Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Report - Part 3

The Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England (CFCE) have refused on two occasions the application made by the Chapter of Chichester Cathedral to commission Jaume Plensa's Together for installation in the Cathedral as the Hussey Memorial Commission.  The grounds for rejection are to do with the perception of significant change in the character of the space above the Arundel Bell Screen as a result of the installation.

It is undeniable that there would be significant change to this space as a result of the installation. The more complex question is whether the change that would occur is positive or negative, allowable or not. The chapter have argued that the change should be accepted and the CFCE have ruled that the change would be unacceptable. The commission has therefore come to an impasse because no basis for further discussion exists. This is because there are no objective criteria on which it is possible to discuss this issue or, in my view, the quality of art generally.

All of us routinely make judgements about the art that we encounter. Art is something which generally provokes opinions, whether positive or negative. However, when asked to explain the basis on which we make these judgements most of us would struggle to do so. Often we resort to saying things like, ‘I know what I like,’ which are ways of closing down the conversation without answering the question or examining our own assumptions. We tend to assume though that art professionals do have some more objective means of assessing the worth or quality of artworks. After all, they are constantly selecting work to show and attributing differing values, financial and otherwise, to that work.  

Jonathan Jones is an art critic for The Guardian who has acknowledged that the age of the art critic as an unassailable voice of authority is long gone due to the force of digital debate and the era of readers biting back. Entitled 'how I learned to look – and listen' Jones wrote that the way he thinks about art criticism has changed: "Criticism in the age of social media has to be much more playful and giving ... Criticism today is not about delivering truths from on high, but about striking a spark that lights a debate."

In the past, he argues, he and other art critics could speak in an "aggressive, cocksure, dismissive voice, determined to prove that my opinion was worth more than my readers" but "in today's more open forum – where people answer back, and where people often know more than I do – it becomes more and more absurd to claim such august authority for one's opinions." As a result, the way he thinks about his work, and about art, "is infinitely more plural and ambiguous than it was in 2006." Essentially, Jones is arguing that, while he can still express strong opinions, he is now much more aware that his opinions are essentially personal opinions and need to be acknowledged as such. The underlying implication is that there are no agreed criteria for assessing, evaluating and critiquing contemporary art.

Yet we continue to look for rules or talk as though these exist. Grayson Perry explored the issue of taste in the Channel 4 series All In The Best Possible Taste. He thought that "there will always be this barrier where there are people who are looking for rules. A lot of the lower middle class still need reassurance and clear rules, which they find in brands and in definite trends because they perhaps don't have the confidence to go on their own intuition and try something else out. So there's always going to be a large proportion of the population that have what they think is a very clear idea about what is good taste. But of course the good taste is just an illusion; it's just that they're obeying the rules of their tribe."

Within the art world, Perry suggests, the rule by which people work is that of consensus plus time i.e. “If it's agreed amongst the tribe for a fairly sustained amount of time, then it becomes good taste.” This is no different, then, to the seeking after rules which he criticizes in the lower middle class. On this basis, too, “good taste is just an illusion; it's just that they're obeying the rules of their tribe.” But many choose to work on this basis that, as artists, commissioners, critics, curators, gallery owners, historians or patrons, they know what good taste is because of consensus plus time. If one is in agreement with the consensus it is, of course, a safe place to be.

This does not mean that no criteria exist at all within the visual arts as there are clear technical criteria within each discipline that relate to whether or not the work is well made. However, these relate to the artwork as a craft object and do not provide us with answers as to the difference between a piece which has been competently crafted and one which demonstrates significant artistic vision or merit. Nor does it mean that particular groups, by consensus, do not have their own criteria. What does not exist, however, are any broadly accepted, and therefore objective, criteria.

In a dispute like that over the Hussey Memorial Commission, because there are no objective criteria on which discussion can be based, all that can be done to argue the case in favour of the commission is to demonstrate the consensus which supports it. That is essentially what the chapter did in response to the first rejection presenting significant support for the proposal from public consultation and written support from significant arts professionals; all this on the back of an initial well-run and broad selection process. Yet when the CFCE rules that they perceive a different consensus against the proposal, there is essentially nowhere else that the discussion can go because there is no objective basis for dialogue.   

What has happened in essence within the visual arts is that the action of Marcel Duchamp in exhibiting ready-mades and his arguing that the choice of the artist makes them art (now widely accepted as the most significant art event of the twentieth century) has opened floodgates which render rules or criteria for the creation and comparison of artworks superfluous.

As a result, we enjoy huge diversity in the visual arts. So, for example, I have been able to see a wide variety of styles and media of art and architecture in the sabbatical visits I have made. But the techniques required for each medium are often not transferable to other media, meaning that like cannot be compared with like. In this way, the variety of styles and media that exist within contemporary art limit the extent to which contrasts and comparisons can be made. As art can now be made of anything that the artist wishes, one blindingly obvious implication seems to be that the quality of a piece of video art by Bill Viola, for example, cannot be gauged by comparing it positively or negatively to a painting by Maurice Denis or stained glass by John Piper. Each is its own entity within a medium with its own techniques. As a result, widely accepted quality standards for works of art no longer exist. In addition, the techniques required for many of the traditional forms of Church art – stained glass, mosaic etc. – are no longer as widely understood as previously nor are these media generally viewed as cutting edge; a factor which impacts on the attention paid to church commissions within the art world.

The Church world and the art world, on the basis of Perry’s definition, are essentially different tribes with different tastes and fashions causing confusion for the emerging artist who is a Christian and those who commission art for churches. The dichotomy which is often cited between significant contemporary artists participating in church commissions and "self-styled 'Christian art' that though sincere and well-intentioned" is "often formulaic or decorative" and has "little or no standing within the art world," is essentially a debate about which tribe’s rules of good taste it is best to apply. Ultimately, that is a superfluous debate about illusions.

The way through this situation is, I think, what I perceive Sister Wendy Beckett to be doing in her art criticism, meditations and TV programmes. Sister Wendy is an informed enthusiast who applies the injunction in Philippians 4:8, to fill our minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise, to her writing and presenting. The kind of poring and praying over images that characterizes Beckett's best writing can be a distinctively Christian contribution to the plurality of art criticism and the experience of commissioning for churches. Beckett cultivates a prayerful attentiveness to the artwork through sustained contemplation in order to see or sense what is good and of God in it, regardless of whether the artist who made it has an international, national, regional or local reputation.

Early on in my sabbatical I gave a talk on visual art to the East London Three Faiths Forum in which I said that art, at its best, is epiphany and sacrament. In other words art takes the stuff of everyday life and transforms it so that we see it, ourselves and God differently. This was reiterated for me towards the end of the sabbatical in a talk by Rev. Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, on ‘Art and the Renewal of St Martin’s’ where he also spoke of the sacramental nature of art.

In a talk I gave to the Friends of Chelmsford Cathedral earlier this year I said: “To encounter the Gospel in contemporary art, diversity must be embraced. The traditional forms of expressing the Gospel in art – illustrating Biblical narratives and the lives of the Saints – remain, albeit sometimes in the newer forms of movements like Expressionism, while attraction and reaction to the meaning, impacts and influences of the Gospel also continue to inspire creative work by contemporary artists working in fields such as the abstract, conceptual, performance and relational arts.”

This has been the attitude and approach that I have sought to bring to my sabbatical art pilgrimage and the site visits I have made. There is no value in arguing for a difference in quality between an image by Maurice Denis and another by Bill Viola. What is of value is to reflect on the nature of each image (sacrament) and what that image reveals (epiphany). 

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Leonard Cohen - You Got Me Singing.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Chichester Cathedral

‘… it has been the great enthusiasm of my life and work to commission for the Church the very best artists I could, in painting, in sculpture, in music and in literature.’

This was the concluding sentence of the rationale that Canon Walter Hussey, Dean of Chichester Cathedral, provided for Marc Chagall as a brief for his stained glass window at the Cathedral based on Psalm 150. This window was the conclusion to the remarkable series of commissions by Hussey; firstly at St Matthews Northampton and then at Chichester Cathedral.

Bishop George Bell strongly supported the appointment of Walter Hussey as Dean of Chichester Cathedral to take forward the commissioning programme he had initiated there as part of his wider programme to reinvigorate the Church’s patronage of the Arts. Other Anglican clergy such as Vincent McKenna, Moelwyn Merchant and Bernard Walke played their part in this work of reinvigoration but it is Hussey’s commissions of William Albright, W.H. Auden, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten, Chagall, Cecil Collins, Gerald Finzi, Henry Moore, Norman Nicholson, John Piper, Ceri Richards, John Skelton, Graham Sutherland, Michael Tippett and William Walton which stand out, in the fields of literature, music and the visual arts, as truly significant in their own right and for the reinvigoration of the Church’s patronage of the Arts. For his commissions at St Matthews and Chichester Cathedral, Kenneth Clark memorably described him as 'the last great patron of art in the Church of England.'

Peter Webster notes that while ‘the period from the mid-1960s onwards’ in fact saw an ‘upsurge in commissioning activity’ and that, ‘emboldened by the examples of Chichester, and Coventry Cathedral, authorities in cathedrals and in newly built parish churches began to commission new works of art for those buildings,’ ‘it was also the case that the high-water mark of the Church’s engagement with the leaders in British art had in fact already been reached:’

‘Never again in the twentieth century was the Church to achieve the same contact with artists of the stature of Henry Moore and Graham Sutherland, and indeed Hussey’s commissions as he neared retirement were of his own generation or older. The art world became more and more fragmented, with a bewildering variety of styles, each developing according to its own particular internal logic. The church continued to commission contemporary art, but now of certain styles amongst the many. Generally, commissions were confined to figurative art, since the task of interpreting abstract work in a Christian way presented considerable challenges. It had been the vision of men like Bell and Hussey that the church should position itself in the mainstream of the nation’s life, including its art. There had now ceased to be a clearly visible mainstream in which the church could position itself.’

This more difficult terrain to negotiate is, perhaps, indicated by the repeated refusal of permission from the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England (CFCE) for the application made by the Chapter of Chichester Cathedral to commission Jaume Plensa's Together for installation in the Cathedral as the Hussey Memorial Commission. The grounds for rejection in this case are to do with the perception of significant change in the character of the space above the Arundel Bell Screen as a result of the installation.

New commissions in settings where there is existing artwork/architecture have to take into account issues of harmonisation or dissonance i.e. to what extent will the new commission be integrated with whatever is already there or by being dissonant raise questions about what is already there. Artworks integrated within the life and architecture of a church are not viewed in the same way as works within the white cube of a gallery space and this needs to be understood and handled with sensitivity during the commissioning process. The result can be a sense of overall integrity and harmony within a space which holds great variety and diversity and where this occurs the whole and its constituent parts image something of the Trinitarian belief – the one and the many - which is at the very heart of Christianity.

In my view the commissioning process at Chichester and the artist himself have fully taken these issues into account in their proposal and the CFCE’s decision is deeply disappointing for all involved with this commission. The impasse demonstrates that commissions for churches continue to have significant potential for controversy. Having visited on my sabbatical art pilgrimage several churches associated with commissions perceived to be controversial at the time of their installation, such as Albert Servaes’ Stations of the Cross, Henry Moore’s Madonna and Child and Germaine Richier’s Crucifix, it seems to me that controversies 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 seemed to be scandalous.

Certainly, the mix of commissions here - from the ‘riot of colour and symbol’ in the Piper tapestry to the glow of Hans Feibusch’s tender Baptism or from the harmonious whole that is the Icon of Divine Light by Cecil Collins to the fractured energies of Ursula Benker-Schirmer’s tapestry for the Shrine of St Richard – genuinely ‘invigorate and beautify the cathedral’ while introducing variety and intrigue into the experience of visiting and worshipping here. Tourists are encouraged to do both during their visit by prayers on the hour and use of the leaflet ‘A Spiritual Tour of Chichester Cathedral’ which has been designed to help people pray as they walk around the Cathedral.

Hussey believed that ‘True artists of all sorts, as creators of some of the most worthwhile of man’s work, are well adapted to express man’s worship of God.’ When this is done consciously, he suggested, ‘the beauty and strength of their work can draw others to share to some extent their vision.’ This thought underpinned his brief to Chagall for the window based on Psalm 150 and titled The Arts to the Glory of God which takes as its theme ‘O praise God in his holiness … Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.’

Charles Marq, Chagall’s collaborator on his windows, wrote: ‘The triumphal quality of this chant is expressed by the dominance in the composition of the colour red (red on white, on green, on yellow), broken by a certain number of green, blue and yellow blobs. This is the first time that Marc Chagall has conceived a subject composed entirely of small figures; it is the people in festive mood glorifying the Lord, exalting his greatness and his creation.’ The work, he suggests, communicates a ‘message of glory and praise.’ (Chagall Glass at Chichester and Tudeley, Ed. By Paul Foster, Otter Memorial Paper No. 14)

Hussey, who had shown an interest in the arts, music, drama, painting and sculpture from his school and university years and who in his entry in Who's Who gave his sole recreation as ‘enjoying the arts,’  ‘acquired animportant and varied collection of his own’ which, on retirement, he offered to leave ‘to the city which he had done so much to promote as a centre of the arts:’

‘Like many others he was concerned about the neglect into which Pallant House, a fine example of eighteenth-century domestic architecture, had fallen and, as Dr KME Murray wrote 'his generous offer...was made deliberately as a means of securing the restoration of the house and its opening to the public'. In 1982 Hussey was present at the official opening of the house and saw his paintings and other works of art displayed in the same informal domestic setting as they had been at the deanery where he had taken so much pleasure in showing them to friends and strangers alike.’

Pallant House, which has been described as ‘a jewel of a gallery’ and as ‘one of the most important galleries for British modern art in the country,’ is now home to a Collection of British Modern art frequently described as one of the best in the UK. with important works by Gino Severini , Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Patrick Caulfield, Michael Andrews, Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton.

Bell and Hussey also supported the development of a nationally significant collection of mid-20th century British art by the Otter Gallery which forms an integral and vital part of the University of Chichester. This gallery is home to an extensive collection of art that includes works across all disciplines. It offers a welcoming and accessible space for art to both its immediate community of staff and students and diverse audiences beyond. Core to the gallery's mission is its original intention to place art at the heart of people's lives. By 2020 the Gallery intends to be a stimulus for research and learning, exploring new perspectives and insights through practice, display interpretation and engagement.

The collection was started in 1947 when Eleanor Hipwell, head of art for the Bishop Otter College, acquired three paintings from an exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in order to display them in the University. Shortly afterwards, Miss K E Murray was appointed as a new Principal. Along with Eleanor Hipwell's successor, Sheila McCririck, Miss Murray pursued a determination to develop a collection of contemporary art that would inspire and inform the students of the University. The acquisition of quality work with inadequate monetary resources was a demonstration of Miss Murray's persuasive persistence. The support of Bell, who was Chairman of the Bishop Otter College Council, and Hussey was vital in helping to promote acceptance of an acquisitions policy that included controversial and challenging pieces such as Patrick Heron's Black and White.

I visited while a selection of the permanent collection was on display. Connected Collections enables visitors to explore and contemplate the various aesthetic, historical, stylistic and social juxtapositions between diverse yet inter-linked artworks and their makers, inviting further connections and new discoveries of their own. Among the ceramics on display, comparisons can be made between makers such as Alison Britton, Michael Cardew, Ewen Henderson, Bernard Leach, Eric James Mellon and Lucie Rie, while oil paintings, watercolours and prints by artists including Elizabeth Blackadder, Sandra Blow, Mary Fedden, Terry Frost, Graham Sutherland and Alfred Wallis serve to highlight just some of the connecting themes between two and three dimensional works.

On visiting I was surprised to discover that the collection also includes Jean Lurçat’s altarpiece tapestry The Creation in the College’s Chapel and Geoffrey Clarke’s aluminium sculpture of The Crucifixion above the Chapel’s entrance. Lurçat’s altarpiece here is a vast improvement on that at Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce du Plateau d'Assy which is entirely lacking in the menace required for a tapestry focused on apocalyptic imagery. This tapestry has been temporarily replaced by screenprint produced by students and inspired by the tapestry. In this work the accent is on beauty and wonder in a towering conception where seeds and birds soar in heightened colours.

Clarke’s sculpture, attached to the gable of the chapel immediately over the entrance door, ‘incorporates the figures of the two thieves who were crucified alongside Christ.’ The sculpture also ‘holds a nugget of glass, a symbol of the eye of God.’ Clarke has used words such as ‘illumination; inspiration; light; kindling of mind and spirit; vision’ to describe the work and was commissioned to create this piece after completing commissions for the Cathedral.

Also alongside the Chapel is John Skelton tau cross entitled Axis Mundi. Skelton created this work while in residence at Bishop Otter College. The vertical block represents life and the horizontal represents the after-life. Both sculptures feature on a sculpture trail around Chichester - http://www.publicsculpturesofsussex.co.uk/files/Chichester-Sculpture-trail.pdf.

While it is true that, Peter Webster notes, Hussey’s mode of patronage, which ‘depended on a discerning patron, authoritative critic and notable artist working in tandem, disseminating new art downwards to a grateful if uncomprehending public’ was a way of working which was, by the time of his retirement, ‘no longer fit for purpose,’ it had nevertheless accomplished significant achievements across a wider field than church commissions alone and had made a major contribution to reinvigorating the Church’s patronage of the Arts.

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Leonard Bernstein - Chichester Psalms.