P&P: Mina Loy
Authoring Dadaistic Invectives since 1882
A note to my lovely readers: Over the summer the tone of P&P will change slightly. Though no less factual, the prosopographic elements of the column will lose a bit of objectivity and decorum. I will write with a little more judgement and a little less reverence for the sake of a more engaging read. Thank y’all for the readership and interest!
– Alexandra
Poesy & Prosopography’s poet of interest this week is the rebellious Mina Loy.
Loy is known today as a poet, playwright, and painter as many of P&P’s subjects are. She made her way into the art scene with her futuristic, surreal, and Dadaistic paintings and poems. Loy’s life, from her Avant Garde artwork to her personal life was motivated by her rebellion against her mother’s overbearing Victorian Evangelicalism.
Loy’s life as an artist began under duress. Her father pressed her to study at St. John’s Wood Art School in hopes of increasing his daughter’s marriageable appeal. Evidently this tactic worked, as Loy was married twice with numerous love affairs before, during, and in between both marriages.
Loy continued to polish her artistic skill and style at the German art school Munich Künstlerinnenverein where she learned to draw. Upon returning home to London after her education in Munich, Loy fell into a stress (and mother)-induced depression which, at the time, doctors diagnosed as neurasthenia, a general term for societally unsightly ailments of the mind. She then convinced her parents to allow her to continue her artistic education at the Academie Colarossi under the supervision of a chaperone. In spite of her supervision, Loy found herself manipulated into bed with a man she despised, Stephen Haweis. Loy credits her vulnerability to his manipulation to her mother, whose legalistic parenting left Loy over-submissive to authoritarian figures.
This questionably consensual tryst led to Loy’s pregnancy and thus to a marriage of convenience. Haweis unsurprisingly shirked his husbandly duties, missing the birth of his daughter for a night spent with his mistress. Despite her apprehension for parenthood, Loy felt strong maternal affection for her daughter, Oda, which resulted in heartbreak at Oda’s young death just after her first birthday. Following Oda’s death, Loy and Haweis drifted apart, though still legally married.
During this time in her life, the elite radical artists of the time began to notice Loy’s work. After she submitted a collection of watercolor pieces, the Salon d’Automne requested Loy as a societaire which marked a major breakthrough in her career as an artist. As her renown grew, Loy met many influential figures of Italian Futurism and Dadaism such as Filippo Marinetti and Marcel Duchamp.
The Dada movement attempted to ‘fight fire with fire’, responding to the absurd horrors of World War 1 with disconcerting absurdist pieces. Founded primarily by Hugo Ball, this philosophy appealed to elite radicals like Loy and those in her social circles. Self-described as anti-art, this surrealist method of social expression served only to provide objective perspective through mass agreement in discomfort.
Poesy & Prosopography’s Stanza(s) of the Week comes from Loy’s poem Apology of Genius:
We are the sacerdotal clowns
who feed upon the winds and stars
and pulverous pastures of povertyOur wills are formed
by curious disciplines
beyond your lawsYou may give birth to us
or marry us
the chances of your flesh
are not our destiny—The cuirass of the soul
still shines—
And we are unaware
if you confuse
such brief
corrosion with possession
In this poem, Loy expresses feelings of alienation from society due to her extraordinary intelligence. She describes herself in rank with a legion of ill-fated priestly geniuses, sent to the earth to suffer the inferiorities of fellow man. These inferiorities include the misunderstanding of possession through birth or marriage, a jab at her mother and first husband. Loy illustrates this possession or connection as a ‘chance of flesh’, followed by a statement of destiny. These statements imply that Loy was a fatalist, which lines up with her Dadaist involvement.
The tone of this poem is not hopeful, rather it mourns coexistence with intellectual inferiors. Loy’s trust in the cuirass –or breastplate– of the soul, however, does provide a glimmer of hope for her fellow (self-diagnosed) geniuses. The language of armor and war invokes an image of a battle: Loy and the geniuses of the world versus the depravity and possession of confused laymen.
Loy’s affinity for rebellion served her well in her career as an artist because she dared to venture out into scandalous and uncharted waters. She sat at the forefront of both Futurism and Dadaism, challenging her contemporaries to keep up and her critics to outperform her in classical skill. Though personally, I think Loy would have been an insufferable companion due to her elitism and personal carelessness (perhaps this reflects more upon my own inferiority), she certainly made warm acquaintances with her fellow elite, leading her to a life of controversy and praise.