modernity: The Art and Career of Naum Gabo. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. 385 .
18.See: MacColl, D.S. 1934. Visual and Vocal Art. The Listener. 9 May, 799–800 .
19.For example, see: Huxley, Julian. 1933. The Age of Change. The Listener. 12 April, 590 .
20.Haden Guest, Stephen. 1932. A New Energy in the Arts. The Listener. 6 January, 19 .
21.Ibid. 20 .
22.Porteus, Hugh Gordon. 1934. The Painter Speaks. The Listener. 4 April, 584 .
23.Ibid. 584 .
24.See: Beckett, Jane. 1982. Circle: The Theory and Patronage of Constructive Art in the Thirties. Circle: Constructive Art in Britain, 1934–40, 11–19. Cambridge: Kettle's Yard. 18 .
25.Hammer, Martin and Lodder, Christina. 1996. Hepworth and Gabo: A Constructive Dialogue. Barbara Hepworth Reconsidered. Ed. David Thistlewood. 109–33. Liverpool & London: Liverpool University Press & Tate Publishing. 113–4 .
26.Gabo, Naum. 1937. The Constructive Idea in Art. Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art. Eds. J.L. Martin, B. Nicholson, and N. Gabo, 1–10. London: Faber & Faber. 3 .
27.Ibid. 4–5 .
28.Read, Herbert. 1933. Art Now. London: Faber & Faber Ltd. (1948 Ed). 61 .
29.Read, Herbert. 1934. Henry Moore. London: A. Zwemmer. 14–5 .
30.Read, Herbert. 1934. Art and Industry. London: Faber. Footnote to p. 17 .
31.Read. 1934. Henry Moore. 14–5 .
32.Thompson, D'Arcy Wentworth. 1992. On Growth and Form. New York: Dover Publications Inc. (Reprint of the 1942 Edition). 978–9 .
33.Moore, Henry. 1934. Untitled Statement. Unit One: The modern movement in English architecture, painting and sculpture. London: Cassell. 29 .
34.Thompson. On Growth and Form. 359–60 .
35.Ibid. 404–5 .
36.See: Mundy, Jennifer. 1986. Biomorphism. London: University of London (PhD thesis). 127–8 .
37.Mundy, Jennifer. 2010. Comment on England. Henry Moore. Ed. Chris Stephens. 22–37. London: Tate Publishing. 28 .
38.Barr, Alfred. 1964 ed. Cubism and Abstract Art. London: Secker & Warburg. 19 and 186 .
39.See: Barnett, Vivian Endcott. 2011. Kandinsky and Science: The introduction of biological images in the Paris period. Biocentrism and Modernism. Eds. Botar, Oliver & Wünsche, Isabel. Farnham: Ashgate. 207–226 .
40.Grigson, Geoffrey. 1943. Henry Moore. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd. 8–9 .
41.Grierson, John. 1930. The New Generation in Sculpture. Apollo 12, 350 .
42.Mundy, Jennifer. 1986. Form and Creation: The Impact of the Biological Sciences on Modern Art. Creation: Modern Art and Nature. Edinburgh: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. 17; and Gamwell, Lynn. 2002. Exploring the Invisible: Art, Science and the Spiritual. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 48 .
43.Hammer and Lodder. Constructing Modernity. 383 .
44.Botar, Oliver. 1983/1984. Ernö Kállai and the Hidden Face of Nature. The Structurist 23/24, 77–8 .
45.In his review of On Growth and Form, for instance, Read discussed the pressure and energy acting in a falling drop of water with apparent reference to Thompson's reproductions of Arthur Worthington and Harold E. Edgerton's macrophotographs of splashing liquids. Read. The Universal Harmony. 187 .
46.Harrison, Charles. 1994. English Art and Modernism, 1900–1939. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. 282. Alongside Herbert Read, the painter Paul Nash and the sculptors Naum Gabo and Henry Moore are among some of the most famous figures of the period known to have owned copies of On Growth and Form .
47.Hammer and Lodder. Constructing Modernity. 387 .
48.Ibid. 385 .
49.Thompson. On Growth and Form. 990 .
50.Hammer and Lodder. Constructing Modernity. 387 .
51.Hammer, Martin and Lodder, Christina. 1996. Hepworth and Gabo: A Constructive Dialogue. Barbara Hepworth Reconsidered. Ed. David Thistlewood. 109–33. Liverpool & London: Liverpool University Press & Tate Gallery Liverpool. 114–5 .
52.Bernal, J. D. 1937. Art and the Scientist. Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art. Eds. J.L. Martin, B. Nicholson, and N. Gabo, 119–23. London: Faber & Faber. 121 .
53.Although there is no evidence of Hepworth personally owing On Growth and Form, this may be due to the incompleteness of Hepworth's bibliographic records from the 1930s. Certainly, she would have known of it through her contact with Read, Moore and Bernal, and may, like Moore, have first come across the book as a student in Leeds. In any case, her professional interest in On Growth and Form is demonstrated by the fact that she owned a copy of the 1951 Aspects of Form publication. I am grateful to Sophie Bowness for providing me with this information .
54.Thompson. On Growth and Form. 309 .
55.Porteus, Hugh Gordon. 1935. New Planets. Axis 3, July, 22 .
56.Maldonado, Guitemie. 2006. Le cercle et l'amibe: Le biomorphisme dans l'art des années 1930. Paris: CTHS/INHA. 84 .
57.Porteus. New Planets, 22 .
58.Barlow, Anne J. 1996. Barbara Hepworth and Science. Barbara Hepworth Reconsidered, ed. David Thistlewood. 95–107. Liverpool & London: Liverpool University Press & Tate Gallery Liverpool. 102 .
59.See: Mundy. Biomorphism. 130 .
60.Ibid, 30 .
61.Lichtenstern, Christa. 2008. Henry Moore: Work, Theory, Impact. London: Royal Academy of Arts, 57 .
62.Thompson, On Growth and Form, 1069–70 .
63.Henry Moore, notes on ‘Ideas for Sculpture: Transformation of Bones’ (1932), AG 32·52 HMF 941 in Ann Garrould (ed.), Henry Moore. Volume 2: Complete Drawings, 1930–39, 70 .
64.Moore, Henry. 1967. Sir Julian Huxley: A Portrait of the Scientist on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday. BBC: 22 June. In Wilkinson, Alan. 2002. Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations. Aldershot: Lund Humphries. 88 .
65.‘Moore was proud… that he had discovered this book [On Growth and Form] in Leeds before he met Read’. See: Ed. Kosinski, Dorothy. 2001. Henry Moore Sculpting the Twentieth Century. New Haven & London: Yale University Press. 264 .
66.Read, Herbert. 1946 edition. Annals of Innocence and Experience. London: Faber & Faber. 226 .
67.Thistlewood. Organic Art and the Popularisation of a Scientific Philosophy. 311–5 .
68.Grieve. Constructed Abstract Art in England. 227 .
69.See: Ed. Whyte, Lancelot Law. 1968 edition. Aspects of Form. London: Lund Humphries .