Cape of Good Hope

Had some trouble embedding image. Painting located on pg. 49. Cape of Good Hope, by Edward Wadsworth.

The title of this painting is Cape of Good Hope, which is the name of a rocky cape in South Africa. This is pretty clearly not a painting of a nature scene. The bold outlines, colorblock shading style, and inorganic curves and lines give a much more industrial feel and the clustered blocks almost give an impression of a crowded cityscape. This is an example of vorticism, which focuses around embracing the control and regularity of industry. While the painting may be cluttered, it still manages to not feel claustrophobic. The Cape of Good Hope has been taken over by technology, but it's not a bad thing, just a sign of progress.

Comments

Good observation on the inorganic curves and hard line & shading elements. Let's explore this idea of control and regularity with respect to industry. I suspect that regularity is actually not one of the elements of industry that Vorticists are attracted to, but maybe there's something to it.