''The Mud Bath'' is a 1914 oil-on-canvas painting by

David Bomberg David Garshen Bomberg (5 December 1890 – 19 August 1957) was a British painter, and one of the Whitechapel Boys. Bomberg was one of the most audacious of the exceptional generation of artists who studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry ...

. The work is considered a masterpiece of Bomberg's work in this period. Bomberg was a founder member of the

London Group The London Group is a society based in London, England, created to offer additional exhibiting opportunities to artists besides the Royal Academy of Arts. Formed in 1913, it is one of the oldest artist-led organisations in the world. It was form ...

, and the painting is considered a leading example of

Vorticism Vorticism was a London-based Modernism, modernist art movement formed in 1914 by the writer and artist Wyndham Lewis. The movement was partially inspired by Cubism and was introduced to the public by means of the publication of the Vorticist mani ...

, although Bomberg resisted being described as a Vorticist. The painting is a striking composition of human figures formed from white and blue geometric planes and angles, in a rectangular bath of vibrant red surrounded by a landscape of mustard brown, arranged around a brown and black vertical element (perhaps a column at the baths). There is a suggestion that the bathers are waving their arms as if in a

Bacchanalian The Bacchanalia were unofficial, privately funded popular Roman festivals of Bacchus, based on various ecstatic elements of the Greek Dionysia. They were almost certainly associated with Rome's native cult of Liber, and probably arrived in Rome ...

revel. The scene is based on Schewzik Russian Vapour Baths in

Brick Lane Brick Lane (Bengali: ব্রিক লেন) is a street in the East End of London, in the borough of Tower Hamlets. It runs from Swanfield Street in Bethnal Green in the north, crosses the Bethnal Green Road before reaching the busiest ...

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

, near Bomberg's home in

east London East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the f ...

, which was used by the local Jewish population for cleanliness and for religious observances, including the

mikveh Mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvoth'', ''mikvot'', or (Yiddish) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity. Most forms of ritual impurity can be purif ...

ritual bath. Bomberg's Jewishness was a very important part of his identity as an artist. The bathing room, with a communal bath approximately 10-foot square and balcony above, was open to either men and women on different days, and may also have been the inspiration for his 1913 work, ''Ju-Jitsu''. Bomberg created a series of crayon, gouache and chalk studies before the painting. The completed work measures by . It was a key component in his one-man exhibition the

Chenil Gallery The Chenil Gallery (often referred to as the Chenil Galleries, or New Chenil Galleries) was a British art gallery and sometime-music studio in Chelsea, London between 1905 and 1927, and later the location of various businesses referencing this ear ...

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

in 1914. In addition to taking first place in the catalogue, the work was hung on the wall outside the gallery so that it could have "every advantage of lighting and space". A critic remarked that the work was "rained upon, baked by the sun and garlanded with flags", but it did not entice many passing the gallery to enter. The ''

London Chronicle The ''London Chronicle'' was an early family newspaper of Georgian London. It was a thrice-a-week evening paper, introduced in 1756, and contained world and national news, and coverage of artistic, literary, and theatrical events in the capital ...

'' noted that "The passers-by make no comment, because they do not recognise it as a picture". Bomberg recalled that as they turned the corner of King's Road, horses pulling the number 29 bus would shy at it. The work was purchased by the Tate Gallery in 1964, seven years after Bomberg's death.

References

David Bomberg, ''The Mud Bath'', 1914
Tate Gallery
Study for ''The Mud Bath'' 1914
Tate Gallery * http://www.vorticism.co.uk/vorts_bomberg.html
Origins and Development, Volume 1 of ''Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First Machine Age''
Richard Cork, p. 203-207...
London, Modernism, And 1914
Michael J. K. Walsh, p. 138-139
Ju-Jitsu circa 1913
Tate Gallery {{DEFAULTSORT:Mud Bath 1914 paintings Vorticism Bathing in art