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Thursday, 13 November 2014

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Report - Part 5

The story of the renaissance in Church commissions 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 but 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.

The commissions I have seen speak powerfully and movingly of the Christian faith and therefore inform the spirituality of those who see them. 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.

During my sabbatical I have visited churches which seem to have little or no regard for the artworks they possess and others which actively utilize them in their mission and ministry. Commissions can often occur at the instigation of a particular individual (e.g. Hingley, Hussey, Judd), so that, on occasion, when that individual is no longer there the impetus for seeing commissions as central to mission and ministry can also be lost. 

In much thinking and teaching on church art the work and the artist(s) are subservient to the liturgy and therefore are not given prominence, as in a gallery or museum with their different functions. In this way of thinking it is what the works signify or communicate of the faith that is important, not what they are or who it was that made them. This view of art wants to screen out the fullness of the interaction that the artwork has with its context on the basis of art for Christ's sake.

In my view this is to diminish the fullness of what the work of art is and can be in its context and, therefore, to restrict or restrain the artwork. Works of art are what they are, a unique entity in their own right, but they are brought to birth by an artist(s) who influence significantly the nature of the artwork itself. The artwork is brought to birth in and often for a particular context with which the artwork is in a dialogue. Additionally, the artwork continues to exist, while displayed, in a continuing context within which it is seen and with which it interacts. We respect and remember the integrity of the work by always remaining in dialogue with it and never privileging one facet or perspective over another in order to say 'this' is what it is.

Église St Michel,Les Breseux, is a church that has really engaged with the artworks it has commissioned and the visitors who therefore come to see those commissions. This church is aware that it now receives visitors who would not otherwise come and therefore takes their needs into account with simple but essential facilities provided and a small exhibition about the commissions, Manessier, and arte sacré more generally. Many larger churches do not do as much and Les Breseux is both an exemplar and an example as to why and how to cater for and minister to those who visit to view wonderful works of art.

Metz and Chichester Cathedrals both have simple but effective leaflets which identify a prayerful route around the spaces taking in the most significant commissions and offering a brief prayer in response to each. Such leaflets encourage all visitors not simply to be tourists but worshippers as well. I know from personal experience, having created a similar leaflet for St Margaret's Barking, how much such simple initiatives are appreciated by parishioners and visitors alike.

An argument can be made that such approaches, like the information provided on wall cards in museum exhibitions, can direct viewers to see the artwork from one perspective alone. However, this does not have to be the case as viewers often take that perspective as a starting point for then seeing others themselves. Additionally, providing no way in to perspectives on artwork, as curators have found, can leave viewers unable to begin to engage with the artwork at all.

Taking the meditative nature of his Julian of Norwich series further, Alan Oldfield created a film of the paintings with Sheila Upjohn reading selected extracts from Julian's shewings. Upjohn would later make a similar use of extracts from Julian in the booklet based on the 'Stations of the Cross' by Irene Ogden which can be found at St Julian's Church in Norwich. Jane Quail's 'Stations of the Cross' based on the Beatitudes were installed in the grounds of the Anglican Shrine at Walsingham in 2001 and are much loved by pilgrims. As with the Stations of the Cross by Ogden, a booklet with meditations based on the images and texts has been published. These are imaginative artworks which make creative textual and visual connections between the events of the 14 Stations and scriptures not normally associated with those events. They integrate scriptures creating a harmonious whole and opening up the scriptures to other interpretations and connections.

Metz Cathedral, like many other Cathedrals and churches, also has an ongoing arts programme centred on music and the visual arts. Exhibitions are hung within the body of the Cathedral with the exhibition at the time I visited, by Eban, being abstract works based on these words from Georges Rouault: “Shape, color, harmony / Oasis or mirage / For the eyes, the heart or the mind.” Similarly and as part of understanding that its commissions (stained glass windows by Chagall) had created for it a new and wider ministry, Tudeley Parish Church organizes an annual music festival. The Tudeley Festival, which specializes in period performance, was established in 1985 and the church also hosts concerts by visiting musicians and choirs at other points throughout the year.

Tudeley also has an excellent website with significant information about its commissions and other initiatives. The range and quality of information on their website remains relatively rare, even among those churches and cathedrals which do feature their artworks, but another which provides a marvelous example of what can be done online is Berwick Parish Church in Sussex under the heading of ‘Bloomsbury at Berwick’.

As a result of its memorial commissions St Andrew Bobola in Shepherds Bush is a significant space for memory and memorial for those remembering Poles who died during World War II, but also, more generally, for the Polish community in the UK as a whole. The Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere with its murals by Stanley Spencer was specifically created as a memorial space. St Andrew Bobola and Berwick Parish Church, by contrast, incorporate a memorial function into their wider ministry by means of their commissions.

Adam Kossowski’s murals at St Benet's Chapel have proved to be an excellent talking point in the Rev. Jenny Petersen's ministry to students of other faiths, with Muslims in particular understanding the themes of judgement found therein, leading to a willingness to use the space for prayer. She has encouraged contemplation of the mural's themes by producing a series of cards exploring the imagery of each panel together with the relevant sections from the Revelation of St John.

At St AlbanRomford their commissions have given the parish a 'beyond-the-parish ministry' in that other parishes considering commissions are regularly recommended to visit St Alban's in order to see what has been achieved, be inspired, gain ideas and be put in touch with artists. Visits also come as a result of the parish participating in borough-based Open House and Art Trail events as well as school visits. As Chairman of Governors and Link-Governor for Art and Design at The Frances Bardsley School for Girls, Fr. Hingley has played a significant role in the development of the School as a centre of excellence for the Arts including the Brentwood Road Gallery and commissions at the School by Reytiens and Cazalet. This engagement, which has led to the School joining the Chelmsford Diocesan Board of Education Affiliated Schools Scheme, enables the School, Parish and Diocese to "support each other in the spirit of Christian fellowship and service" finding "innovative ways of working together and learning from one another." One outcome was the inclusion of artworks by students which featured in the church as part of its Fan the Flame mission week.

In 2009 St Alban's hosted the launch of commission4mission which seeks to encourage churches to commission contemporary art as a mission opportunity. St Alban's exemplifies all that commission4mission suggests that local church engagement with the Arts can provide:

  • works of art which speak eloquently of the Christian faith;
  • a reason to visit a church – something that was tapped with their Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area;
  • links between churches and local arts organisations/ initiatives; and
  • a focus for people to come together for a shared activity.
To view the Arts in this way provides a further point of connection with the desire of the French Dominicans for a Christianity that was engaged with the secular world. As a result, they argued that priests should not live in ‘Christian ghettos’ but should join with the citizenry ‘to establish a new, spiritually inspired system of social justice’ - the worker-priest movement – and, with artists, to preach a ‘new gospel of sacred art’ that could help these artists come to ‘Christian awareness.’ These initiatives were representative of ‘a new evangelical spirit’ which was concerned with contextualized mission and which can continue to be replicated today in the current engagement which the Church has with the Arts.

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Leoš Janáček - Glagolitic Mass.

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