Anthony Hoyland
ERIC GILL: NUPTIALS OF GOD by ANTHONY HOYLAND ERIC GILL (1882-1940) is one of the major erotic artists of the 20th century, and one of the key British modern artists. Gill is still a controversial figure in art. His personal life was notorious for its sexual relationships. Wyndham Lewis called his work ’excellent and ribald’, while influential critic Roger Fry, one of Gill’s supporters, said Gill’s sculpture was ’the outcome of a desire to express something felt in the adventure of human life.’ For Eric Gill, eroticism was a vital part of life, and should be openly displayed in art. He moved from nudes to Madonnas easily and simply: sex and religion were part of the same mystery for him. Eric Gill built eroticism into most of his depictions of people. ’Quite mad on sex’, Gill wrote of Jacob Epstein, the sculptor, in his diary (December 9, 1913). The statement might equally apply to Gill. He thought of sex a lot, to put it mildly. Eric Gill has become a familiar figure in British modern art and life. He certainly looked the part of the Bohemian artist with his little skull caps, imitation monk’s habits, artist’s smocks and his penchant for bare feet and sandals (an early hippy? Yep). In his Fabian Society, Arts and Crafts and socialist period, Gill was described (in Blackfriars, 1941) by John Middleton Murry, a key member of D.H. Lawrence’s circle, as a ’silent figure in a shabby mackintosh’ who rolled his own cigarettes. Gill the Monk. Saint Gill. For Eric Gill, eroticism was a vital part of life, and should be openly displayed in art. He moved from nudes to Madonnas easily and simply. The problematic and erotic relation between life and art, between the human beloved and the art object, is vividly expressed in the way Eric Gill started working in sculpture. By far the most common subject in Eric Gill’s sculpture was religious (and Christian): the nudes, acrobats, contortionists and divine lovers may receive more attention in art criticism, but the religious and Catholic sculptures are more numerous: there are Depositions, St Sebastians, Annunciations, Crucifixions, Holy Faces, Mary Magdalenes, angels, crucifixes, memorials, headstones, altarpieces, many Madonna and Childs, and of course the Stations of the Cross series. Fully illustrated, featuring many lesser-known works by Eric Gill, as well as the works of his contemporaries, and from the history of erotic art. With bibliography and notes. 232 pages. ISBN 9781861713223. www.crmoon.com
