Art Trail: Bishop of Chelmsford's Lent and Holy Week Pilgrimage

This year, Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani is walking the Barking Area Art Trail for her Lent and Holy Week Pilgrimage. The Pilgrimage is taking place on six days across Lent and Holy Week, starting on 25 February and concluding on 31 March.

This year's Pilgrimage started on Thursday 25 February with a 5 mile walk, starting at St Paul's Stratford and ending at St Bartholomew's East Ham, via St Michael & All Angels' Manor Park and St Barnabas Little Ilford. 

At St Paul's Stratford, the pilgrims are gathered in front of a striking wooden cross and matching altar front from the 1950s (both unattributed). From St Paul's, the pilgrims walked to St Michael and All Angels' Manor Park where they saw a sculpture of St Michael subduing the Devil, by Robert Crutchley, 1990. Onwards they went to St Barnabas Little Ilford to see the 1954 stained glass East Window, which has an image of Christ in Glory at its centre. The final stop of day 1 was St Bartholomew's East Ham. A stone cross (2007) on the exterior angled wall is by Nicholas Mynheer and represents St Bart's diverse congregation and community. They also saw John Bridgeman's sculpture 'The Family' (1983) which is situated on the south exterior wall of St Bartholomew's.

The Lent and Holy Week Pilgrimage resumes in Barking Deanery on 12 March.

The aim of the Barking Area Art Trail was to raise awareness of the rich and diverse range of modern and contemporary arts and crafts from the last 100 years which can be found within churches and, in particular, the 36 churches featured on the Trail. The significant works of art in these churches, taken collectively, represent a major contribution to the legacy of the church as an important commissioner of art.

These include past contributions by significant artists such as Eric Gill, Hans Feibusch, John Hutton and John Piper. In more recent years, churches continued to commission work by many important artists such as Mark Cazalet, Jane Quail and Henry Shelton together with other emerging artists who are now coming to prominence.

Work on the Art Trail was initiated by commission4mission, an arts organisation that encouraged churches to commission contemporary art, with the hope of increasing interest and stimulating engagement with the visual arts in the service of contemporary Christian faith.

A leaflet documenting the Art Trail, which was researched and developed by commission4mission member, artist and Fine Arts lecturer, Mark Lewis, publicised the Trail and provides information about the featured artists and churches. The leaflet included a map showing the churches featured on the Trail together with contact details, so that visits to one or more churches could be planned in advance.

Mark Lewis’ brief was to research commissioned art and craft in the Episcopal Area from the past 100 years. While stained glass is the dominant Ecclesiastical art form, he was also concerned to show a diversity and variety of media and styles within the selections made. He highlighted works such as the significant mosaic by John Piper at St Paul’s Harlow and the striking ‘Spencer-esque’ mural byFyffe Christie at St Margaret’s Standford Rivers. Churches with particularly fine collections of artworks included: St Albans, Romford; St Andrew’s Leytonstone; St Barnabas Walthamstow; St Margaret’s Barking; St Mary’s South Woodford;; and, the church chosen as the location for the launch event, St Paul’s Goodmayes.

The Trail was launched at St Pauls Goodmayes on Thursday 17th February by the Bishops of Chelmsford and Barking. At the launch event, The Rt. Revd. Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford, said: “I do not know what other art form could convey and hold the possibility of converging in so many layers. Not just do the visual arts comment on biblical narrative, but they illuminate it in a way that written or spoken forms cannot, being linear forms. Art opens windows on a set of concepts and ideas and brings them together. These windows offer a fresh perspective onto the faith we share, that other forms simply cannot.”

The Bishop of Barking stated that: “Our inspiration for understanding Christianity comes from the visual arts … The visual arts continue to be an important way of communicating our faith. Words are not enough to express the breadth, depth and height of what we want to communicate. It’s then that the visual arts express what we want to communicate.

God knew that: for centuries he relied on the words of the prophets and then he realized that he needed to send his Son to communicate in ways that words could not, the breadth, depth and height of his love. The word became flesh: the most beautiful living sculpture ever created – Jesus Christ.”

There are many interesting artworks to be found in the Diocese of Chelmsford; a fact I have been involved in highlighting previously through art trails in the Barking Episcopal Area - see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Most recently, I have included a listing of artworks to be found in the Basildon Deanery here and the Wickford and Runwell Team Ministry here and here. See also my post about artists in Broomfield - here. On the back of these and other sources of information, here is a partial listing of artists with work which can be found in churches within the Diocese of Chelmsford can be found here.

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Van Morrison - Hymns to the Silence.