Bloomsbury is die naam van ’n groep literêre en ander kunstenaars, veral skilders, wat hoofsaaklik in die eerste helfte van die vorige eeu in Engeland bedrywig was (SêNet, 21.09.2010). Twee susters, die skilder Vanessa Bell (1879-1961), "the Madonna, the matriarch of the circle" (bron hieronder, p 211), en die skrywer Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), kan as die kern van Bloomsbury beskou word. Daar is talle mense wat in meerdere of mindere mate as behorende tot hierdie groep gereken word. Lydia Lopokova (1891-1981) is onmiskenbaar ’n randeier, onder andere omdat sy nie deur Virginia en veral nie deur Vanessa as ’n geesgenoot aanvaar is nie en eerder as ’n "dangerous interloper" beskou is (p 211).
Vanessa het bv ’n "doughy, unflattering portrait" van Lopokova geskilder (p 231). Virginia "found it so much fun to raise her eyebrows over Lydia's 'parokeet' brain; to sneer over her lowly origins; to parody her accent ... 'Lydia has the soul of a squirrel'" (p 237). Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) het Polokova ’n "half witted canary" genoem: "Bloomsbury had no desire to include her within their inner circle" (p 205). Lytton het geskryf: "Lydia is a pathetic creature to my mind" (p 268). Lopokova "would never be fully accepted by them, but she would learn not to mind" (p 244). "She felt an instinctive distaste for snobbery and pretension" (p 259). Van die filosoof, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), wat hom buite Bloomsbury bevind het, word gesê: "Lydia he treated with unconcealed contempt" (p 268).
In Bloomsbury was daar eienaardige kombinasies van man en vrou. Vanessa het in groter mate met Duncan Grant (1885-1978) as met haar man, Clive Bell (1881-1964), saamgeleef. Virginia en Leonard Woolf (1880-1969) was ’n eienaardige onpaar. Leonard is al "the most sensible man in Bloomsbury" genoem (p 258). As sodanig word hy in Victoria Glendinning se uitstekende biografie, Leonard Woolf (2006), uitgebeeld. Nog ’n eienaardige paar was Lytton Strachey en Dora Carrington (1893-1932), wat letterlik nie sonder Lytton kon aanhou lewe nie. Op die rand van Bloomsbury was daar Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962), wat ’n verhouding met bv Virginia Woolf gehad het maar met Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) getroud was. Hulle verhouding word aandoenlik in Nigel Nicolson se Portrait of a Marriage (1973) beskryf. Dit word "the notorious bisexual marriage" genoem (bron hieronder, p 282).
In die Bloomsbury-milieu van onkonvensionele seksuele verhoudings was dalk die eienaardigste huwelikspaar die ekonoom John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), wat ’n verhouding met bv Duncan Grant gehad het, en die Russiese balletdanser Lopokova. In sekere opsigte herinner hierdie huwelik en veral Lopokova my aan die twee vroue (Janie Moore en Joy Gresham) in die lewe van CS Lewis (SêNet, 29.07.2011). Geleerdes soos Keynes en Lewis het ’n voorliefde vir en intense belangstelling in die soort vrou openbaar wat glad nie aanvaarbaar was in die geledere waarin hulle beweeg het nie.
Omtrent al wat ek van ballet geweet het, is dat dit in sy tradisionele vorm myns insiens nie seksueel prikkelend is nie en dat afrigting daarin ’n danser die res van sy lewe met ’n mooi regop liggaamshouding kan laat. Dit kan verwelkom word dat Judith Mackrell, ’n koerantkritikus en kenner van dans, die geskiedenis van Lopokova nagevors en ’n boek oor hierdie Bloomsbury-nispersoon gepubliseer het. Ek verwys na Bloomsbury Ballerina (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009, 476p). Ek het die boek gelees omdat ek in die Bloomsberries belangstel en dié leeservaring was werklik die moeite werd.
Keynes is heeltemal in die geledere van Bloomsbury aanvaar omdat hy, soos hulle, die etiek van GE Moore (1873-1958), verwoord in Principia Ethica (1903), onderskryf het: "Personal affections and aesthetic enjoyments include all the greatest, and by far the greatest, goods [goedhede] we can imagine" (p 184). Moore se werk kom neer op die "rejection of solid Victorian pieties in favour of an ethics defined by art, intellect and love" (p 184). Dit was vir Keynes ’n aantreklike opsie, want sy "childhood had been crowded with the heavy furniture of Church and school" (p 184). Sy volwasse lewe lank het hy ’n agnostikus gebly.
’n Ander resultaat van Moore se etiek was "a reverence for art and a contempt for rigid Establishment mores" (p 184). Dit weespieël die outentieke gees van Bloomsbury: "Bloomsbury's values remained ranked under the banner of GE Moore – proposing art, friendship and contemplation as the unsullied goals of the civilised mind" (p 188). Bloomsbury, soos geformuleer deur Clive Bell, "took it as axiomatic that art could no longer limit itself to surface representation; rather it should aim to reveal the underlying form and dynamism of its subject matter" (p 148). Keynes het gesê: "The artist walks where the breath of the spirit blows him. He cannot be told his direction; he does not know it himself. But he leads the rest of us into fresh pastures and teaches us to love to enjoy what we often begin by rejecting, enlarging our sensitivity and purifying our instincts" (p 394).
Keynes en Lopokova het sedert 1921 ’n verhouding gehad en is in 1925 getroud, ’n week nadat Lopokova se huwelik met haar vorige bigamiese eggenoot ongeldig verklaar is. Die getroude komponis, Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971), was een van haar talle vorige minnaars. Lopokova het uiteraard meer tot musiek as tot ekonomie aangetrokke gevoel. "When the mood took Lydia she could be a shameless flirt" (p 144). Daar was groot bedenkinge, ook in Bloomsbury-geledere, oor die wysheid van Keynes se keuse van lewensmaat. "Vanessa's rooted antipathy to the Keyneses' marriage remained unalterable" (p 280). Vanessa: "They are no more anxious to see us than we to see them" (p 280). Lopokova het gesê sy en Keynes is "so different that it becomes attractive" (p xvii; ook p 200), ’n "perfectly assorted couple" (p 216) . Keynes het geskryf: "She seems to me perfect in every way" (p 180). Dit word sy "uncritical devotion" genoem (p 287).
Lopokova was "the first woman with whom the closeted but contentedly homosexual Maynard had ever fallen in love. For the whole of his adult life, Maynard had been drawn almost exclusively to other men, and it had taken all of Lydia's erotic ingenuity and emotional determination to breek that pattern" (p xvi-xvii). Teen die verwagting in was hierdie kinderlose huwelik, "their failed 'population' project" (p 293), wat ’n miskraam in 1927 ingesluit het, oënskynlik geslaagd. Keynes word simpatiek as ’n toegewyde eggenoot deur Mackrell uitgebeeld en as iemand wat mettertyd al hoe meer sy vroeëre homoseksuele oriëntasie ontgroei het. "Domestic happiness was unlocking the most fertile reserves of his intellect" (p 262). Sy statuur as een van die wêreld se mees gerekende ekonome en die enorme werklading wat dit meegebring het, asook sy toewyding aan sy taak, naamlik "make good economic bricks for the world" (p 384), word in besonderhede beskryf.
In die politiek kon Keynes en Lopokova mekaar makliker as in ander opsigte vind, want "she could never commit herself to one party" (p 259). Met sosialisme het sy van nature simpatie gehad. Maar: "She disliked the working classes when they appeared to her vulgar or overassertive of their rights ... She also had a fixed, unalterable belief in natural hierarchy. It was entirely right and proper to her that an individual's talents should accrue them wealth and privilege, just as her own talents as a dancer gave her the right to occupy centre stage. She felt no sentimental attraction to working-class culture; she scorned the concept of a socialist utopia; and she had never deviated from her hatred of what the Bolsheviks had done to Russia" (p 259). "The damage inflicted on her family made Lydia feel even more savage towards Stalin's regime ... How can one love a truck full of coal" (p 331). Van haar huishulpe "Lydia expected to be called madam ... The 'servant problem' was in fact to dog Lydia all her married life. She had not been raised to handle staff and when her default combination of cosiness and bossiness failed her she was at a loss" (p 284). "She was not 'much interested in negros nor in Hindus'" (p 408).
Die nege dekades van Lopokova se lewe, van haar geboorte in Rusland tot haar dood in Engeland, is deeglik nagevors. Sy het uitstekende opleiding as balletdanser in St Petersburg ontvang. Met haar tegniek en verhoogpersoonlikheid en haar optredes in talle lande het sy internasionaal roem verwerf. "She danced with her head, her eyes, her shoulders and even her lips" (p 136). "When she dances it is not just with her body; it is herself, her soul" (p 319). Vir ’n ballerina was dit ’n besondere prestasie omdat Lopokova baie kort en nie altyd danig slank was nie. "She had not the appearance or the physique of a classical dancer" (p 92). ’n Enkele film van een van Lopokova se optredes het bewaar gebly. Daaroor skryf Mackrell: "Lydia's technique displays little of the athletically burnished finish that we expect from ballerinas today" (p 167). Van een van haar beroemde dansmaats, Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950), het Lopokova gesê: Hy was "potty. His soul had holes in it, but when he danced then his holes were healed" (p 424).
Lopokova se dertig jaar (1903-1933) van balletoptredes is mettertyd al hoe meer met rolle in dramas (1901-1943) aangevul. Maar die Russiese aksent van haar Engels het haar erg aan bande gelê. "The music of her speech remained stubbornly Russian" (p 325). "The rhythms of the English language were hard for her to catch" (p 326). John Gielgud het geskryf: "I don't think she could really be any good in straight theatre with such a strong accent and peculiar English" (p 326). "Lydia would please only those who liked 'their Shakespeare with a very broken accent'" (p 328).
Lopokova kon nie kook of huishou nie. "Planning the week's menu was a mystery to her, and cooking remained obdurately beyond her" (p 285). Sy "had never dusted or washed dishes in her life" (p 168). Sy was slordig en het selfs verkies om met haar hande te eet. Sy het nie van formele klere en sulke byeenkomste gehou nie, maar het ’n buitensporige voorliefde, "a helpless avidity" (p 222), vir hoede en skoene gehad. "She had taken ... to wearing gypsy-style skirts and smocks, wearing headscarves or scraping her hair back in a very severe bun" (p 251). Sy was "drawn often to the guadiest, most eccentric styles, she lacked the patience for sustained smartness – her hair was usually screwed into an untidy bun, her outfits chosen for comfort rather than image" (p 222). ’n Mede-danser was egter van mening: "Her charm needed no accessories" (p 380).
Haar gedrag was dikwels onvoorspelbaar. Bowenal was sy "socially inept" (p 236). Sy was ’n strawwe roker met "an especially criminal disregard for the state of her teeth" (p 334). As inhibisielose, indiwidualistiese mens kon dit kwalik gelyk het asof sy in Keynes se Rolls Royce hoort. Hulle huis naby Lewes "was not a particularly comfortable house, neither was it a specially beautiful one" (p 282), maar danksy Keynes was daar "a superb collection of pictures [skilderye] and books" (p 282).
Na Keynes se eerste hartaanval in 1937 het Lopokova hom tot sy dood buitengewoon toegewyd versorg. "Maynard loved to be fussed over" (p 285). "Lydia ... struck everyone as utterly wasted from the effort of willing Maynard to remain alive" (p 394). Na sy dood het Lopokova geskryf: "I am so utterly alone without him. The light is gone. I grieve and weep" (p 399). "In losing him she had lost the structure of her life and its daily detail" (p 400). Toe het Leonard Woolf begin om elke Kersfees vir haar ’n fles heuning te bring (p 416).
"She was frequently brought close to depression by the uncertainties of her affair with Maynard" (p 229). By geleentheid vind ’n mens "Lydia dancing in a transvestite ballet of Duncan's devising" (p 255). Ten einde haar huwelik met Keynes seksueel te laat slaag, het Lopokova haar vroulikheid afgeskaal, bv deur mansklere, insluitende manspajamas, te dra (p 202). "She continued to sport her 'man's' wardrobe for his private and public pleasure" (p 263). Ten spyte van die promiskue Bloomsbury-atmosfeer waarmee Lopokova bekend was, lyk dit asof daar ’n gebrek aan tegniese kennis, in die sin van kennis van tegnieke, by haar was. Tydens ’n amptelike ete het Lopokova haar soos volg oor lesbiese seks uitgelaat: "Two men – yes – I can see they've got something to take hold of. But two women – that's impossible. You can't have two insides having an affair" (p 286).
Johannes Comestor
Kommentaar
Johannes.
Die Bloomsbury groep was sy tyd ver vooruit. Seksuele waardes onderling wat steeds vandag gesukkel word om aanvaarding te verkry. Homoseksualiteit; Bi-seksueliteit; Lesbiese verhoudings; "wife swopping"; seksuele vryheid (losbandigheid) onderling. Elke lid in sy/haar eie reg het sy/haar stempel op die intelektuele en kunstige samelewing gemaak. My persoonlike "favourite" is Maynard Keynes ’n reus op ekonomiese teorie. Hyself is homoseksueel en ’n agnostikus. Ten tye van die kreupelende eis op reperasies van Duitsland na die eerste wêreldoorlog, het hy sy teenkanting uitgespreek, en gewaarsku dat juis hierdie reperasies in die ge-allieerdes se gesigte eendag sou opblaas, bewaarheid, met die opkoms van Nazism.
Johannes. Dankie vir jou insiggewende rendasie hierbo.
Jaco Fourie