Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1900s

This is Part 3 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s.

• In 1900 Oscar Wilde dies, following a death-bed conversion. John Ruskin also dies in 1900.
• William Holman Hunt paints a life-sized, version of The Light of the World which he begins in about 1900 and finishes in 1904. Shipowner and social reformer, Charles Booth, purchases the work and it is hung in St Paul's Cathedral, London. It is dedicated there in 1908, following a 1905–1907 world tour, during which the picture drew large crowds.
• In 1900, Charles Péguy starts the Cahiers de la Quinzaine (Fortnightly Notebooks), the journal that he runs until his death and in which most of his work first appears. In 1908, he announces his return to the Catholic faith.
• Arts and Crafts churches built in the UK include the Arts & Crafts Church (Long Street Methodist Church and School) – Manchester, England – 1900 and All Saints' Church, Brockhampton - 1901-1902. 5,000 Arts and Crafts style churches were built or decorated in the UK between 1884 and 1918.
• Paul Bellot becomes an architect in 1900 having studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1902 he becomes a monk of the Benedictines of Solesmes. In 1906, his abbot sends him to Oosterhout, in Holland. It is there that he begins his career as an architect by building the monastery of Oosterhout (1906), which he completes in 1909-1910, then that of Quarr-Abbey in the Isle of Wight (1907-1908) and its sanctuary of Sainte-Marie de Quarr-Abbey (1912-1914), four exceptional works built before the First World War.
• More artist colonies form including at Gödöllő in Hungary from 1901 with Aladár Körösfői-Kriesch and Sándor Nagy, the second 'generation' of the Latem School which includes Albert Servaes who moved to Latem in 1905, and the move by Eric Gill to Ditchling in 1907, to which he is followed by Edward Johnston and Hilary Pepler.
• In 1901, Mikhail Vrubel starts his large canvas Demon Downcast. Exhibited in 1902, the painting overwhelms the audience and wins real fame for the artist. Azrael (1904), though not so famous as the Demon Downcast, is also one of Vrubel’s greatest achievements. In his many variations on the Prophet theme, Vrubel explores the tragedy of the artist who, as he believed, fails to fulfil his mission to “sear the hearts of men with verbs”.
• Charles Albert Tindley begins publishing his songs in 1901, and goes on to publish several hymn collections, including Soul Echoes in 1905 and a series beginning with New Songs Of Paradise! in 1916. He was a noted songwriter and composer of gospel hymns and is recognized as one of the founding fathers of American gospel music. His composition ‘I'll Overcome Someday’ is credited by observers to be the basis for the U.S. Civil Rights anthem ‘We Shall Overcome’. Another of his notable hymns is ‘(Take Your Burden to the Lord and) Leave It There’ (1916). Others are ‘Stand by Me’ (1905) and ‘What Are They Doing in Heaven?’ (1901).
• In 1902, Hilaire Belloc publishes The Path to Rome, an account of a walking pilgrimage from Central France across the Alps to Rome. The Path to Rome contains descriptions of the people and places he encountered, his drawings in pencil and in ink of the route, humour and poesy.
• The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) and The Man who would be Thursday (1908) by G.K. Chesterton are published, also Out of Due Time (1906) and Great Possessions (1909) by Mrs Wilfrid Ward, Hadrian the Seventh (1904) by Frederick Rolfe and Lord of the World (1907) by Robert Hugh Benson.
• Mikhail Nesterov completes commissions for paintings in the Church of Alexander Nevsky in Abastuman, Georgia (1899-1904), and frescoes in Marfo-Mariinsky Cloister in Moscow (1907-11).
• In November 1904 Jacques and Raïssa Maritain marry and begin to read Léon Bloy. In June 1905 they make their first visit to Bloy's home. On visits to Bloy’s home, they also meet Georges Rouault. Then in June 1906 the baptism of Jacques, Raïssa, and her sister Vera takes place in the church of Saint-Jean-l'Evangeliste with Bloy as their godfather.
• In 1905, Georges Rouault exhibits his paintings at the Salon d'Automne with the other Fauvists.
• In 1905, Jan Toorop converts to Catholicism and begins producing primarily religious works.
• In 1905, Paul Sérusier publishes his translation of Desiderius Lenz’s essay The Aesthetic of Beuron (with an introduction by Maurice Denis).
• In 1906, Ruth St. Denis, after studying Hindu art and philosophy, offers a public performance in New York City of her first dance work, Radha (based on the milkmaid Radha who was an early consort of the Hindu god Krishna), together with such shorter pieces as The Cobra and The Incense. Her later productions, many of which had religious themes, include Egypta (1910) and O-mika (1913), a dance drama in a Japanese style. Prompted by a belief that dance should be spiritual, St. Denis brings to American dance a new emphasis on meaning and the communication of ideas by using themes previously considered too philosophical for theatrical dance.
• The Blue Rose artists, who represent the second wave of Symbolist painting in 20th century Russia, exhibit together in 1907. They are strongly influenced by the French Symbolist painters and the Russian Symbolist writers. The spiritualism which has been so frequent a theme in Russian art find a profound outlet in the Blue Rose’s transcendent aspirations. A sense of dread begins to pervade the mystically-themed works of the Blue Rose’s leader, Pavel Kuznetsov, as he begins depicting frustrated hopes and a sense of imminent tragedy.
• In 1908, Antoni Gaudi begins work on the Crypt of the Colònia Güell.
• In 1909, Pierre-Auguste Renoir writes a preface to the reprint of a French translation Cennino Cennini’s Treatise on Painting, an influential book for Renoir. In the preface he writes, ‘to understand the general value of the arts of the past it is necessary to recall that beyond the teachings of their masters the painters had something else, something that has disappeared from modern life, something that filled the soul of the contemporaries of Cennini – a religious faith, the most fecund source of their inspiration.’
• From 1909 until his death in 1956, Emil Nolde paints over fifty pictures with religious subjects. The first twenty-five, painted between 1909 and 1912, have a special place among his works as they include some of his largest and most elaborate paintings, among them a triptych, Legend: Saint Mary of Egypt, and the nine-piece Life of Christ.
• In 1909 Jacques and Raïssa Maritain move to Versailles and the Rouault family follow two years later. There they meet frequently, the Rouaults’ take meals with the Maritains’ on an almost weekly basis and hold long conversations together. They discuss religion, mysticism, social justice, the philosophy of beauty and the practice of art. Rouault finds in Maritain an understanding and sympathetic listener with whom he can escape his solitude, to whom he can speak of himself and of his art before a lively and open intelligence.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Victoria Williams - A Little Bit Of Love.