"When you are at the lowest levels of this pyramid, you will be either on one side or the other. But when you get to the top, the points they all unite, and there the eye of God opens” (Campbell, 31). Joseph Campbell presents this description of the Masonic symbol of the pyramid, which is an apt analogy of a recurring goal in Bloomsbury's artistic creation. This goal is a detached and disinterested artistic vision, free from personal prejudices that place a person's vision on one side of the pyramid. This artistic integrity was highly appreciated in the creation of Bloomsbury. Virginia Woolf explores this phenomenon through genre in her essay A Room of Its Own for itself, as well as through Lily Briscoe's art in the novel To the Lighthouse. This vision is not limited to creation, but also applies to artistic experience, as presented by Roger Fry in "An Essay in Aesthetics". Similarly, Lytton Strachey, in his biography of Florence Nightingale in Eminent Victorians, shows the importance of detachment and a certain degree of objectivity when striving for a goal, describing the consequences that occur when she has to overcompensate for social limitations of its kind. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay “What is meant by integrity, in the case of the novelist, is the belief which he gives that this is the truth” (Woolf, 72). In A Room of One's Own, Woolf attempts to define that artistic vision with which every person, or at least people of genius, seem to be endowed. Unfortunately, the ability to achieve this wholeness is fragile, and the torch that illuminates “the invisible ink on the walls of the mind” is easily smothered (72). Woolf's main suspect for this is society's effect on gender, particularly men's treatment of women. To continue the analogy, this treatment places women's artistic vision on one side of the pyramid. According to Woolf, especially before her time, women wrote under a cloud of anger that prevented them from achieving artistic integrity. Woolf uses Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre as an example: "She left her story, to which all her devotion was due, to attend to some personal grievance" (73). This personal resentment is the anger that Bronte had towards men. Woolf does not limit this tainted vision to women. Describes men's reaction to women's demand for social equality. Men have always been superior: «And when you are challenged, even by some woman in black hats, you take revenge, if you have never been challenged before, in a rather excessive way» (99). This retaliatory motive then has the clouding effect on men's writing: But why was I bored? Partly due to the dominance of the letter "I" and the aridity that, like the giant beech, it casts in its shadow. Nothing will grow there...There seemed to be some obstacle, some impediment in Mr. A's mind that blocked the source of creative energy and held it within narrow limits. (100)The letter "I" to which Woolf refers here is the personal garment that the artist wears in writing. Woolf asserts the importance of the detached “I,” and when she uses it she limits it to “a convenient term for someone who has no real being” (4). The appreciative self is the detached one, not limited by the filter of anger and presenting a vision with artistic integrity. This is what the eye at the top of the pyramid, which sees all four corners, means. Bloomsbury valued this detachment in other fields besides writing. Strachey reiterates this in EminentVictorians. It presents the achievements of Florence Nightingale and highlights the necessity of her rebellion against society's limitations on women. He begins by describing Florence's unhappiness and boredom with traditional life, satirically stating, "It was very strange; what could have happened to dear Flo?" for there was "plenty to do anyway, in the ordinary way, at home. There was china to look after, and there was his father to read to after dinner" (137). Subject to these restrictions, Florence overcompensated by becoming domineering, controlling, and, worst of all, destroying her femininity. It is for this reason that she was no longer objectively detached from her visions of adequate healthcare. His personal motivations and opinions are irreversibly intertwined with the originally honest and sincere inclination to help others. For example, due to its adaptive stubbornness, it insists that windows must remain open. It ignores the medical fact that this meant the disease would flow through the air to the patients. He had to have that stubbornness to get where he was in life, but it permanently clouded his judgment. This problem was the same one that extended to the women writers cited by Woolf. According to J.B. Batchelor, Woolf specifically denounces this reaction to oppression: [Woolf] is indignant at women as deans and heads of universities because they have abdicated the specialized role for which their femininity equips them by adopting masculine standards. Women do not have to emulate men; they have a better role. (172) Only by embracing her natural femininity could Nightingale remain detached from her aspirations, and this is something that society would not allow. Another literary character, Lily Briscoe, in Woolf's To the Lighthouse, demonstrates that it is necessary to break free from social conventions. Throughout the book she is tormented by Tansley's criticism that because she is a woman she cannot paint. She is also limited by the idea that her art "would hang in attics...would be destroyed" (208). It is only when he ignores these dark issues and searches for his true artistic vision that he is able to finish. "With a sudden intensity, as if he saw it clearly for a second, he drew a line there, down the center. It was done" (209). She was eventually able to look beyond those limiting factors and realize her vision. The Bloomsbury group's emphasis on detachment is further supported by Fry's "Essay in Aesthetics". This approach is different, but is still rooted in experiencing or creating art without personal bias. In this case the detachment occurs because we are not required to react to what we are seeing. Fry gives an example of this, stating that detachment “can be achieved by looking at a mirror in which a street scene is reflected. If we look at the street itself we are almost sure that we adapt ourselves in some way to its real existence” ( 19). The audience's experience of the art Fry refers to is similar to the experience a writer with artistic integrity will have. «It must first be adapted to that disinterested intensity of contemplation, which we have discovered has the effect of suppressing responsive action» (29). The disinterested contemplation that Fry refers to regarding the spectator is the same that Woolf states that a writer must have. Clearly, the members of the Bloomsbury group valued an uncontaminated and pure artistic vision, the "eye of God". The question then is: what is purity of vision? In Florence's case, this would allow for an undivided focus on helping people in the nursing industry. What, then, comes from being able to see something with artistic integrity? Referring to the creators of "superior works of art", Fry states:., 1971. 90