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Thursday 2 October 2014

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Report - Part 1

The commissions that I have seen during this sabbatical tell a story of a continuing engagement by the Church with contemporary art from the Post-Impressionists to the present day. This engagement has often been contentious and contested but it has nevertheless been a continuing relationship involving both mainstream artists with a Christian faith and church commissions undertaken by mainstream artists who have not professed the faith.

Benedict Read in his 1998 lecture to the Royal Society of British Sculptors noted that following the Second World War: “Churches were being repaired. New work was being installed in them. There was an expansion of church buildings with works of art in them … There is an alternative world there of the commissioning of art for specific purposes that, with no disrespect to established art historians, simply doesn't feature in our notion of cultural history in the post-war period.” 

Read was speaking of the UK but a similar situation occurred in mainland Europe and in both settings, while the church building programme has slowed somewhat, the commissioning of contemporary art has not, meaning we have and are witnessing something of a renaissance of commissioned art for churches and cathedrals.

Key figures in initiating and then sustaining aspects of this renaissance in its initial phases included the artists Maurice Denis and Albert Gleizes, the philosopher Jacques Maritain, and the churchmen Bishop George Bell, Dominican Friar’s Couturier and Régamey, and Canon Walter Hussey.

Significant thematic developments within this period include:

·       commissions by secular artists or artists of other faiths who have brought alternative perspectives to Christian imagery, beliefs and themes. Artists such as Ervin Bossanyi and Marc Chagall, while using Christian imagery in their stained glass commissions, also recognized the 'profound inspiration' of all the great religions, possessed a 'reverence for life' and longed for a 'new cosmopolitan world order, in which ideological, racist and cultural differences no longer mattered';
·       images of the crucifixion by, for example, Albert Servaes, Germaine Richier and Graham Sutherland which viewed Christ’s sacrifice as emblematic of human suffering in conflict and persecution. These were often controversial as they challenged sentimental images of Christ and deliberately introduced ugliness into beautiful buildings;
·        in England church commissions gave émigré artists – such as Bossanyi (stained glass), Hans Feibusch (murals) and Adam Kossowski (ceramics) - the opportunity to build new careers. In writing about Feibusch, Jutta Vinzent has noted the extent to which this was “a period of intense artistic activity in Britain” which was “stimulated to an inestimable extent by émigré artists”; and
·       a move from storytelling in stained glass by means of narrative figuration (e.g. Chagall) to the creation of spiritual space using abstract colour (as pioneered by Jean Bazaine and Alfred Manessier) has occurred, primarily in France. The concept of stained glass architecture - of a light-filled architectural unit – that we find, for example, at the Chapelle Sainte-Thérèse-de-l'Enfant-Jésus et de laSainte-Face in Hem is an attempt to create spiritual space - a sense of prayer and a glimpse of heaven – through the play of light and colour within the building. In the past churches were centres for the drama of the visual - the drama and spectacle of the liturgy combined with the visual narrative of scripture in stained glass. Now people find their visual stimulation elsewhere - through the media primarily – and, as a result, churches have become centres for the opposite of visual stimulation e.g. centres of visual contemplation, where narrative is less essential than ambience and atmosphere.

This story is not one which has been well told, either by the Church or the mainstream art world. There are many reasons for this on both sides. The Church has often not valued sufficiently the artworks it has commissioned; at times their significance has not been understood or shared, at other times the works have been controversial and may have been banned or not publicized as a result. Often the artworks have been regarded as subsidiary to the liturgy and have not been publicized in order that the focus of the faithful would not be deflected. ‘Christian Art’ has become a contested term and the Church has been unsure whether to continue to use it and, if not, how else to speak of its commissions. There has also been significant debate about the relative values of commissioning artists who are Christians and contemporary ‘masters’ who may not be Christians.

In terms of the mainstream art world, the beginning of the modern period saw art and artists firmly and finally separating from dependence on Church patronage and wishing to maintain that independence. In addition, the speed with which new movements formed within modernism meant that artists engaging with church commissions in their later career could be portrayed as no longer being cutting edge and as having declined in the quality of their work. Many of the media used for Church commissions have not been central to modernism’s movements while the ‘alternative world’ of artists for whom Church commissions are a significant part of their practice tends not to feature on the radar of the mainstream art world.

Each of the above is open to question and critique. Controversy over commissions tends to fade leading to more widespread acceptance. Controversy can also generate valuable debate. The place of icons in Orthodox Churches shows that artworks can enhance rather than detract from worship. Commissions have gone to artists who are Christians and to contemporary ‘masters’ who are not Christians throughout the modern period. There are examples of successful and less successful commissions using both approaches. A mixed economy is the only practical and realistic approach. Commissions should be judged on their own merits and not on the reputation of the artist(s) involved. Reputations change over time meaning that those who are viewed as contemporary ‘masters’ may not be considered as significant by future generations while artists who do not have national or international reputations in their day may nevertheless produce high quality and/or visionary work. The quality of work produced by artists does not necessarily diminish with age or a change of style or when Church commissions are accepted, although the reputation of an artist or the perception as to whether they are or are not cutting edge may be affected by such considerations. The story of the revival of sacred art in the twentieth century can be told as one story among many in modernism and as a means of increasing the historical accuracy within the telling of the standard story of modernism.

My concern in making this story the focus of my sabbatical has been to encourage the Church to tell and to value this story. As both a parish priest and through commission4mission, the group of artists of which I am part, I have seen the value of promoting and publicising the artworks which churches have commissioned. Through the creation of Art Trails locally and regionally, we have provided churches with a means of publicity which has led to events such as art competitions, exhibitions, festivals and talks, community art workshops, guided and sponsored walks, and Study Days. Each has brought new contacts to the churches involved and has built relationships between these churches and local artists/arts organisations.

It is my contention that to tell more fully the story of the engagement which the Church has had with modern and contemporary art could have similar impact on a wider scale and would also have the effect of providing emerging artists from within the Church and the faith with a greater range of role models and approaches for their own developing inspiration and practice. The commissions themselves often speak powerfully and movingly of the Christian faith and therefore also inform the spirituality of those who see them.

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Leonard Cohen - Born In Chains.

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