Bloomsbury And Space Boundaries

The purpose of this paper is to explore the complex ways in which Bloomsbury artists approached space, challenging and blurring the boundaries between the domestic/private domain and the public sphere, and also between life and art. Looking deep into the private space, these artists posited the self, which was of utmost importance to them, at the intersection between two previously distinct spheres. With their metaphorically charged symbolism of rooms, windows, houses, gardens, on the one hand, and streets, parks, and squares, on the other, Virginia Woolf's novels, diary and essays, E. M. Forster's novels and essays, the paintings of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and the Omega Workshops organized by the Bloomsbury artists suggest an ambivalent contrast and fusion between the most intimate aspects of the self and the public space.