Diary extracts for February 1925

1st Feb 1925:

Got to work at laying foundations for The Deluge which is causing me a lot of trouble. In fact I don’t know what to do with it yet. I wish it to be something monumental, not a sensational painting with a lot of exaggerations.

2nd Feb 1925:

Life class:

 . . am doing very tight dull studies as I have no knowledge whatever of form and structure. Anatomy lecture in the evening.

5th Feb 1925:

Got on with my painting of The Deluge. It is not going at all well yet. Ideas are not very plentiful.

8th Feb 1925:

Got to work in real earnest for the first time on the Deluge composition.

8th Feb 1925:

[After listening to Beethoven’s 5th on records]
I wish painting could come up to music. Wish I could paint a 5th Symphony.

10th Feb 1925:

Poor old Tonks is very dissatisfied with the standard of drawing at the Slade, in fact he is raving.

11th Feb 1925:

Tried to make some progress on my sketch for the Deluge. Have got in a fearful mess. I wish I had longer for it. This being only my second ambitious attempt at a figure composition.

12th Feb 1925:

Made a sketch for the Raising of Lazarus in Indian ink and brush.

15th Feb 1925:

Up to 4.30 worked on the Deluge. Did not get on very well. The paint has sunk very much.

19th Feb 1925:

Deluge:

Still in a devil of a mess. Oiled it out the other day and it had all run down and made a beastly mess. In the evening  began a small Nocturne also for the Sketch Club.

22nd Feb 1925:

Deluge:

A faint idea just beginning to come but think I won’t have time to finish it.

25th Feb 1925:

Father wishing me to go home for the weekend to see Mr. Appleyard about my nose. Wrote to say I really could not as I want to get on with my painting and there is 'The Matthew Passion' on Saturday night.

26th Feb 1925:

Tried to get on with the Deluge. I feel very disgusted with it.

27th Feb 1925:

Heard that there were three Archipenko sculptures at the Leicester Galleries. Went straight to Bick [friend and sculptor John Bickerdike] and then the Gallery.
We stood amazed! About the most wonderful things I have ever seen. Without exaggeration he is as great as Michelangelo. The subtleties are infinite, and the purity wonderful. he is without an equal in modern times, in fact makes everything else, including Epstein’s ‘Betty May’ look ridiculous. A most amazing experience, and he is only 36. It is almost unbelievable.