The oddness and quaintness of the objects Carrington collected really emphasised the mosaic quality of her personality and appearance more than for the Bloomsberries. In the introduction to Carrington's letter and diary extracts, David Garnett, a close friend, describes her apple-blossom complexion, broken nose and obliquely pointed teeth2. Whilst Aldous Huxley's 1920 novel "Crome Yellow", characterises her as the naive Mary Bracegirdle with large china-blue eyes; both seem like word pictures of her "junk". Obscurity however, has thrown gauze over her paintings and other creative endeavours, with a slight revival in the 1990's through Christopher Hampton's film Carrington and a retrospective of her creative out-put at the Barbican, London. Her complex relationship with writer Lytton Strachey, genuine distinctive talent as a painter and prolific writer of heart-on-sleeve out-pourings, have saved her from heavy brocades being cast over her.

Tuesday 14th September 1921

There is beauty and artistry in the bohemian interior, but there is also artistic frugality. The bohemian existence described in Ragged Banners is one of discomfort and minimal living, its literary aim to reflect the simplicity of life. The poor poet swoons amongst his hand-woven textiles, painted furniture and rush seated chair, spirituality achieved through physical minimalism but even then not lacking artistic flair; still quite a contrast to Carrington's homes of Tidmarsh Mill and Hamspray House respectively, both chock-a-block with curios and her hand-painted furniture. At Charleston, home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, wall colours were carefully considered, contrasting with the treasured imperfections of their objet d'art: earthy tones would make the hair-line cracks of mottled blue china and the faded Indian throws sing clearly and sweetly against the dreary white English afternoons. Bell and Grant's paintings also display their wares of old, dark wine bottles, hand-made pottery, jugs and cups, bright fabrics and chipped busts of long forgotten people. But in these homes, the essence of free individual expression is still retained through the clutter or sparseness, always turning away from the mass-produced.

Cecil Beaton's Glass of Fashion 1954, retrospectively casts an eye over decor and furnishings, but more importantly over its aesthetical and spiritual value. Beaton an aesthete himself and photographer of the litterarti, certainly did not eschew the more rustic sensibilities of some of his artistic chums; namely the Johns, Augustus and Dorelia: In the corner of the entrance hall, boxes of apples and croquet mallets are spontaneously thrown together, constituting a picture of life that is full of sentiment and completely lacking in pretension.6 Looking for the inherent beauty in an object aside from value judgements, as Beaton noted, harks back to the principle book which stirred a young group of Cambridge graduates in Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London in the early 1900's. The Midnight Group met at the instigation of Thoby Stephen, brother of the future Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Here on a Thursday night this group became the Thursday group, discussing truth, love and beauty, raising questions such as "What do you mean?" amongst cocoa and buns and flitting sisters. The book they revered was G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica, 1902, a philosophy of aesthetics and the innate beauty and goodness of objects.