'Sidney Nolan was one of Australia's best-known artists from the 20th century, his reputation resting primarily on paintings of Australian landscapes and legends from Australian history, most famously Ned Kelly, the bushranger and outlaw. However, his work is also among the most diverse in modern art, with images in a wide variety of mediums as he worked quickly in series and regularly innovated in his use of materials.
Angel over Ely was painted using ink and enamel on glass and is one of over 130 such paintings Nolan produced between 1948 and 1951. Nolan painted this image after a visit to Ely Cathedral in England during the winter of 1950–51, while staying with his wife Cynthia’s sister in Cambridge. The image represents the moment when religious symbolism returned to his repertoire, inspired by the thought of angels over the cathedral and a subsequent trip to Italy. The subject of floating or flying angels then recurs constantly in his magnificent religious series of 1951/52 set against an Australian outback landscape.
Angel over Ely was painted using ink and enamel on glass and is one of over 130 such paintings Nolan produced between 1948 and 1951. Nolan painted this image after a visit to Ely Cathedral in England during the winter of 1950–51, while staying with his wife Cynthia’s sister in Cambridge. The image represents the moment when religious symbolism returned to his repertoire, inspired by the thought of angels over the cathedral and a subsequent trip to Italy. The subject of floating or flying angels then recurs constantly in his magnificent religious series of 1951/52 set against an Australian outback landscape.
Nolan wrote to fellow artist Albert Tucker in 1951 saying: "Our trip to Europe forced a few vigorous conclusions on me. The outstanding one being that the painters who moved me most (El Greco & Giotto) seemed men primarily of faith."'
For more on Sidney Nolan see my preview for Artlyst of Sidney Nolan: Colour of the Sky – Auschwitz Paintings and Sidney Nolan's Africa, my interview with Andrew Turley.
For more on Sidney Nolan see my preview for Artlyst of Sidney Nolan: Colour of the Sky – Auschwitz Paintings and Sidney Nolan's Africa, my interview with Andrew Turley.
My visual meditations include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Jake Flood, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska, Jan Toorop, Edmund de Waal and Sane Wadu.
My Church of the Month reports include: All Saints Parish Church, Tudeley, Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Hem, Chelmsford Cathedral, Churches in Little Walsingham, Coventry Cathedral, Église de Saint-Paul à Grange-Canal, Eton College Chapel, Lumen, Metz Cathedral, Notre Dame du Léman, Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Plateau d’Assy,Romont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Alban Romford, St. Andrew Bobola Polish RC Church, St. Margaret’s Church, Ditchling, and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, St Mary the Virgin, Downe, St Michael and All Angels Berwick and St Paul Goodmayes, as well as earlier reports of visits to sites associated with Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Antoni Gaudi and Henri Matisse.
Blogs for ArtWay include: Congruity and controversy: exploring issues for contemporary commissions;
Photographing Religious Practice; Spirituality and/in Modern Art; and The Spirituality of the Artist-Clown.
Interviews for ArtWay include: Sophie Hacker and Peter Koenig. I also interviewed ArtWay founder Marleen Hengelaar Rookmaaker for Artlyst.
I have reviewed: Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace, Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe and Jazz, Blues, and Spirituals.
Other of my writings for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Church Times can be found here. Those for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here. See also
Modern religious art: airbrushed from art history?
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