Creative Effort and Our Earth are
the second releases of Facsimile Etchings from our 'Etchings
in Books'
series. The folio
contains, as well as the two Facsimile Etchings, a brochure with
details of the two books — Creative Effort and Our Earth
in which the original etchings of the same titles, Creative Effort
and
Our Earth, are included and also the essay 'The Craft of Etching'
by Norman Lindsay.
Creative Effort had its genesis in World War I (1914–1918).
From the beginning Norman had been affected by the war and depressed
at the way it was changing the world. In 1916, Norman's brother Reg
was killed on the Somme. In a poignant letter to Olive Hetherington,
written in May 1958, Norman recalled the impact of the war years:
'At this date it is hard to convey the sense of horror that war inflicted
on humanity … one walked the streets to see half the women
in black, mothers, wives, sisters in mourning for their dead … in
those times I paid frequent visits to Creswick and met many mothers
mourning for their sons; some of whom were the girls I had known
in my youth …'
For several years Norman had been wrestling with the timeless
question of good versus evil and although he was not a believer
in any orthodox
religion, the war crystallised his belief in the survival
of the spirit after death. The cataclysmic effect of the
war and
the death
of Reg brought Norman to the belief that artistic reality
freed the artist from earth into a spiritual world. The
need to have
some assurance
that there was some form of life after death drove many grieving
relatives to seek solace in spiritualism. Ouija boards, which
enabled groups of people to try and communicate with the
dead, became a popular
pastime and under the circumstances it was hardly surprising
that Norman thought that he could speak with Reg via the
board.
It was this assay into the occult that gave Norman the final
impetus he needed to write Creative Effort. He felt that
a universal state
of moral degeneration had led to the war and tried to put
his own values into some sort of order. Years later, long
after he
had
repudiated its message, he tried to explain how he had felt:
' As for Creative
Effort — well, I suppose you'll have to read the thing
as it embodies an outlook on life and art that engrossed me at
the
time
of writing, based on the ferment of ideas with which I was infected
after the 1914 war.'
Although many of the principles found in Creative Effort
are sound, others original and arresting, it is impossible
to overlook
the fact
that Creative Effort is a confusing collection of Norman's
thoughts on life, death, good, evil, truth, sex, knowledge
and other associated
ideas. In essence, Norman affirmed that the arts are of
paramount importance. He maintained that it is in creative
art, and
creative art alone, that the direction of life can be found.
The original etching Creative Effort (1920, 15.2 x 9.3
cm) was published in 1920 in the book of the same name.
The etching
symbolises
creative
effort as a woman with a halo of light emerging triumphant
over the forces of darkness.
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