Viewed in this context, Bell’s achievement can be seen as typical of the period rather than as a special case. All the features of Bell’s re-association of the Church and the Arts can be seen amplified in the flowering of Catholic culture that occurred in France during the same period.
A focus on contemporaneity and commissions for the best contemporary artists is what drove Couturier and Régamey, as it did Bell and Hussey. Bell was not an arts theoretician in the way that Denis, Gleizes, Maritain and Couturier were but those aspects of re-associating Church and the Arts that he consistently emphasised in speeches and writings accord closely which the emphases found in their writings.
Sociality pervades the many networks and communities that formed around individuals and movements in Europe, as with Bell’s gatherings and friendships. Finally, spirituality underpins the artistic and theological principles propounded within their communities by Maritain, Lenz and Gleizes, as with Bell’s view that the Arts could address the spiritual poverty he saw in contemporary society.
These aspects of the early twentieth century flowering of Catholic culture and of the sight of artistic giants in the Anglican Church remain fundamental for a continuing contemporary associating of the Church and the Arts. Commissioning the best contemporary artists remains, at best, only the beginning for a more fruitful engagement, still to be fully realised, that through networks invokes the discussion, demonstration and development of both sociality and spirituality.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard Cohen - If It Be Your Will.
No comments:
Post a Comment