Here's the talk I gave at last night's Unveiled event in St Andrew's Wickford:
St Andrew’s has a hidden painting – ‘The Descent from the Cross’ by David Folley – which illustrates some of the issues involved in showing modern art in churches. In this talk I want us to look at Folley’s painting and other controversial art commissioned for churches to see the ways in which they open up conversations about faith for those who wouldn’t ordinarily come to church or consider faith.
David Folley is an English painter based in Plymouth. He paints subjects that range from abstracts, landscapes, seascapes, portraits, and race horses, including a life size painting of the famous British racehorse Frankel. He has completed portrait commissions for Trinity College, Cambridge, and University College Plymouth and has had major commissions from Plymouth City Council and Endemol UK (a production company for Channel 4). He describes himself as “a twenty-first century romantic with a belief in the spiritual and redemptive possibilities of art.” Exploring the spiritual and redemptive possibilities of art is the foundation of his “romantic associations with the aesthetic tradition of Northern Romantic painting.”
Revd Raymond Chudley, a former Team Vicar at St Andrew’s, knew Folley and had supported him in his artistic career. As an act of gratitude, Folley made this painting as a gift for Chudley when he got married, around the time he retired from parish ministry. The painting was too large for Chudley’s home, so was gifted to St Andrew’s and was dedicated by the Bishop of Bradwell in 1996.
Folley’s friend Alan Thompson has described the work well. Thompson writes: “David Folley has painted The Descent from the Cross, the melancholy depth of hopelessness, in a major work of heroic proportions. It is a large canvas painted traditionally to inspire the viewer to contemplate all that had culminated in what seemed at the time to be the final act of a tragedy. The viewer cannot share the utter despair of the participants in the painting because he or she knows what they didn't - that the body will be resurrected.
The way David has painted the body expresses the physical suffering Christ endured, whilst the dripping blood from the wound the soldier inflicted on Him, is shown as a rainbow. The explanation of this is that God told Noah that the rainbow was the sign of the new covenant with the earth. This is just one of many examples of Christian iconography illustrated in this work.
Mary, looking up at her son, is depicted as a modern provincial character in the manner we have associated with Stanley Spencer. Behind Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, with a moustache, is painted in blue to denote spiritual love, constancy, truth and fidelity.
At the extreme right hand side of the picture, the Revd. Raymond Chudley, who commissioned the painting, is shown in the traditional fifteenth century role of the donor, kneeling in prayer, with his attention fixed upon the body of Christ.
Facing him is the artist. He has included himself, portrayed as holding a broken spear as if to suggest that he had been responsible for the wound in the side of Christ. He is balancing precariously on a skull, a memento mori, signifying the transitory nature of life and also reading across to Calvary, which is derived from Golgotha, which is Hebrew for skull. He is also 'pregnant' with a foetus, which the artist sees as humanity giving birth to the Christ within, and transforming themselves into Sons of God rather than sons of man.
From the bottom of the painting is an outstretched arm, which just fails to touch Christ's hand, because the hand is withdrawn. This is intended to signify man's desire, through science, to explain the laws of the universe and so become almighty. He is almost there but cannot touch. There is a visual tension between God and man.”
Folley says, “I sum up this painting as being made up of a composite of the works of great masters of the past. Not copying them slavishly but developing my own concept of individualism with emphasis on vivid imagery, technical refinement, complex iconography and innovation.” Among the artists referenced are: El Greco, Grunewald, and Donatello.
The painting disturbs some through a mix of its expressionist style, its strong colouration, and its unusual symbolism. As it dominates the space in the church where children’s activities have often taken place it was eventually decided to cover it with a large curtain and banner.
Such a response to contemporary art in churches is not unusual. During my sabbatical I visited churches linked to three significant controversies over the commissioning of modern art:
(i) a set of Stations of the Cross and an altarpiece, The Death of St Teresa, commissioned from the Flemish artist Albert Servaes for the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Luithagen, a suburb of Antwerp. This led, in 1921, to a decree from the Holy Office based on Canon 1399.12, which states that images may not be ‘unusual’, resulting in first the Stations and then the altarpiece being removed from the chapel;
(ii) the rationalist design for Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil in the Swiss Alps by architect Alberto Sartoris (who had strong links to the Futurists) created a scandal in the Swiss press in 1931, the same year that the publication of a 'Manifesto of Futurist Sacred Art' led to a censure from Pope Pius XI in a speech at the inauguration of a new Vatican Art Gallery and;
(iii) Germaine Richier’s Crucifix was removed from Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce at Assy and a subsequent instruction on sacred art issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1952, which was the beginning of two year initiative by the Vatican that severely constrained the modernizing programme of the French Dominicans and represented a victory for the traditionalists within the Church.
Many church commissions are controversial because they introduce something different and therefore dissonant into a familiar building, as is the case with David Folley’s painting. That was the case with modern images of the crucifixion by Servaes and Richier and, in the UK, Graham Sutherland at St Matthew’s Northampton and St Aidan’s East Acton. These viewed Christ’s sacrifice as emblematic of human suffering in conflict and persecution. They were controversial as they challenged sentimental images of Christ and deliberately introduced ugliness into beautiful buildings. On my sabbatical I spoke to parishioners in both Northampton and East Acton who stated that they did not like Sutherland’s Crucifixions but who also appreciated why the paintings were as they were and the challenge that they provided as a result.
I was particularly moved to find, on entering Saint Martin’s Kerk in Latem in Belgium, that the baptistery contains a Passion charcoal by Albert Servaes. Servaes and Richier were both affected by decrees from the holy office which led to the removal of their artworks from the churches for which they had been commissioned. Servaes, with his Stations of the Cross and altarpiece for the Carmelite Chapel in Luithagen and Richier, with her crucifix for the church at Assy. Given all that Servaes experienced in the controversy over the Luithagen Stations, including the removal of work which was a genuine expression of his faith by the Church of which he was part, I found it profoundly moving that a work of his, in the same vein as the Luithagen Stations, should be displayed in the church and area where his faith and art first fused. Richier’s crucifix was later returned to its place in the sanctuary at Assy and the church, like many other churches in France with modern art commissions, is now classed by the Government as a national monument and has become a significant tourist location.
It seems, therefore, that scandals of modern art, whether the reception of the works themselves or that of their challenging content, are, with time, resolved as congregations live with the works and learn to value the challenge of what initially seems to be scandalous.
My main personal experience of this kind of situation was when a sculpture by the Street artist Ryan Callanan was moved ahead of a Stations of the Cross exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook. Complaints from several parishioners at the church prompted, after considerable discussion, the rehanging of the exhibition although initially it had seemed as their complaints would result in the work being removed from the exhibition. That possibility attracted press interest which then calmed down after the work was moved to a different position in the church. Controversy of this sort and attempts to ban, remove or censor artworks thought to be in some way blasphemous or challenging, are, as we have seen, part of the story of faith and art in the modern period.
Let’s think for a moment about the reasons why displaying a crucified stormtrooper in a City church might stimulate those viewing it to think about Christ afresh. In the Star Wars films, stormtroopers are the main ground force of the Galactic Empire, under the leadership of Emperor Palpatine and his commanders, most notably Darth Vader. They are on the dark side in that conflict. That the artist Ryan Callanan chose to create a ‘Crucified Stormtrooper,’ provides Christians and others with the possibility of experiencing something of the sense of scandal that Christ’s crucifixion originally generated.
The imagery of the dark side in the Star Wars films can be seen in this context as equating to the Christian belief that we are all sinners. If we use the imagery opened up for us by ‘Crucified Stormtrooper,’ then we are forced to reflect, much as we dislike the thought, that we are all on the dark side. We are all stormtroopers.
The amazing message of love at the heart of Christianity is that God does something about that situation. God becomes one of us in Christ. He becomes a stormtrooper in order that, through his death, he can take the darkness onto himself and enable us to live in the light. That is the original heartbeat of Christianity, which continues to radically change people's lives on a daily basis around the world when they genuinely acknowledge their own sinfulness. The scandal - the stumbling block - that is the cross, was brought home to us afresh by including this artwork in this exhibition; particularly to any who view their own assets as the basis for their own self-esteem. To show this work in a church enabled that reflection on Christ's love to be seen and shared in a new way and that is why it worthwhile for the Church to show art, especially controversial art, and to explore the questions that it opens up to us.
In the context of the Private View, I was able to talk to people, for whom churchgoing is not necessarily a regular feature of their lives, about the art in relation to the love of Christ. That is both a great privilege and opportunity. Many of those who saw the exhibition described it as 'striking', 'intriguing', 'uplifting' and 'interesting.' It was commended as an extraordinarily broad-minded, human and thought-provoking exhibition in an extraordinary place with others asking that the church reach out to current artists more often. As a result of the controversy, the curator of the exhibition wrote publicly about his own faith.
Additionally, the conversations generated by the exhibition have an ongoing life online at a website documenting Art Below’s Stations of the Cross exhibitions: https://stationsofthecross.co.uk/blog/how-does-a-crucified-stormtrooper-glorify-god and https://stationsofthecross.co.uk/blog/controversial-art-protest-or-engagement.
The reactions from some within the Church to Art Below’s Stations of the Cross exhibitions suggest that we still need to learn that it is far better to engage with art and artists by discussing and debating the questions they raise, instead of seeking to suppress or censor. One example of this being done effectively would the many Da Vinci Code events, bible studies, websites etc. that the Church used to counter the claims made in The Da Vinci Code featured reasoned arguments based on a real understanding of the issues raised which made use of genuine historical findings and opinion to counter those claims. The Church, it seems, still needs to learn that the way to counter criticism is not to try to ban or censor it but to engage with it, understand it and accurately counter it. In other words, to enter into conversation with art and to generate conversations about faith with those who come to visit to see art.
That is what we are seeking to do here with David Folley’s ‘Descent from the Cross’; to make the painting itself and the story of how it came to be hidden talking points that encourage people to explore the ways in which the painting engages with Christ’s Passion and our understandings of it. To put those things in dialogue and encourage people to visit in order to engage in that conversation; a conversation about Christ and the nature of atonement.
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Bob Dylan - Sign on the Cross.
