“The Mirror-Like Sea”: A Bloomsbury Vision of Same-Sex Desire In Duncan Grant's Bathing, 1911
Originally installed as a mural in the London Borough Polytechnic, Duncan Grant’s Bathing (1911) provoked anxieties that it would lead to the moral decay of working-class youth. Employing critical theory, this article finds the root of those anxieties in the painting’s linkage of naked homosociality...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Yale University
2016-11-01
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| Series: | British Art Studies |
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| Online Access: | http://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-4/duncan-grant-bathing |
| _version_ | 1818412820240269312 |
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| author | Vajdon Sohaili |
| author_facet | Vajdon Sohaili |
| author_sort | Vajdon Sohaili |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Originally installed as a mural in the London Borough Polytechnic, Duncan Grant’s Bathing (1911) provoked anxieties that it would lead to the moral decay of working-class youth. Employing critical theory, this article finds the root of those anxieties in the painting’s linkage of naked homosociality to a subtle but pervasive figuration of desire, which Grant constructs via a sophisticated design programme. Grant’s democratic fantasy of homoerotic desire echoes that of his Bloomsbury colleague, E. M. Forster, whose dictum “only connect” induces a state of inoperative touch, made intelligible by Jean-Luc Nancy. The effects of Grant’s composition, when viewed through the repetition theory of Gilles Deleuze, create not only a space but a time of desire, a potentiality located in the figure of the peripheral, uncoupled bather. Poised on the brink of sexual self-awareness, this figure invokes a positive form of Narcissus, liberated from the Freudian taint of homosexual non-productivity. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T10:53:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-62ca9dc210ca458dbb9864b2c0acfae2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2058-5462 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T10:53:23Z |
| publishDate | 2016-11-01 |
| publisher | Yale University |
| record_format | Article |
| series | British Art Studies |
| spelling | doaj.art-62ca9dc210ca458dbb9864b2c0acfae22022-12-21T23:05:04ZengYale UniversityBritish Art Studies2058-54622016-11-01410.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-04/vsohaili“The Mirror-Like Sea”: A Bloomsbury Vision of Same-Sex Desire In Duncan Grant's Bathing, 1911Vajdon Sohaili0Princeton UniversityOriginally installed as a mural in the London Borough Polytechnic, Duncan Grant’s Bathing (1911) provoked anxieties that it would lead to the moral decay of working-class youth. Employing critical theory, this article finds the root of those anxieties in the painting’s linkage of naked homosociality to a subtle but pervasive figuration of desire, which Grant constructs via a sophisticated design programme. Grant’s democratic fantasy of homoerotic desire echoes that of his Bloomsbury colleague, E. M. Forster, whose dictum “only connect” induces a state of inoperative touch, made intelligible by Jean-Luc Nancy. The effects of Grant’s composition, when viewed through the repetition theory of Gilles Deleuze, create not only a space but a time of desire, a potentiality located in the figure of the peripheral, uncoupled bather. Poised on the brink of sexual self-awareness, this figure invokes a positive form of Narcissus, liberated from the Freudian taint of homosexual non-productivity.http://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-4/duncan-grant-bathingDuncan GrantBloomsbury Groupqueer cultureLGBTmuralsswimmingerotic art |
| spellingShingle | Vajdon Sohaili “The Mirror-Like Sea”: A Bloomsbury Vision of Same-Sex Desire In Duncan Grant's Bathing, 1911 British Art Studies Duncan Grant Bloomsbury Group queer culture LGBT murals swimming erotic art |
| title | “The Mirror-Like Sea”: A Bloomsbury Vision of Same-Sex Desire In Duncan Grant's Bathing, 1911 |
| title_full | “The Mirror-Like Sea”: A Bloomsbury Vision of Same-Sex Desire In Duncan Grant's Bathing, 1911 |
| title_fullStr | “The Mirror-Like Sea”: A Bloomsbury Vision of Same-Sex Desire In Duncan Grant's Bathing, 1911 |
| title_full_unstemmed | “The Mirror-Like Sea”: A Bloomsbury Vision of Same-Sex Desire In Duncan Grant's Bathing, 1911 |
| title_short | “The Mirror-Like Sea”: A Bloomsbury Vision of Same-Sex Desire In Duncan Grant's Bathing, 1911 |
| title_sort | the mirror like sea a bloomsbury vision of same sex desire in duncan grant s bathing 1911 |
| topic | Duncan Grant Bloomsbury Group queer culture LGBT murals swimming erotic art |
| url | http://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-4/duncan-grant-bathing |
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