Reactionary Modernism

Since the Second World War, "Modernism" in the arts has been overwhelmingly associated with the cultural and political Left. But before the War, there was vigorous debate between Modernists of the Right and the Left. Jonathan Bowden was a latter-day Reactionary Modernist in both literature and the visual arts. Reactionary Modernism collects Bowden's lectures and essays on such great Reactionary Modernist artists as Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, and Arno Breker, as well as his criticisms of the degenerate Modernism of Stewart Home and the Turner Prize. The statements collected in Reactionary Modernism do not merely dwell on the past, for by returning to tradition, Bowden hoped to inspire an artistic renaissance on the Right. "Let us return to tradition to go forwards with modernity in a different direction. "-Jonathan Bowden