Liverpool, 2024
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Sault - Pray For Me (Faith In Me).
Saturday 31 August 2024
Broomfield: Rosemary Rutherford, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Huxley-Jones
Earlier this week I made a return visit to St Mary with St Leonard Broomfield as part of preparing for the talk on 'Rosemary Rutherford's Religious Art' that I will giving there in November, together with Kathy Rouse.
Rosemary Rutherford was a deeply religious artist and her spirituality guided her artworks. While a degree of awareness exists for her work in stained-glass, her religious paintings remain little known and under-appreciated.
While at St Mary's, I was also able to see the gravestone for Broomfield's two other significant artists, sculptors Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Huxley-Jones, who were wife and husband. St Mary's is also fortunate to possess a lovely prayer stall created by Gwynneth Holt.
For more on the artists of Broomfield, all whom are commemorated there with blue plaques, see here, here, here and here.
As part of a series of poems on thin places and sacred spaces in Essex, I have written a poem on Broomfield and its artists which is due to be published shortly in International Times. The first poem in the sequence, 'Runwell', has been published by Amethyst Review and will also appear shortly in the new anthology Thin Places and Sacred Spaces by Amethyst Press. The remaining poems in the sequence - 'Bradwell' and 'Pleshey' - will be published by International Times and Amethyst Review respectively.
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Friday 30 August 2024
Church Times - Art review: Monadic Singularity by Anish Kapoor (Liverpool Cathedral)
My latest review for Church Times is on Monadic Singularity by Anish Kapoor at Liverpool Cathedral:
'We see from a range of perspectives to look beyond, whether into the depths or up to the heavens, and, therefore, are asked by the artist to experience what the architect asked us to experience in first visualising and then creating this building. That experience is ultimately why this exhibition is so apposite as a celebration of this cathedral’s anniversary. Scott used 20th-century materials and techniques to create pointed arches that lead our eyes heavenwards, generating awe through light, space, and height. Whether directing us to the depths or heights, Kapoor mirrors Scott’s intent in his choices of works for this sacred space.'
Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.
'We see from a range of perspectives to look beyond, whether into the depths or up to the heavens, and, therefore, are asked by the artist to experience what the architect asked us to experience in first visualising and then creating this building. That experience is ultimately why this exhibition is so apposite as a celebration of this cathedral’s anniversary. Scott used 20th-century materials and techniques to create pointed arches that lead our eyes heavenwards, generating awe through light, space, and height. Whether directing us to the depths or heights, Kapoor mirrors Scott’s intent in his choices of works for this sacred space.'
Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writing for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Artlyst are here, those for Seen & Unseen are here, and those for Art+Christianity are here.
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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Joy.
Wednesday 28 August 2024
Augustine: Four foundational approaches to faith
Here's the sermon that I shared at St Andrew's Wickford this morning:
Today is the Feast Day of St Augustine. Augustine was born in North Africa in 354. His career as an orator and rhetorician led him from Carthage to Rome, and from there to Milan where the Imperial court at that time resided. By temperament, he was passionate and sensual, and as a young man he rejected Christianity. Gradually, however, under the influence first of Monica, his mother, and then of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, Augustine began to look afresh at the Scriptures. He was baptised by Ambrose at the Easter Vigil in 387. Not long after returning to North Africa he was ordained priest, and then became Bishop of Hippo. It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Augustine on the subsequent development of European thought. A huge body of his sermons and writings has been preserved, through all of which runs the theme of the sovereignty of the grace of God. He died in the year 430.
In his Confessions Augustine tells of his travels which take him from Carthage to Rome, and then to Milan, until his conversion. He meets the Manichean leader, Faustus, but finds no answers. He also encounters the doubt of the Academics and comes close to total scepticism in his own philosophy. In Milan he listens to Bishop Ambrose, whose homilies, little by little, answer many questions about Scripture which have been nagging at him for a long time. Looking back on this time, in Confessions, Augustine shares several understandings that prepared him for his conversion. These are the place of science in belief, the value of questions, the necessity of faithful prayer, and non-literal interpretations of scripture.
In Confessions, Augustine compares the teachings of the Philosophers and the Manichees concluding that the teachings of the Manichees were rambling and confused when it came to phenomena such as solstices, equinoxes or eclipses. By contrast, the observations of the Philosophers about creation could be verified by mathematics, by the progress of the seasons, and by the visible evidence of the stars.
Augustine was essentially saying that religious beliefs should not be in conflict with the findings of science and where they are, as in the case of the Manichees, that has to undermine the whole system of belief. How should we view this position in an age when scientists like Richard Dawkins believe there is no common ground between science and religion?
Sir John Polkinghorne, who is both a world-class physicist and an Anglican priest, is one who seeks to present an account of the friendship between science and theology, which he believes to be the truest assessment. Religion, he says, is our encounter with divine reality, just as science is our encounter with physical reality. He notes that a general scientific theory is broadly persuasive because it provides the best available explanation of a great swathe of physical experience. The cumulative fruitfulness of science encourages Polkinghorne to believe that this is an effective intellectual strategy to pursue. He then also engages in a similar strategy with regard to the unseen reality of God. God’s existence makes sense of many aspects of our knowledge and experience: the order and fruitfulness of the physical world; the multilayered character of reality; the almost universal human experiences of worship and hope; the phenomenon of Jesus Christ (including his Resurrection). So, he suggests that very similar thought processes are involved in both cases and that, in their search for truth, science and religion are intellectual cousins under the skin. This, it seems to me, is a position which equates to the approach advocated by Augustine.
Next, Augustine complains that in the crowd that came to hear the Manichee teacher, Faustus, he was not allowed to voice his anxious questions, and place them before him in the relaxed give-and-take of discussion. The asking of questions is fundamental to Augustine’s approach in writing Confessions. In the first Chapter he asks 6 questions, in the second he asks 12, in Chapter 3 he asks 8, and so it continues throughout the book. Augustine clearly believes that the asking of questions is fundamental to gaining true knowledge of God.
In Letters to a Young Poet the poet Rainer Maria Rilke calls for the unknown to be embraced, and not necessarily puzzled out. His call is one which I think equates with Augustine’s use of questions in Confessions. Rilke writes: “…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing, live your way into the answer….”
That was essentially what Monica, Augustine’s mother, had to do as she prayed that Augustine would come to faith. Augustine writes in Confessions that God did not grant what she desired at the moment that she first prayed, but, true to his higher purpose, he met the deeper wish of her heart. Monica had to learn to persevere in prayer in the face of what seemed to be a lack of response from God to her prayer. When Jesus told parables about prayer, the stories he told were of those who did what Monica did and kept on praying no matter what. When Monica’s prayer was finally answered it was the deepest wish of her heart that was realised as her son becomes one of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity.
Finally, Augustine explains that the change in his understanding of Christianity comes as he changes the way in which he interprets scripture. He is impacted by hearing Bishop Ambrose in Milan because Ambrose explains the spiritual meaning of Old Testament passages by figurative interpretations. Previously, Augustine says, taking these passages literally had been the death of me.
Literal understandings of the Bible claim that the meaning originally expressed by the writer is clear and they deny the legitimacy of any approach to Scripture that attributes to it meaning which the literal sense does not support. The problem with this is that the Gospel writers and St Paul do not interpret scripture in that way. The Gospel writers constantly apply Old Testament passages to Jesus in ways that do not reflect the meanings that the writers originally expressed while St Paul, like Ambrose, regularly uses allegorical or figurative interpretations of Old Testament passages. As a result, if we are, like Augustine, to understand the spiritual meanings of scripture we cannot simply apply one interpretative method to our reading of scripture but have to embrace the diversity of ways in which scripture is interpreted and understood and used within the pages of scripture itself.
So, in Confessions, Augustine gives us these four foundational approaches to faith: the taking seriously of science, living our questions, perseverance in prayer; and a diversity of approaches to the interpretation of scripture. These four approaches return Augustine to the place where he becomes once again an inquirer in the Catholic Church. He would therefore, I believe, commend them to us as well in our ongoing inquiries and investigations into the truth of Christianity.
Today is the Feast Day of St Augustine. Augustine was born in North Africa in 354. His career as an orator and rhetorician led him from Carthage to Rome, and from there to Milan where the Imperial court at that time resided. By temperament, he was passionate and sensual, and as a young man he rejected Christianity. Gradually, however, under the influence first of Monica, his mother, and then of Ambrose, bishop of Milan, Augustine began to look afresh at the Scriptures. He was baptised by Ambrose at the Easter Vigil in 387. Not long after returning to North Africa he was ordained priest, and then became Bishop of Hippo. It is difficult to overestimate the influence of Augustine on the subsequent development of European thought. A huge body of his sermons and writings has been preserved, through all of which runs the theme of the sovereignty of the grace of God. He died in the year 430.
In his Confessions Augustine tells of his travels which take him from Carthage to Rome, and then to Milan, until his conversion. He meets the Manichean leader, Faustus, but finds no answers. He also encounters the doubt of the Academics and comes close to total scepticism in his own philosophy. In Milan he listens to Bishop Ambrose, whose homilies, little by little, answer many questions about Scripture which have been nagging at him for a long time. Looking back on this time, in Confessions, Augustine shares several understandings that prepared him for his conversion. These are the place of science in belief, the value of questions, the necessity of faithful prayer, and non-literal interpretations of scripture.
In Confessions, Augustine compares the teachings of the Philosophers and the Manichees concluding that the teachings of the Manichees were rambling and confused when it came to phenomena such as solstices, equinoxes or eclipses. By contrast, the observations of the Philosophers about creation could be verified by mathematics, by the progress of the seasons, and by the visible evidence of the stars.
Augustine was essentially saying that religious beliefs should not be in conflict with the findings of science and where they are, as in the case of the Manichees, that has to undermine the whole system of belief. How should we view this position in an age when scientists like Richard Dawkins believe there is no common ground between science and religion?
Sir John Polkinghorne, who is both a world-class physicist and an Anglican priest, is one who seeks to present an account of the friendship between science and theology, which he believes to be the truest assessment. Religion, he says, is our encounter with divine reality, just as science is our encounter with physical reality. He notes that a general scientific theory is broadly persuasive because it provides the best available explanation of a great swathe of physical experience. The cumulative fruitfulness of science encourages Polkinghorne to believe that this is an effective intellectual strategy to pursue. He then also engages in a similar strategy with regard to the unseen reality of God. God’s existence makes sense of many aspects of our knowledge and experience: the order and fruitfulness of the physical world; the multilayered character of reality; the almost universal human experiences of worship and hope; the phenomenon of Jesus Christ (including his Resurrection). So, he suggests that very similar thought processes are involved in both cases and that, in their search for truth, science and religion are intellectual cousins under the skin. This, it seems to me, is a position which equates to the approach advocated by Augustine.
Next, Augustine complains that in the crowd that came to hear the Manichee teacher, Faustus, he was not allowed to voice his anxious questions, and place them before him in the relaxed give-and-take of discussion. The asking of questions is fundamental to Augustine’s approach in writing Confessions. In the first Chapter he asks 6 questions, in the second he asks 12, in Chapter 3 he asks 8, and so it continues throughout the book. Augustine clearly believes that the asking of questions is fundamental to gaining true knowledge of God.
In Letters to a Young Poet the poet Rainer Maria Rilke calls for the unknown to be embraced, and not necessarily puzzled out. His call is one which I think equates with Augustine’s use of questions in Confessions. Rilke writes: “…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves, as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing, live your way into the answer….”
That was essentially what Monica, Augustine’s mother, had to do as she prayed that Augustine would come to faith. Augustine writes in Confessions that God did not grant what she desired at the moment that she first prayed, but, true to his higher purpose, he met the deeper wish of her heart. Monica had to learn to persevere in prayer in the face of what seemed to be a lack of response from God to her prayer. When Jesus told parables about prayer, the stories he told were of those who did what Monica did and kept on praying no matter what. When Monica’s prayer was finally answered it was the deepest wish of her heart that was realised as her son becomes one of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity.
Finally, Augustine explains that the change in his understanding of Christianity comes as he changes the way in which he interprets scripture. He is impacted by hearing Bishop Ambrose in Milan because Ambrose explains the spiritual meaning of Old Testament passages by figurative interpretations. Previously, Augustine says, taking these passages literally had been the death of me.
Literal understandings of the Bible claim that the meaning originally expressed by the writer is clear and they deny the legitimacy of any approach to Scripture that attributes to it meaning which the literal sense does not support. The problem with this is that the Gospel writers and St Paul do not interpret scripture in that way. The Gospel writers constantly apply Old Testament passages to Jesus in ways that do not reflect the meanings that the writers originally expressed while St Paul, like Ambrose, regularly uses allegorical or figurative interpretations of Old Testament passages. As a result, if we are, like Augustine, to understand the spiritual meanings of scripture we cannot simply apply one interpretative method to our reading of scripture but have to embrace the diversity of ways in which scripture is interpreted and understood and used within the pages of scripture itself.
So, in Confessions, Augustine gives us these four foundational approaches to faith: the taking seriously of science, living our questions, perseverance in prayer; and a diversity of approaches to the interpretation of scripture. These four approaches return Augustine to the place where he becomes once again an inquirer in the Catholic Church. He would therefore, I believe, commend them to us as well in our ongoing inquiries and investigations into the truth of Christianity.
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U2 - Surrender.
Sunday 25 August 2024
Valldemossa and Pollenca
Perched on a hilltop, surrounded by terraced terrain, Valldemossa was named after the area’s original Moorish landowner, Muza. It is a beautiful and historic town in West Mallorca within the Tramuntana mountain range.
The Cartuja de Valldemossa is a monumental complex containing the ancient palace of a king that dates from 1309; a beautiful church with frescoes by Manuel Bayeu, Goya's brother-in-law; a beautiful and long corridor with white arches that leads to different cells that the monks inhabited for 400 years to find peace and rest; beautiful gardens and terraces with one of the most spectacular views of the Valldemossa valley; an old pharmacy that still contains ancestral utensils and medicines; an art collection of some of the most recognized Spanish and local painters, including Joan Fuster; a SXVI printing house and its xylographic collection; and a collection of Archduke Luis Salvador de Austria, cousin of Empress Sissi, who came to Mallorca with his steamboat and fell in love with this part of the island.
Rubén Darío, Azorín, Santiago Rusiñol, Eugeni d'Ors and Miguel de Unamuno all stayed there as did the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and the French writer George Sand, who lived in the charterhouse in the winter of 1838-1839. Two large cells and a beautiful garden with impressive views of the Tramuntana mountain range made up what was their home for about two months. In Valldemosa Chopin composed some pieces for piano (preludes, polonaises, a mazurka...) and Sand finished her novel Spiridion. Furthermore, the author used her experiences on the island to publish in 1841, in instalments, in the magazine Revue des Deux Mondes, A winter in Mallorca; A year later it came out as a volume and, far from admiring the Mallorcan beauty, in its pages she mercilessly criticized the habits and customs of the island people. Dario wrote shared his reflections on the monastery in his poem La Cartuja.
The Municipal Musem of Valldemossa, housed in the Cartuja, consists of four sections: the old Guasp printing press with authentic seventeenth century printing plates and a collection of 1590 woodblocks for printing from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries; the hall dedicated to Archduke Ludwig Salvador of Austria.
The Museo de Pollenca organises an annual installation in the Convent Church, Església del Convent de Sant Domingo, the Convent now being the location for the Municipal Museum. This year's installation is Tercet by Danny Rolph. Tercet is an immersive experience, in which Rolph appropriates time, space, light, forms, words and colour. Shunning the message of a lineal narrative, the observer is invited to take part in a contemplative sensorial experience. The two part installation includes “This is Just To Say”, a large format diptych on various layers of polycarbonate that lends a sense of depth and movement to the work, and “Contact”, a four-sided construction made with painted transparent polycarbonate sheets placed in the centre of the space with a changing light gleaming from the interior. Rolph is recognised worldwide for his multi-layered, abstract, colour focused paintings. He continually questions surface tension and spatial relations via the mediums of Triplewall plastic and canvas surfaces, embracing joy, doubt and discovery within his creative processes.
The Cartuja de Valldemossa is a monumental complex containing the ancient palace of a king that dates from 1309; a beautiful church with frescoes by Manuel Bayeu, Goya's brother-in-law; a beautiful and long corridor with white arches that leads to different cells that the monks inhabited for 400 years to find peace and rest; beautiful gardens and terraces with one of the most spectacular views of the Valldemossa valley; an old pharmacy that still contains ancestral utensils and medicines; an art collection of some of the most recognized Spanish and local painters, including Joan Fuster; a SXVI printing house and its xylographic collection; and a collection of Archduke Luis Salvador de Austria, cousin of Empress Sissi, who came to Mallorca with his steamboat and fell in love with this part of the island.
Rubén Darío, Azorín, Santiago Rusiñol, Eugeni d'Ors and Miguel de Unamuno all stayed there as did the Polish composer Frédéric Chopin and the French writer George Sand, who lived in the charterhouse in the winter of 1838-1839. Two large cells and a beautiful garden with impressive views of the Tramuntana mountain range made up what was their home for about two months. In Valldemosa Chopin composed some pieces for piano (preludes, polonaises, a mazurka...) and Sand finished her novel Spiridion. Furthermore, the author used her experiences on the island to publish in 1841, in instalments, in the magazine Revue des Deux Mondes, A winter in Mallorca; A year later it came out as a volume and, far from admiring the Mallorcan beauty, in its pages she mercilessly criticized the habits and customs of the island people. Dario wrote shared his reflections on the monastery in his poem La Cartuja.
The Municipal Musem of Valldemossa, housed in the Cartuja, consists of four sections: the old Guasp printing press with authentic seventeenth century printing plates and a collection of 1590 woodblocks for printing from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries; the hall dedicated to Archduke Ludwig Salvador of Austria.
”Joan Miró. Universal Generosity and Commitment”, on show at the Municipal Museum in Valldemossa Monastery, contains over 50 posters, some plates that testify to the poster-making process, and a series of avant la lettre proofs dedicated to lithographer and collaborator Damià Caus, founder of the Barcelona printmaking studio Litografías Artísticas. The exhibition also features a documentary section, made up of correspondence between Joan Miró and the Mallorcan painter, art critic and essayist Bartomeu Lluís Ferrà Juan (Palma, 1893-1946), who kept in contact after studying together at Academia Galí in Barcelona.
Founded in January 2005, La Fundació Cultural Coll Bardolet was born out of the desire of artist Josep Coll Bardolet (Campdevànol, Girona 1912 – Valldemossa, Illes Balears 2007) to bequeath part of his painting collection to the town that had been his home since 1944.
Zupan & Zupan is an exhibition there by father and daughter, Bruno and Natasha Zupan. Art critic Ed McCormick, described Zupan’s work as such: "The real magic is in the paint surface itself, with its energetic bravura strokes, splashes, splatters, and drips forming a unified statement, as active, alive, and visually autonomous as an Abstract Expressionist work by de Kooning or Diebenkorn- yet simultaneously evoking the word outside the canvas. Among contemporary painters, Bruno Zupan alone possesses the singular sensibility to strike such a perfect balance between surface and subject, between a convincing pictorial lyricism and the matter-of-fact materiality that is the even larger truth and triumph of the most advanced modern art. Part of Zupan's appeal is his willingness to take the necessary risks in terms of putting the emotive element back into landscape painting. He possesses the stunning confidence to put aside historical timidity and confront nature directly, and he has the rare painterly ability to translate passionate responses to it into transcendent works of art. His rhapsodic brushwork and singular vision have garnered him a worldwide following among those who still seek beauty in the art of painting. Bruno Zupan is one of the last great romantics and for that alone his work is worth treasuring."
Natasha Zupan's "work is a union between the old and the new, playing with similar elements as her father in a modern manner. Combining renaissance hues with chiaroscuro, modern collages with mixed media, the Yale-educated artist innovates her own technique of modernism and admiration for the great masters. Showcasing a sense of rhythm and youth in her work, Zupan utilizes rich, saturated brushstrokes to play on light and shadow. Her union of the modern and the classic is displayed in the juxtaposition between her palettes and her subject matter."
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