Torso in Metal from The Rock Drill
On a recent visit to the Tate Britain, I heard the phrase “art got weird earlier than I thought” being uttered. This took place in the Vorticism gallery, a collection of work from a short-lived avant-garde movement of the early 20th Century. Vorticists’ style was (essentially) a combination of the Cubist fragmentation of reality, and imagery derived or inspired by machinery and industry. The Vorticist group was founded in 1914, and the following year they held their one and only exhibition; the mechanised warfare of the ongoing First World War quickly made their style unpalatable.
Torso in Metal from The Rock Drill is perhaps then an unusual inclusion in the Vorticism gallery, as not only was its creator not a Vorticist, it was also created out of revulsion for the conflict – although once the story of its origins is known, its presence is perhaps more understandable.
Jacob Epstein began work on the sculpture known as Rock Drill in 1913, taking an actual industrial rock drill and setting a plaster-cast of a machine-like, visored figure on top, at a time when he was enthusiastic about making art that celebrated how machinery was improving civilisation. The piece was exhibited in 1915.
However, having witnessed the physical and mental trauma suffered by soldiers returning from the front lines, Epstein’s feelings towards mechanisation changed, and so too did the sculpture as a result. The torso was removed from the drill, and re-cast in bronze, though the arms were changed, removing most of the right, slightly extending the left. The result was a figure that appeared more vulnerable than menacing, reflecting the dehumanising effect of technology.
