Yesterday, I went with the FSU students of English on a field trip to see places that the Bloomsbury Group lived and/or frequented.  A couple of hours from London near Brighton in the south.  Didn't quite make it to the beach.

Both Ralph and I are sickly.  I am not terribly ill but just feel a little "punk" as Mom used to say.  Ralph had a runny nose and cough all day.  He was fairly miserable and yet excited to be on the trip.  David, an FSU professor in London, was in charge and Marie, a teaching assistant in English, accompanied us.  The students were bright-faced and engaged.  Ralph and I got the impression that they couldn't really take it in.  I think this was one time when our advanced age was an advantage.

It took a very long time to make it through southern London to out in the country.  Some perspective on what an enormous city London is.   Enormous.

The first stop was Charleston.  http://www.charleston.org.uk/  :

"In 1916 the artists Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant moved to Sussex with their unconventional household. Inspired by Italian fresco painting and the Post-Impressionists, the artists decorated the walls, doors and furniture at Charleston. The walled garden was redesigned in a style reminiscent of southern Europe, with mosaics, box hedges, gravel pathways and ponds, but with a touch of Bloomsbury humour in the placing of the statuary.

The rooms on show form a complete example of the decorative art of the Bloomsbury artists: murals, painted furniture, ceramics, objects from the Omega Workshops, paintings and textiles. The collection includes work by Renoir, Picasso, Derain, Matthew Smith, Sickert, Tomlin and Delacroix."

This house is in a beautiful setting.  It's rural agrarian rolling landscape with a mountain ridge to the west running, I believe, north to south,   Vanessa and Duncan moved here during WWI partly motivated by conscription.  For various reasons, men of the group did not go to battle.  I gather one of the provisions of the law was that a man must be doing something to contribute to the war effort if he was not to serve in active duty.  Growing food served this purpose for Duncan Grant.  This is my understanding.  He grew food in the large garden next to the house.

We were told yesterday to imagine their living there without electricity, central heat, or indoor bathrooms.  They say it gets terribly cold there in the winter with the wind whistling through the house.  They keep the windows closed at all times to keep out dampness and insects.  So it was close and a little hot in the house when we were there.  The ceilings were low and there wasn't a lot of light coming in.  

Our guide was a dignified, astute, adept woman maybe a little older than we are.  Very knowledgeable.  Obviously an admirer of the Bloomsbury group.  

There were a surprising number of rooms.  Some of them had changed occupants and/or purposes over the many years they lived there.  I believe I'm right when I say that they leased the house in the beginning from wealthy landholders and they later acquired ownership.  I'm not sure they ever owned it.  After Duncan Grant died, it came into the hands of an association which manages it.  It was run down and dilapidated at that point as Duncan used only a few rooms and did not keep up the rest.  Today, the house and furnishings are very fragile.  We were asked to leave our bags when we toured so they wouldn't bump against things.  At present, a room on the lower floor is not a part of the tour because the ceiling is cracking and is in danger of caving in.  You could feel how fragile it is.  

I wish we had had more leisure to walk through the house.  It was an informative, thorough tour but we had no time to just experience being in the rooms where these people lived and worked.

Still, I found it staggering the talent and creativity of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell.  How did they do it?  I know they must have meticulously studied color theory and the work of artists of the past and that they were even acquainted with some of the impressionists and modern artists.  But still I kept asking myself where did they begin to conceive these wonderful fanciful exquisite designs?  Some of it is so playful.  There's so much joy in it.  I cannot imagine what it must have been like to be close friends with such an array of thinkers and artists.  

And they did not live lavish lives.  Again, they moved to Charleston during WWI.  I don't know how I would fare living like that.  

So here are photos and one or two videos.  Remember, the flower garden was a vegetable garden.

And I made these videos just for fun as we arrived back in London on a Friday afternoon when every one heads to the pubs.

 Disappointing that these videos don't work right.