Rhythm and the Rhythmists

Abstract

Abstract One arena in which the ‘cult of rhythm’ found expression in the pre-First World War years is periodical publishing: the ‘little magazines’ which were the mainstay of the modernist avant garde. Chapter 4 explores how the mobility of print enabled international dissemination of new and radical ideas about art and the aesthetic, with rhythm the ‘connecting tissue’ between art forms. The chapter examines two periodicals, The New Age and Rhythm, where rhythm played a prominent role, tracing their emergence from the loose associations of friends and collaborators characteristic of cosmopolitan artistic culture in this era. The contributions of John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield come to the fore here; also Bergson’s ubiquitous influence; and the important role of the artist J. D. Fergusson—shaping Rhythm’s exploration of the visual and plastic arts, and developing educational projects with the dancer Margaret Morris based on shared ideas about ‘life in movement’.