Not only was Roger Fry a respected and renowned artist and art critic, but above all, he was an avid advocate for the type of art that he classified as “Post-Impressionism.” He had a profound impact on the art world in England during the early 1900s and was one of the first people to raise public awareness of modern art. In 1910 he organized the first Post-Impressionist Exhibition in London, putting together a show of impressionist painters that had remained rather hidden from the public eye up until that time. Fry’s exhibition featured the works of Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Manet, Matisse, and Picasso, and rejected impressionism as old-fashioned. This exhibition shocked the public, evoking extreme emotional responses from its audience. Among the descriptive reactions of the exhibit’s observers were words like “horror,” “madness,” “evil,” “sickness of the soul,” and “pornography.” Needless to say, many people found the exhibition rather offensive.
Bracing himself for yet another round of harsh criticism, Fry organized a second exhibition two short years later in 1912. This second Post-Impressionist Exhibition featured the artwork of some of the members of the Bloomsbury Group (whom Fry was personal friends with), including Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. Fry wrote his contribution, ‘Art and Socialism,’ to an anthology of essays being put together by H.G. Wells called ‘Socialism and the Great State,’ only a few months before this second exhibition was to take place.
In his essay, Fry explores the negative effects that plutocracy has had on art and the artist who creates it. He emphasizes the importance of aesthetic vision, which he believes is the prerogative of the artist and the artist alone. He bemoans the fact that the wealthy and elite members of society alone have established what gives art “value,” and argues that the artist must have freedom from these conventions and rules in order to create anything of actual meaning. He goes on to say that in order for the artist to operate freely, he must be released from all financial restraints and other psychological pressures that society has put on him. Basically, what Fry describes in ‘Art and Socialism,’ is, in his opinion, the ideal conditions for the creation of art. Roger Fry is responsible for bringing the art of the Post-Impressionism movement to the public, and will always be remembered for this profoundly significant contribution to the artistic community.
These are some paintings that are characteristic of the Post-Impressionistic art Fry advocated so fiercely:
"Starry Night Over the Rhone," Vincent Van Gogh
"Mahana no atua" (Day of God), Gauguin
"Icarus," Henri Matisse
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