Henry Moore

Henry Moore, Mother and Child, 1921


Another coalminer's son. A different one.
Compare his treatment of life and procreation to Lawrence's.
Lawrence has the drift towards death. Moore shows real vitality.
Apollinic on the surface, there are much darker sides to his work than most people will realize.

Gassed in World War I
Worked as a bayonet fighting instructor
The horror of the trenches
The London Blitz Shelters
The child wish - (and loss of hope?)


I came to realize this on reading Sir Herbert Read's book (in German, incidentally):
D.H. Lawrence grew up in exactly the same environment [as Moore] and has described it for all time in books like The White Peacock and Sons and Lovers and some of his essays [...] Moore was never to experience the resentment and humiliation that Lawrence felt. Lawrence projects an unhappy family life into his environment; his surroundings are ugly because his life is ugly.

Herbert Read (Henry Moore, New York, 1965)


www.gafpa.nl