Ralph Chubb

Ralph Nicholas Chubb (born February 8, 1892 in Harpenden , Hertfordshire , † January 14, 1960 in Fair Oak Cottage, Hampshire ) was a British poet, printer and artist. Heavily influenced by Whitman , Blake and the Romantics , he created a complex personal mythology with his work that was anti- materialistic and sexually revolutionary.

Ralph Chubb, 1912

Life

Ralf Chubb's family moved to the historic town of St Albans before his first birthday . Chubb attended Abbey Gatehouse School there and later Selwyn College in Cambridge before becoming an officer in World War I. He served honorably but developed post-traumatic stress disorder and was declared incapacitated in 1918. From 1919 to 1922 Chubb attended the Slade School of Art in London , where he met Leon Underwood and other influential artists. He contributed several articles to Underwood's The Island magazine .

Although Chubb's works were exhibited in such important places as the Goupil Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts , his paintings did not sell. He and his family moved to the village of Curridge, near Newbury , Berkshire . He began to dedicate his artistic talent to printing, which would remain his main occupation for a lifetime.

His books were created in several main phases. His set books of the twenties were a humble notion that showcased Chubb's talent for woodblock printing and idyllic, visually inspired poetry. Even at this early stage, Chubb's lifelong fixation on male adolescents was evident. He developed the subject further in An Appendix , a homosexual and spiritualist manifesto copied from a handwritten manuscript. An Appendix was the first of his printed works to be printed in his own handwriting. This was soon followed by the first of his opulent lithographic books, The Sun Spirit . During the 1930s, Chubb's books became more elaborate and attractive. In Water Cherubs , Chubb's aesthetic of youthful male form emerges, and The Secret Country , which unfolds like an illuminated manuscript, tells the story of Chubb's family and his travels among the Roma in the New Forest in Hampshire . Chubb's printing press was interrupted by the war, but in 1948 he began the third period of his oeuvre with two large volumes: The Child Of Dawn and Flames of Sunrise . Each page of these two volumes is filled with obscure digressions into Chubb's mythology and drawings of symbolic significance. In short, Chubb's vision was a prophecy about the redemption of " Albion " or England, by the boy god Ra-el-phaos, whose prophet and herald Chubb claimed to be. It echoes an earlier announcement found in The Heavenly Cupid :

“I announce a secret event as tremendous and mysterious as any that has occurred in the spiritual history of the world. I announce the inauguration of a Third Dispensation, the dispensation of the Holy Ghost on earth, and the visible advent thereof on earth in the form of a Young Boy of thirteen years old, naked perfect and unblemished. "

“I am announcing a secret event that is as vast and mysterious as any event in the world's spiritual history. I announce the beginning of a third outpouring, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on earth, and its visible arrival on earth in the form of a boy aged thirteen, naked, perfect and flawless. "

Other themes run through Chubb's entire work. He was haunted all his life by the memory of a young St Albans choirboy who vanished from his life just as he found the courage to speak to him. Similarly, a brief sexual relationship with another boy when Chubb was 19 appears to have served as a template for later visions of Paradise. Chubb's books gradually became increasingly self-referential and paranoid. In an attempt to justify his homosexual lust, he created a personal mythology that explained everything in terms only he himself could understand. Still, Chubb's work is of fascinating psychological importance. Each of the various angels, knights, seers and boy-gods in his dream world represents an aspect of his introspective and haunted self.

Like many other artists of his generation, Chubb resented the intrusion of science. He despised the world's scientists, Orthodox theologians and politicians by accusing them of suppressing his personal thirst for freedom. In 1927 he wrote:

“Existence, besides being a miracle, is a symbol. Albeit here for inscrutable purposes the spirit is only to be discerned as it were in a distorting-glass. "

“Besides a miracle, existence is also a symbol. Although here with unfathomable intent, the spirit is only recognizable as in a distorting mirror. "

- The Book of God's Madness

In An Appendix, Chubb tried to convince his readers of the truth of his solipsism by illustrating some examples of happy coincidences in his life. His aim is more accurate when he condemns the taboos and frustrations of modern life.

“The green green hills, the blue blue sky, blue sea, great golden SUN, yellow dandelions, the pink naked beauty of ripe boyhood, deathless free and happy, brimming with health. This I must have. Nothing less than this can ever satisfy me! GIVE ME MY HEAVEN! GIVE ME MY HEAVEN! "

“The green, green hills, the blue, blue sky, the blue sea, the great golden SUN, yellow dandelions, the flesh-colored, naked beauty of mature childhood, immortal, free and happy, bursting with health. I must have this. Nothing less than this can ever satisfy me! GIVE ME MY HEAVEN! GIVE ME MY HEAVEN! "

- Water cherubs

As his health deteriorated and he faced constant legal and financial difficulties, Ralph Chubb abandoned his controversial works in the mid-1950s and began collecting and reprinting his early poems and childhood memories. Treasure Trove and The Golden City (published posthumously) are devoid of the usual abundance of naked, lithe boys and instead offer a glimpse into his youthful imagination and some of his loveliest poems. In the last few years of his life, he donated his remaining volumes to the National Libraries of Great Britain. He died peacefully in Fair Oak Cottage, Hampshire on January 14, 1960 and was buried next to his parents at Kingsclere Woodland Church.

Works

No edition of Chubb's books has run more than 200 copies, and some of his lithographed masterpieces only exist in 30 or 40 copies, of which only six or seven were hand-colored with great care by Chubb.

The dates and titles of Chubb's printed works are given below.

Early set works

• 1924 Manhood
• 1924 The Sacrifice of Youth
• 1925 A Fable of Love & Waw
• 1927 The Cloud & the Voice
• 1928 Woodcuts
• 1928 The Book of God's Madness
• 1929 An Appendix (copied handwritten text)

Lithographed texts

• 1930 Songs of Mankind
• 1931 The Sun Spirit
• 1934 The Heavenly Cupid
• 1935 Songs Pastoral and Paradisal (illustrated by Vincent Stuart; script by Helen Hinkley)
• 1936 Water Cherubs
• 1939 The Secret Country

Postwar Prophetic Texts

• 1948 The Child of Dawn
• 1953 Flames of Sunsrise

Juvenalia and early romances

• 1957 Treasure Trove
• 1960 The Golden City

Posthumous works

• 1965 The Day of St. Alban
• 1970 Autumn Leaves

literature

• Cave, Roderick (1960). 'Blake's Mantle', a Memoir of Ralph Chubb. Book design and production . 3 (2), p24-8
• D'Arch Smith, Timothy (1970). Love in earnest . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
• Rahman, Tariq (1991). Ephebophilia and the Creation of a Spiritual Myth in the Works of Ralph Nicholas Chubb. Journal of Homosexuality . 20 (1-2), p103-127
• Reid, Anthony (1970). Ralph Chubb: The Unknown . Reprinted from The Private Library . 3 (3-4).