Vanessa Bell Quotes

In 1922 Woolf met the writer Vita Sackville-West, who was to join Vanessa Bell and Leonard Woolf as the most significant people in her life.

I do not think it matters whether one agrees or not as long as ons is forced to think.

I do not think it matters whether one agrees or not as long as one is forced to think.

Leslie Stephen died in 1904. In that year his children retreated to Wales for a period and then travelled in Italy. Vanessa and Virginia went on to Paris, where they met up with Clive Bell. On returning to London, Virginia suffered a severe, suicidal breakdown.

Virginia sent the possibly rather unusual message ‘She is an angel’ and signed it by the nickname we always gave her – ‘Goat’. This arrived ‘She is an aged Goat’ and soon after George returned crestfallen and miserable and retired to bed, suffering it was said from shock.

The grey hair, which has spoken of old age at once to writers and doctors, means to a painter not just grey hair, but a certain grey – perhaps a grey with silver lights and warm shadows, perhaps an opaque cold grey, but a grey as different from other greys as one chord in music is different from others.

I had better come clean now and say that I do not believe that art (all art) and beauty are ever separate, nor do I believe that either art or beauty are optional in a sane society." "That puts me on the side of what Harold Bloom calls 'the ecstasy of the privileged moment. Art, all art, as insight, as transformation, as joy. Unlike Harold Bloom, I really believe that human beings can be taught to love what they do not love already and that the privileged moment exists for all of us, if we let it. Letting art is the paradox of active surrender. I have to work for art if I want art to work on me." (...) We know that the universe is infinite, expanding and strangely complete, that it lacks nothing we need, but in spite of that knowledge, the tragic paradigm of human life is lack, loss, finality, a primitive doomsaying that has not been repealed by technology or medical science. The arts stand in the way of this doomsaying. Art objects. The nouns become an active force not a collector's item. Art objects. "The cave wall paintings at Lascaux, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, the huge truth of a Picasso, the quieter truth of Vanessa Bell, are part of the art that objects to the lie against life, against the spirit, that is pointless and mean. The message colored through time is not lack, but abundance. Not silence but many voices. Art, all art, is the communication cord that cannot be snapped by indifference or disaster. Against the daily death it does not die." "Naked I came into the world, but brush strokes cover me, language raises me, music rhythms me. Art is my rod and my staff, my resting place and shield, and not mine only, for art leaves nobody out. Even those from whom art has been stolen away by tyranny, by poverty, begin to make it again. If the arts did not exist, at every moment, someone would begin to create them, in song, out of dust and mud, and although the artifacts might be destroyed, the energy that creates them is not destroyed. If, in the comfortable West, we have chosen to treat such energies with scepticism and contempt, then so much the worse for us. "Art is not a little bit of evolution that late-twentieth-century city dwellers can safely do without. Strictly, art does not belong to our evolutionary pattern at all. It has no biological necessity. Time taken up with it was time lost to hunting, gathering, mating, exploring, building, surviving, thriving. Odd then, that when routine physical threats to ourselves and our kind are no longer a reality, we say we have no time for art. "If we say that art, all art is no longer relevant to our lives, then we might at least risk the question 'What has happened to our lives?

By the close of the nineteenth century her studies with her father were being supplemented by tuition in the classics from Dr Warr of King’s College, Kensington, and from Clara Pater, sister of the English essayist and critic Walter Pater (1839–94). Woolf was very fond of Clara and an exchange between them later became the basis for her short story ‘Moments of Being: Slater’s Pins Have No Points’ (1928). Thoby boarded at Clifton College, Bristol, Adrian was a dayboy at Westminster School, and Vanessa attended Cope’s School of Art. Thoby, and later Adrian, eventually went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and Vanessa undertook training in the visual arts (attending the Slade School of Fine Art for a while). From 1902 Virginia’s tuition in classics passed from Clara Pater to the very capable Janet Case, one of the first graduates from Girton College, Cambridge, and a committed feminist. The sisters visited Cambridge a number of times to meet Thoby, whose friends there included Clive Bell 1881–1964), Lytton Strachey (1880– 1932), Leonard Woolf (1880–1969) and Saxon Sydney-Turner.

Leonard Woolf’s endurance of Virginia’s famous frigidity is, we must suppose after the fact, altogether to his credit. Their honeymoon did not bring the amelioration they had hoped for and it is incredibly innocent and moving to think of them discussing it with Vanessa. They wanted to know when she had first had an orgasm. She said she couldn’t remember but she knew she had been “sympathetic” from the age of two. Vita Sackville-West said about Virginia, “She dislikes the possessiveness and love of domination in men. In fact she dislikes the quality of masculinity.

INTRODUCTION TO GENDER AND SOCIETY The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir A classic analysis of the Western conception of the woman. Feminism Is for Everybody by bell hooks A primer about the power and potential of feminist action. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Feminism redefined for the twenty-first century. QUEER THEORY AND INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM Gender Trouble by Judith Butler A classic, and groundbreaking, text about gender and the boundaries of identity. Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein A 1990s-era memoir of transition and nonbinary identity. This Bridge Called My Back ed. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa A collection of essays about the intersections between gender, class, sexuality, and race. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde A landmark collection of essays and speeches by a lauded black lesbian feminist. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston A memoir of growing up as a Chinese American woman. MODERN HISTORY How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective ed. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor A history of the Combahee River Collective, a group of radical black feminists operating in the 1960s and 1970s. And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts Investigative reportage about the beginning of the AIDS crisis. A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski An LGBT history of the United States, from 1492 to the present. CONTEMPORARY QUESTIONS Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus by Vanessa Grigoriadis An exploration of the effects of the sexual revolution in American colleges. The End of Men: And the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin A book about the shifting power dynamics between men and women. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay Essays about the author’s experiences as a woman and our cultural understanding of womanhood. All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister An investigation into the lives of twenty-first-century unmarried women. GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN FICTION Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown A groundbreaking lesbian coming-of-age novel, originally published in 1973. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin A classic of morality and desire, set in 1950s Paris, about an American man and his relationship with an Italian bartender. Angels in America by Tony Kushner A Pulitzer Prize–winning play about the Reagan-era AIDS epidemic. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson A coming-of-age and coming-out novel about a woman growing up in an evangelical household.

Catty and Vanessa were vamping it up on the corner of Fairfax and Beverly, in bell-bottoms with exaggerated lacy bells that they must have pulled from Catty's mother's closet. Vanessa gave them the peace sign. "Feeling' groovy." She winked. She had gorgeous skin, movie-star blue eyes, and flawless blond hair. She was wearing a headband and blue-tinted glasses. Catty was forever getting Vanessa into trouble, but they remained best friends. "Love and peace," Catty greeted them. Catty was stylish in an artsy sort of way. Right now, she wore a hand-knit cap with pom-pom ties that hung down to her waist, and her puddle-jumping Doc Martens were so wrong with the bell-bottoms that they looked totally right. Her curly brown hair poked from beneath the fuchsia cap and her brown eyes were framed by granny glasses, probably another steal from her mother. "You like our retro look?" Vanessa giggled at all the cars honking at them.

I wait for his regret, his guilt, but it does not come. He is a man who always sees the good in things. And in his mind, love is always good.

Roger was not flattered, because he did not recognize what was happening. Things that do not matter to him are invisible.

In the middle of the night, I was startled awake by the sharp smell of tequila. My eyes snapped open. The heath bush I’d transplanted from an alley off Divisadero stretched its needled arms over my head. Between the new growth and glowing bell-shaped blossoms, I saw the outline of a man bend over and snap a stem of my helenium. His tequila bottle leaned over as he did, alcohol splashing out of the top and landing on the shrub concealing my body. A girl behind him reached for the bottle. She sat down on the ground with her back to me and tilted her face to the sky.

Roger, tacking remorselessly, ignored him. Eventually a breeze sprang up and carried them home. Vanessa, while silently resolving never to let her children sail in Roger’s company, thought the expedition typical of his determination to conquer - men, wind and tide.

It left both sisters very well-mannered, supremely well trained in judging and (if they wished) maintaining limitations beyond which civilized intercourse did not go.

Virginia until she turned purple with rage. Vanessa was equally affected by Virginia’s capacity to create suddenly an atmosphere of tense, thundery gloom.

in later years, when he entertained regularly at the Ivy restaurant and elsewhere, this made him an excellent host.

one is obliged to think rather more seriously about it than one has done before. It really seems to matter so very little to oneself what one does.

She now realized that her circle of friends, both old and new, was not conducive to painting. Therefore in the summer of 1905 she founded

Her life became increasingly constricted. Virginia later felt that at this period they ‘were always battling for that which was always being interfered with, muffled up, snatched away.

and that death and tragedy had once more put down his paw, after letting us run a few paces.

it opens with a sense of satisfaction, of completeness, for his life seemed ‘to have been very unusually happy, and even successful: not that I have cut much figure in the world, but in that I have had what I really wanted - except war, which I hope to see before long’.56

showed a party of American and French ladies round Charleston in the year AD 2036. Janie acted the part of a very unpleasant French lady, more

Clark left the artists free to decorate the service as they wished and found the result unexpected: there were forty-eight plates decorated with portraits of celebrated females, twelve queens, twelve writers and twelve beauties, including ‘Miss 1933’. (‘It ought to please the feminists,’ Vanessa announced.30

She could not therefore accompany Clive on his day visit to Arezzo and was stung with envy on hearing his account of Piero della Francesca’s frescos based on the story of the True Cross. She greatly admired this artist and catches an echo

I never doubt for an instant that I am immensely the richer for all the feelings I have had and shall ever have about Julian.

The Waves, to ‘oppose to what is passing this ramrod of beaten steel’.

When his wife had written him letter after letter in a pathetic, incoherent, child-like scrawl constantly begging him to take her home, he had formed, as he admitted, a callus to enable him to get through the inane tragedy of life. Unshackled by suffering from worldly concerns, he cared chiefly at this moment for art and had already decided to bring the Post-Impressionists to London.

In the Post-Impressionists, Fry perceived a new expressiveness of design, a new search for structure, scale, interval and proportion.

But it was as if one might say things one had always felt instead of trying to say things that other people told one to feel. Freedom was given one to be oneself

Meeting this woman, later to organize Quaker relief in Germany after the 1914-18 war, as well as allotments for the unemployed during the slump, Vanessa saw only her limitations.

Grands-Augustins. The rooms were bare except for a single, enormous canvas - Guernica - which was still in progress.

My dearest Nessa, A line of sympathy and love from us both on the loss of your dear and beautiful boy with his pure and honourable feelings. It was fated that he should make his protest, as he was entitled to do, with his life, and one can say nothing.

With ‘a brush, the one dependable thing in a world of strife, ruin, chaos’,26 they could return, whatever the stress and discord of daily life, to that continuously absorbing interior world in which the struggle to record observations of light, colour and form, however agonizingly difficult and intractable, resolves into an enduring happiness.

is the promise of continuity as opposed to decay, of meaning as opposed to senselessness, of value as opposed to waste.

where Maynard’s housekeeper Ruby Weller took the lead and a seemingly endless repertoire of songs was sung.

Vanessa blamed the elaborate proceedings undertaken for her son’s sake to ensure the death of the moth on her maternal instinct. Or so she told Virginia, when describing to her this incident which provided the initial inspiration for The Waves, originally entitled ‘The Moths’. ‘I wish you would write a book about the maternal instinct,’ she ended her letter. ‘In all my wide reading I haven’t yet found it properly explored ... I could tell you a great deal! Of course it is one of the worst of the passions, animal and remorseless. But how can one avoid yielding to these instincts if one happens to have them?

I am excited and thrilled and taken into another world as one only is by a great work of art.

This left them suspicious of the emotionally ill-bred for there was little chance of a genuine relationship forming if a person’s feelings were either false, exaggerated or uncontrolled.

[..] And here, suddenly, was Woolf's own talented sister. The one who survived. The sister who painted. My first thought was: how sad. What fate could be worse than to be in close proximity to genius, capable of recognizing it, but, alas, something less-than? And Woolf's sister Vanessa Bell must have been less-than, because I'd barely heard of her. How terrible, and sadly typical, that in my long pursuit of women artists I'd apparently learned nothing. Least of all, that they are all too easily lost to time, a condition rarely any reflection on their talent.

Prologue Les contes pour enfants sont source de sagesse. Sinon pour quelle raison traversaient-ils les époques ? Cendrillon s’efforcera de quitter le bal avant minuit ; Le Petit Chaperon rouge se méfiera du loup et de sa voix enjôleuse ; la Belle au bois dormant se gardera d’approcher son doigt de se fuseau a l’attrait irrésistible ; Blanche-Neige se tiendra éloignée des chasseurs et sous aucun prétexte ne mordra la pomme, si rouge, si appétissante, que le destin lui tend… Autant d’avertissements que toute jeune personne ferait bien de suivre à la lettre.

When they finished dressing, Jimena wore racy red hot pants, a silky blouse with a star-burst pattern, and crazy ankle boots with thin chains draped around her ankles. "Too cool." Serena admired Jimena's outfit, then she twirled to show off her own shoulder-baring top that exposed her midriff. She had pasted a crystal in her belly button. Kendra's bell-bottoms had been too long, but when she stepped into a pair of gold 70's platform shoes the length became just right. Catty wore a backless halter top and a pair of lacy bell-bottoms. She held up some stencils. "Kendra is going to start selling these at the shop. Anyone want to try one?" She had two dragons in one hand and a lacy snowflake pattern in the other. Jimena and Serena started to examine them, when Vanessa walked into the room. She was wearing a pinstripe shirt unbuttoned over a black leather bra top. Kendra's mini-skirt was too big and the waist fell around Vanessa's hips. Her skin looked golden bronze and she had applied one of the snowflake stencils on her stomach. "Wow," Serena said. "Talk about going for the jugular," Jimena teased. "You like it?" she asked and took off the shirt. "It's too hot to wear.

Married to Leonard Woolf in 1912 in a partnership that continued until her death in 1941, Virginia Woolf had intense and enduring relationships with a number of women friends, including Violet Trefusis, the writer Vita Sackville-West and the composer Ethel Smyth, as well as a lifelong bond with her elder sister, the artist Vanessa Bell

the eggplant to sit for 20 min. In a large saucepan, cook the tomatoes, garlic, black pepper, basil, and parsley, uncovered, over medium heat. In a large skillet, sauté the onions and bell peppers in a small amount of olive oil over medium-high heat for 10 min., stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are very lightly browned. Remove the skillet from the heat and transfer the browned vegetables to the tomato mixture. Pat the eggplant dry with a fresh paper towel and add it, along with the zucchini to the tomato mixture. Cover the pot and cook the stew over low-medium heat for 45 min., until the vegetables are tender. Add the white wine and ¾ t. salt and cook for an additional 5 min.

But before I could go into the matter in depth, the door bell had rung, and Vanessa Cook was in my midst. Jeeves, I need scarcely say, had vanished like a family spectre at the crack of dawn. He always does when company arrives. I hadn't seen him go, and I doubted if Vanessa had, but he had gone.