The Calling Window: ArtWay Interview with Sophie Hacker

I have had an interview with Sophie Hacker published by ArtWay. In our conversation we discussed the background to her commission for The Calling Window at Romsey Abbey, the development of the design, the techniques she has learnt from Tom Denny and the impact that the Covid-19 lockdown has had on the project:

'To be an artist is not a job, but a way of looking at the world. It is a great privilege to be invited to create a piece of public art. For me that includes an imperative to explore a public commission through 360 degrees. I try to understand how a commission might be mis-read, as well as read. There are already a number of public art works celebrating Nightingale’s nursing career, but I felt inspired to focus on how that career came about. The theme of vocation is very important to me. I’ve explored it from a personal perspective in my own artistic practice. So having the opportunity to express ‘calling’ through an image about another person’s vocation has been a real gift. We are all ‘called’ away from what we know to 'something beyond’. For some the path is brightly lit and clear. For others the way seems shrouded and impenetrable. The experience of ‘lockdown’ has brought this truth more sharply into focus.'

An additional interview with Sophie undertaken for HeartEdge explores her understandings of imaging the invisible.

My visual meditations for ArtWay include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton and Anna Sikorska.

My Church of the Month reports include: Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Hem, Chelmsford Cathedral, Churches in Little Walsingham, Coventry Cathedral, Église de Saint-Paul à Grange-Canal, Eton College Chapel, Lumen, Metz Cathedral, Notre Dame du Léman, Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Plateau d’Assy,Romont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Alban Romford, St. Andrew Bobola Polish RC Church, St. Margaret’s Church, Ditchling, and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, St Mary the Virgin, Downe, and St Paul Goodmayes, as well as earlier reports of visits to sites associated with Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Antoni Gaudi and Henri Matisse.

Other of my writings for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Church Times can be found here. Those for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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U2 - I Will Follow.

Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace

Jonathan Koestlé-Cate launched his book Art and the Church: A Fractious Embrace - Ecclesiastical Encounters with Contemporary Art at Southwark Cathedral on Tuesday with a conversation held with Revd Charles Pickstone.

The "book asks what conditions are favourable to enhancing and expanding the possibilities of church-based art, and how can these conditions be addressed? What viable language or strategies can be formulated to understand and analyse art's role within the church? Focusing on concepts drawn from anthropology, comparative religion, art theory, theology and philosophy, this book formulates a lexicon of terms built around the notion of encounter in order to review the effective uses and experience of contemporary art in churches. The author concludes with the prognosis that art for the church has reached a critical and decisive phase in its history, testing the assumption that contemporary art should be a taken-for-granted element of modern church life."

The conversation between Koestlé-Cate and Pickstone reviewed a selection of the artworks specifically explored and discussed in the book. The White Mass by James Lee Byars at Sankt Peter, Köln was held up as an exemplary temporary installation in an ecclesiastical context. The work "consisted of four pillars and a ring made of white marble, brightly lit by a 2000 watt bulb. The ring was set in the middle of the central aisle, with the pillars forming a square around it, which in turn echoed the rectangle formed by the central columns of the church. Each pillar had two letters carved at the top, which represented a different aspect of the questioning spirit of the work. During Mass the white-clad priest and his two acolytes interacted with the work in an orchestrated synthesis of performance and worship."

Fr Friedhelm Mennekes, the incumbent at Sankt Peter, Köln, "exemplifies a view at the other extreme to [Jacques] Maritain et al, declaring a fundamental distrust of the believing artist. Mennekes simply refuses to use Christian artists, since artistic vision, he cautions, is always in danger of being compromised, or taking second place to, Christian zeal. In this he follows [Père Marie-Alain] Couturier's lead."

This view has no time, therefore, for the approach of the Diocese of London's Capital Vision 2020 which aims to build a growing network of vibrant individuals from throughout the worlds of art and culture in London who can speak the language of creatives, engaging and taking the Church into that world and, as creative Christians, helping the Church resonate with its culture while still remaining countercultural disciples of Jesus Christ.

At the same time, the celebrations of the Mass during Byars' installation had much in common with the emphasis on decentralized leadership, congregational participation, multi-sensory experience, ritual and narrative form found in alternative worship. This was perhaps most the case in relation to the anarchic experiments in transformance art offered by the Belfast-based collective Ikon who challenged the distinction between theist and atheist, faith and no faith and whose main gathering employed a cocktail of live music, visual imagery, soundscapes, theatre, ritual and reflection in an attempt to open up the possibility of a theodramatic event. However, it is likely that even Ikon's inhabiting of a space on the outer edges of religious life would have been sufficiently detached from organised religion to escape Mennekes' hermeneutic of suspicion.

Koestlé-Cate writes that, "If a place for art that is not explicitly religious has been affirmed in the church today, an art that is cannot be proscriptively denied; if a place for Christian art or explicitly religious art is not denied, neither can it be prescriptively affirmed." The danger of this approach is that no-one, whether believing or non-believing artists, feels affirmed, and that was essentially the substance of the conversations that I was party to following the conversation between Pickstone and Koestle-Cate.

Their conversation moved on to discussion of the statue of Mary by David Wynne in the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral. In contrast with the approval given to The White Mass this was discussed as a lifeless commission which had rightly been savaged by Germaine Greer as 'bad' art.

The issue here is the basis on which such critiques and judgements are made. My perception is there are no shared objective criteria on which such judgements can be made and, as a result, are either entirely based on subjective criteria or on a consensus held by certain groups, generally those most responsible for promoting the work in the first place (i.e. gallery owners, curators and critics). In the case of Greer's critique, Wynne is part of the wrong group - the group favoured by the Prince of Wales - while Mennekes' measure is simply that non-believing artists are good and believing artists are bad.

Grayson Perry acknowledges in Playing to the Gallery that, within the art world, 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, essentially, no different to the seeking after rules which Perry criticizes in the lower middle class: “good taste is just an illusion; it's just that they're obeying the rules of their tribe.” The reality is that many choose to work on the 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.

Koestlé-Cate's book is a substantive contribution to these debates and is of particular value because it explores what viable language or strategies can be formulated to understand and analyse art's role within the church. It may be, however, that what is revealed is that the language and strategies currently employed ultimately satisfy no one because they each privilege particular groups over others, as opposed to looking for the good in all.

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Leonard Cohen - Almost Like The Blues.

Barking Episcopal Area Art Trail

To understand why an Art Trail like the Barking Episcopal Area Art Trail is needed it is necessary to know some of the background to the relationship between Christianity and the Arts in the 20th century.

After classical antiquity, ‘Christianity became the predominant power shaping European culture between the 13th and 19th centuries. Biblical texts, commentaries, and apocryphal stories inspired artists and patrons alike to create these objects of devotion ...’ and ‘to evoke the nature of ... sacred mysteries in visual terms.’

‘Artists and their advisors were faced with the challenge of suggesting, in visual terms, the nature of Christian mysteries – such as the visions experienced, or miracles performed, by the saints – as well as other profound theological beliefs and debates.‘

However, by the time Impressionism initiated modern art, art had already freed itself in many ways from the patronage of the Church and, as form not content became the primary focus of modernism, the developments of modern art led to an increasingly strained relationship between the Church and the visual arts.

Andrew Spira, writing in The Avant-Garde Icon, notes that ‘Avant-garde artists were passionate and vociferous in their denunciation of the credulity, passivity, manipulation and conservatism of conventional religiosity.’

Mark C. Taylor has noted that ‘the development of modern art follows an "inexorable logic" that leads from figuration and ornamentation to abstraction and formalism. The process of abstraction reaches closure when the work of art becomes totally self-reflexive and transparently self-referential ... Painting that is essentially about painting seems to leave little room for religious and spiritual concerns.’

Additionally, as Dan Fox has stated in frieze, ‘For most of the 20th century, art aligned itself with progressive rationalist secularity and radical subjectivity; the ideas that have fed into art come from modern philosophy, liberal or radical politics, sociology and pop culture rather than theology.’

Fox also writes that ‘It’s also a question of finance: the money that funds art doesn’t come from churches or religious orders like it did hundreds of years ago.’

Anselm Franke, head of visual arts and film at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, sums the situation up by saying that: ‘The historical break with religion continues. We would not think of hanging something that someone prays to in a museum ... Faith is incompatible with art end even destroys the sovereignty of art and the kinds of experiences we are looking for when we frequent art spaces.'

As a result, Dan Fox states, ‘contemporary artists who openly declare affiliation to Judaeo-Christian or Islamic religions are usually regarded with the kind of suspicion reserved for Mormon polygamists and celebrity Scientologists.’

Modern art looked, sounded and felt very different from the art that had traditionally been made for the Church, meaning that the Church avoided using modern art while many modern artists were excitedly exploring new ways of creating art and couldn’t see any connection between what they were doing and the styles of art which the Church continued to use. As a result, there was a whole segment of society – artists and art lovers – that were not being impacted by Christianity.

The Church has often not valued sufficiently the artworks it has commissioned; at times their significance has not been understood or shared, at other times the works have been controversial and may have been banned or not publicized as a result. Often the artworks have been regarded as subsidiary to the liturgy and have not been publicized in order that the focus of the faithful would not be deflected. ‘Christian Art’ has become a contested term and the Church has been unsure whether to continue to use it and, if not, how else to speak of its commissions. There has also been significant debate about the relative values of commissioning artists who are Christians and contemporary ‘masters’ who may not be Christians.

The Rt Revd David Hawkins, former Bishop of Barking and Patron of commission4mission, has said that, ‘There is a great need for the Church to re‐engage with the visual Arts. The Church has enjoyed a long and happy marriage with art in the past but in recent centuries has suffered something of a separation.’

Despite this sense of conflict and separation, there is a more positive story to tell of engagement between Christianity and the Arts. There has been a continuing engagement by the Church with contemporary art from the Post-Impressionists to the present day. This engagement has often been contentious and contested but it has nevertheless been a continuing relationship involving both mainstream artists with a Christian faith and church commissions undertaken by mainstream artists who have not professed the faith.

Mark C. Taylor insists that, ‘One of the most puzzling paradoxes of twentieth-century cultural interpretation is that, while theologians, philosophers of religion, and art critics deny or surpress the religious significance of the visual arts, many of the leading modern artists insist that their work cannot be understood apart from religious questions and spiritual issues.’

Benedict Read in his 1998 lecture to the Royal Society of British Sculptors noted that following the Second World War: ‘Churches were being repaired. New work was being installed in them. There was an expansion of church buildings with works of art in them … There is an alternative world there of the commissioning of art for specific purposes that, with no disrespect to established art historians, simply doesn't feature in our notion of cultural history in the post-war period.’

Read was speaking of the UK but a similar situation occurred in mainland Europe and in both settings, while the church building programme has slowed somewhat, the commissioning of contemporary art has not, meaning we have and are witnessing something of a renaissance of commissioned art for churches and cathedrals.

Key figures in initiating and then sustaining aspects of this renaissance in its initial phases included the artists Maurice Denis and Albert Gleizes, the philosopher Jacques Maritain, and the churchmen Bishop George Bell, Dominican Friar’s Couturier and Régamey, and Canon Walter Hussey.

Commission, a relatively recent exhibition at the Wallspace Gallery, and the Art + Christianity Enquiry monograph Contemporary Art in British Churches brought that story up-to-date. Artists featured in Commission included Tracey Emin, Henry Moore, Craigie Aitchison, Mark Cazalet, Stephen Cox, Chris Gollon, Shirazeh Houshiary, Iain McKillop, Rona Smith and Alison Watt.

The central argument of Contemporary Art in British Churches is that we are witnessing something of a renaissance of commissioned art for churches and cathedrals in this country. Paul Bayley argues that this upsurge of commissioning from the church sees many significant contemporary artists, such as those featured in Commission, creating art for church spaces. The approach underpinning this upsurge is synonymous with that of Bell and Hussey, Couturier and Régamey, who argued that ‘each generation must appeal to the masters of living art, and today those masters come first from secular art.’

The aim of the Art Trail is 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 this 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 recent years, churches have 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 encouraging 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.

The visual arts can contribute to the mission of the church by speaking eloquently of the Christian faith; providing a reason for people to visit a church; making a link between churches and local organisations and providing a focus around which local people can come together for a shared activity.

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

The Barking Episcopal Area Art Trail has inspired at least two similar initiatives. The Revd David New has created a leaflet as a guide to stained glass windows created by Thomas Denny for churches in the Three-Choirs area (Gloucester, Hereford and Worcester Dioceses).

David writes that: "Thomas Denny, born in London, trained in drawing and painting at Edinburgh College of Art. One day a friend asked him to consider creating a stained glass window for a church in Scotland (Killearn 1983). Thus began a remarkable career that has produced over 30 stained glass windows in Cathedrals and Churches of this country. Tom’s love for painting and drawing, especially the things of nature, is evident in his windows ... All of Tom’s windows express biblical themes and are conducive to silent meditation. Find a seat; feel the colours; give time for the details to emerge; reflect."

In addition, and also inspired by the Barking Episcopal Area Art Trail, Beat Rink is organizing an Art & Church Trail in Lucerne, in the context of a Christian conference, at the end of this year. Church leaders in this beautiful city are very excited about the concept and are currently working to develop their plans.

The web page for the Art Trail on the website for the Chelmsford Diocese also features new and additional works which could not be included in the original Trail. This includes:

• Altar frontal by Anne Creasey at Christ Church Thamesview, Bastable Avenue, Barking IG11 0NG. Contact: Gerry Williams. Tel: 07914 676079 (http://www.christchurch-thamesview.org.uk); 
• Graffiti Love, a mosaic by Viki Isherwood Metzler, and a Trinity sculpture incorporating a mosaic by Sergiy Shkanov can be seen in the community garden at St John's Seven Kings, St John's Road, Ilford IG2 7BB. Contact Churchwardens. Tel: 020 8598 1536 (http://stjohns7kings.org.uk/);
• Holy Water Stoup by Mark Lewis at St Margaret of Antioch, Perth Road/Balfour Road, Ilford IG1 4HZ. Contact: Fr. Stephen Pugh. Tel: 020 8554 7542 (http://www.stmargaretilford.org.uk);
• Life of St Augustine, cast concrete achitectural frieze by Steven Sykes at Holy Trinity & St Augustine of Hippo, Leytonstone, 4 Holloway Road, Leytonstone Ell 4LD. Contact: Revd Ian Harker. Tel: 020 8539 6067 (http://www.trinityleytonstone.org/indexnext.htm);
• Nativity reredos with cross and candlesticks by Francis Stephens (a pupil of Martin Travers) at the Church of the Holy Innocents, High Beach IG10 4BF. Contact: Revd. Gill Hopkins. Tel: 01992 760492. (http://www.highbeachchurch.org.uk/); 
• People praising God and giving grace received to others, sculpted oak panels by Jane Quail at St Paul's East Ham, Burges Road, East Ham E6 2EU. Contact: Rev. Merrin Playle. Tel: 020 8472 5531 (http://www.achurchnearyou.com/east-ham-st-paul/);
• Restoration, a wood engraving by Peter S. Smith (a member of the Society of Wood Engravers) commissioned by St John the Baptist Leytonstone in 2011 to celebrate the completion of restoration work at the church. Church Lane/High Road, Leytonstone. Contact: Churchwardens. Tel: 020 8257 2792 (http://www.stjohns-leytonstone.org.uk/);
• Stained glass including a window designed by Edward Burne-Jones at Ilford Hospital Chapel, 48 Ilford Hill, Ilford IG1 2AT. Contact: Fr. Martin Hawse. Tel: 020 8590 2098 (http://www.ilfordhospitalchapel.co.uk);
• The Good Samaritan, engraved window by John Hutton at St George's Barkingside, Woodford Avenue/Gants Hill Crescent, Barkingside IG2 6XQ. Contact: Revd Benjamin Wallis. Tel: 020 8550 4149 (http://stgeorge-barkingside.co.uk/); and
• Graphic art and banners by Caroline Richardson at the Church of the Good Shepherd, Collier Row (http://www.thegoodshepherd.co.uk/).

All of which demonstrates that the Church is engaged with the visual Arts and that the long and happy marriage with art that the Church has enjoyed continues to this day.

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U2 & BB King - When Love Comes To Town.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: ArtServe article

The latest article based on my sabbatical art pilgrimage can be found in the Winter edition of ArtServe's magazine. The article, which is entitled 'A Tale of Two Churches', uses the story of commissions at Notre-Dame des Alpes in Le Fayet and Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce on the Plateau d'Assy to explore issues raised by the twentieth century revival in sacred art. Both churches are in the French Alps, they had the same architect, are built in a similar style and are only kilometres apart yet they represent different stages of the twentieth century’s revival of sacred art.

ArtServe promotes and supports the use of creative arts in Christian worship, including music, dance and drama, visual arts, and creative writing. ArtServe magazine is published three times a year. The latest edition also features:

• A report on ArtServe's annual Festival weekend at High Leigh
• Mark Topping talking about his one-man Passion play
• Dance as a way to worship
• The labyrinth as an aid to prayer

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Martin Smith - Emmanuel.

Sabbatical art trail: On the art trail

Look out for the feature article I have written based on my sabbatical art pilgrimage which is in tomorrow's Church Times. In it I highlight ‘hidden gems’ of the sacred art revival in the twentieth century; churches which do not have iconic profiles and therefore demonstrate that the engagement of artists with churches in that period meant more than simply prestige and profile. The cover image comes from one of the churches I feature in the article, Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil at Lourtier.

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Alison Krauss - I Believe In You.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Report - Part 6

Christianity is about the something more of life. We believe that there is more to life than the material, more to life than just the visible and we express this through signs and symbols. So, bread and wine is not simply wheat and grapes or food and drink but is also the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus himself was a physical being – a human who could be touched and felt – but was also more by being, at one and the same time, divine; the Son of God.

One of the ways in which we express this sense of there being something more to life is through the Arts. Réne Hague in writing about the artist David Jones said that he embodies in his art Jacques Maritain’s view that 'the joy or delight of a work of art is in proportion to its powers of signification': 'the more there is of knowledge, or of things presented to the understanding, the vaster will be the possibility of joy; this is why Art, in so far as ordered to Beauty, does not, at least when its object permits, stop at forms or at colours, nor at sounds, nor at words taken in themselves and as things, but it takes them also as making known other things than themselves, that is to say as signs. And the thing signified may itself be a sign in turn, and the more the work of art is laden with significance … the vaster and the richer and the higher will be the possibility of joy and beauty.'

When we make art – whether that is literature, performing arts or visual arts – we are essentially following what Jesus did when he made bread and wine into a symbol of his life and death; we are using something known to us to make the invisible visible. This happens most powerfully when the symbol connects us to something real; if Jesus had broken bread and shared wine with his disciples and said this is my body and blood but had not then died, we would not celebrate communion today. We celebrate using the symbols of bread and wine because they connect us with the reality of Christ’s death and resurrection and all that that opens out to us. When something visible and tangible connects us to the invisible reality of the divine that is what we call a sacrament and, at its best, that is what art can do.

St John of Damascus said: ‘A picture is a semblance, representing the original likeness in such a way that there still persists a difference between them.’ The picture is, however, also a ‘semblance of something, a representation or copy, indicating the objects copied.’ Because of this resemblance the prototype is closely bound up in a spiritual sense with its representation, an association which Theodore the Studite circumscribed as follows: ‘Just as to the seal belongs its impression, to each body its shadow, so to each prototype is its representation.’ According to Dionysius the Areopagite the picture is merely a reflection of the invisible, but the contemplatiom of this visible reflection can raise us to a conception of the divine invisible.’

Jonathan Miles and Derek Shiel writing in 'The Maker Unmade' about the work of David Jones said that: ‘By rigorous habit, the artist would not only be able to reveal this or that object under the form of paint but also make an epiphany, make the universal shine out from the particular. Thus, what is re-presented also becomes a sign of something else and if that something else is significant of something divine, then the art can claim to have a sacred character or function, a sacramental vitality.'

During my sabbatical I heard Rev. Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields talk about the way his church using the Arts. He used a description of Jesus as prophet, priest and King, which he took from the writings of John Calvin, to illustrate how the Arts reveal the something more of life. Prophetic art holds a mirror up to society and asks, ‘Are you proud of what you see?’ This kind of art can create a vision of what society could be (the kingdom of God) and then brings home to us the painful gap between this possibility and our present reality. As a result, prophets and prophetic acts are often shocking. Priestly art takes the opposite approach. The poet George Herbert wrote that when we look at glass we can either see ourselves reflected (like a mirror) or we can look through it to see the heavens. Priestly art gets us seeing beyond the stars. Through priestly art the ordinary stuff of life speaks or sings of the divine. Kingly art, Wells suggested, is about glory; the glory of God and, through that, the glory of human beings reaching their full potential in God. Kingly art is art which stretches us by showing what humanity can be when we reach our full potential.

The art made for churches often succeeds in doing all these things and that is why it can impact and change our lives. However, there have been periods in the life of the Church when the Arts haven’t been fully appreciated and understood and when artists have felt disconnected from and disillusioned with the Church. The beginning of the twentieth century was just such a time. Modern art looked, sounded and felt very different from the art that had traditionally been made for the Church, meaning that the Church avoided using modern art while many modern artists were excitedly exploring new ways of creating art and couldn’t see any connection between what they were doing and the styles of art which the Church continued to use. As a result, there was a whole segment of society – artists and art lovers – that were not being impacted by Christianity.

Fortunately, there were some visionaries both in the Church and among modern artists (including those who have been my particular focus during this sabbatical - George Bell, Marie-Alain Couturier, Maurice Denis, Albert Gleizes, Walter Hussey and Jacques Maritain) who made it their life’s work to reconnect the Church with modern and contemporary art. The visits I have made during my sabbatical have primarily been to places where they worked or had an influence.

My concern in making this story the focus of my sabbatical has been to encourage the Church to value, learn from and tell the story of what these people did. In my ordained ministry, particularly through commission4mission, I have seen the value of promoting and publicising the artworks which churches have commissioned. Art competitions, exhibitions, festivals, talks, trails, walks and workshops all bring new contacts to the churches that use them and build relationships between those churches and local artists/arts organisations.

Telling more fully the story of the engagement which the Church has had with modern and contemporary art, as I am trying to do using my sabbatical, can impact people in these ways and contribute to the wider mission of the Church. Ultimately, though, it brings me and others into contact with art which speaks powerfully and movingly of the Christian faith and informs the spirituality of those who see.

As we use the signs and symbols of the Arts to reflect on the something more which Christianity reveals to us – the divine in the human, the invisible in the visible – we have the opportunity to become walking, talking, living works of art ourselves. Through the way we live and act we can be signs and symbols of the divine. As Rowan Williams notes in writing on the work of David Jones, 'a life may become a significant form – as, decisively and uniquely; in the life of Christ': 'Jones implies that the life of ‘prudence’, a life lived in a consciously moral context, however exactly understood, is itself an act of gratuitous sign-making; moral behavior is the construction of a life that can be ‘read’, that reveals something in the world and uncovers mystery.’

The Arts can and still do all this, and more.

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Shovels and Rope - Tell The Truth.

Airbrushed from Art History: Geoffery Clarke

Interesting comments from the Guardian's obituary for Geoffrey Clarke:

'In 1950, Darwin put Clarke’s name forward for inclusion in Basil Spence’s project to rebuild Coventry Cathedral. By the time of the 1952 Biennale, the 27-year-old sculptor was at work on a decade-long series of commissions that would eventually include the cross and candlesticks for Coventry’s high altar, a vast metal crown of thorns and three of the cathedral’s 10 nave windows – the last forming part of one of the largest stained glass programmes of the 20th century.

A decade later, a Sunday Telegraph critic ticked off many other major commissions that Clarke had made since leaving the RCA: “Candles and altars for Chichester Cathedral; 30 relief panels for the Canberra liner; doors for two London banks; a light fitting for a bank in Liverpool (‘I believe the teller resigned the next day’); a mosaic for Liverpool University; a tapestry design for a sheikh’s palace in Kuwait; aluminium reliefs for two Cambridge colleges; screens for the Royal Military Chapel, Birdcage Walk; and most recently a relief sculpture for the new Nottingham theatre.” So busy was Clarke, by now in his late 30s, that he was rumoured to travel between projects by helicopter.

What happened next is neatly spelled out by the Tate’s holdings of his work. Of the 10 sculptures and prints by Clarke in the gallery’s collection, all but one date from the 1950s; the 10th, an aluminium table-sculpture called Block with Eight Pieces, was made in 1964 and acquired in 1965. None of the works is currently on show. In godless days, Clarke’s strong and early identification with what might broadly be called Christian spirituality did his subsequent career few favours. He was not the only artist to suffer in this way. Some of the other young contributors to Coventry Cathedral paid for their association with the project and with the older names linked to it: John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Jacob Epstein.'

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Ricky Ross - In The End.

Art that depicts biblical scenes and art that looks at the world with new eyes

The ArtWay December 2013 newsletter highlights the dilemma or both/and that currently bedevils all Christian Arts organisations. Research into young Dutch Christian artists showed that although "the notion of ‘Christian art’ is often associated with art that depicts biblical scenes, the artists ... investigated turned out to focus mainly on other themes, while the link with their faith [was] present in a more indirect manner':

'As to style, media and approach their works displayed a rich variety. Only some of them, to a very limited extent, worked for the church, or, indeed, for a specifically Christian audience. Their concern is to be present in the middle of society.  They desire to show beauty, inspire, prompt reflection and make people look at the world with new eyes. For these artists art is not a form of evangelism. They welcome the multi-layered character of art and leave room for different interpretations.'
   

ArtWay seeks to encourage churches opening up to art and artists opening up to the church: 'For the more conservative Reformed world in The Netherlands art in the church is a new development, while the mainline Protestant and the Catholic churches are happy to receive a new stimulus in this area.' Yet for this engagement to occur, artists are needed who are willing to work for the church and specifically Christian audiences and to create, at least at times, art that depicts biblical scenes.

 

Most Christian Art organisations end up focussing their attention on one side or the other of this dilemma but, for all of us, both should have real significance and value.

 

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Energy Orchard - King Of Love.

Speech to launch commission4mission in South London

I spoke tonight at a well attended Private View for commission4mission's Christmas exhibition entitled 'Incarnation'. 

The exhibition can be seen at Wimbledon Library Gallery (1st floor, Wimbledon Library, Wimbledon Hill Road, London SW19 7NB) and includes the work of 16 artists in media including ceramics, fused glass, paintings and photography. It continues until Saturday 8th December, 9.30am - 7.00pm (2.00pm on Saturday) with access through the Library. A second Private View will be held tomorrow from 6.30 - 9.30pm. 

In launching commission4mission in South London, I said the following:

commission4mission was launched in March 2009 by our Patron, the Bishop of Barking, to encourage the commissioning and placing of contemporary Christian Art in churches, as a means of fundraising for charities and as a mission opportunity for churches.

We aim to:

·                    provide opportunities for churches to obtain and commission contemporary Christian Art for church buildings;

·                    provide information, ideas and examples of contemporary Christian Art and its use/display within church settings; and

·                    raise funds for charities through commissions and sales of contemporary Christian Art. 

In the short time that commission4mission has been in existence we have:

·                    built up a pool of over 30 artists available for Church commissions;

·                    developed a blog profiling our artists and giving up-to-date news of our activities;

·                    completed of 10 commissions;

·                    organised 13 exhibitions, two Study Days, three art workshops, several performance and networking events for members;

·                    created an Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area;

·                    worked in partnership with two other arts organisations (Christian Artist’s Networking Association & Veritasse) to create an Olympic-themed art project – Run With The Fire; and

·                    published several sets of images and meditations primarily with a Lenten or Passiontide focus.

We seek to be a proactive organisation for both the artists and the churches with which we work. For our artists we regularly provide information updates and networking opportunities as well as actively promoting their work through our blog, events and exhibitions. This ensures that they feel connected to one another and the wider faith and arts scene as well as benefiting from the support and ideas of fellow members. For churches, we actively provide opportunities to think about the possibility of commissioning contemporary art by seeing and considering the work of our artists and by suggesting ways to overcome some of the barriers which sometimes seem to stand in the way of new commissions such as finances and the differing tastes of church members. 

Why do we do what we do? Fundamentally, I would want to say that there is a Trinitarian underpinning to what we do. Firstly, that we are creative because we are made in the image of our Creator. That, as Dorothy L. Sayers reminded us in her book The Mind of the Maker, to be made in the image of God means that we are most like God when we are being creative. Secondly, that it is the Holy Spirit who gives skill to craftspeople and artists. The first Spirit-filled man in the Bible, Bezalel, was chosen by God to be skilled, knowledgeable and able to teach in all kinds of craftsmanship. So, to be biblically inspired is to make. Thirdly, that because God became truly human in Jesus we can represent his human nature as with any other member of the human race. So that, if we paint a picture of Jesus, we’re not trying to show a humanity apart from divine life but a humanity soaked through with divine life.

Next, I would want to say that the Arts are in many ways foundational to all that occurs in Church. Very briefly, we can say that:

•         the Architecture of our churches provides a designed context and stage for the worship that occurs within them;

•         we re-enact Biblical narratives through the poetry of the liturgy;

•         music in church provides composed expressions of emotions and stories in and through song; and

•         images in churches re-tell Biblical narratives and open windows into the divine.

Finally, we would also say that the Arts contribute to the mission of the Church by:

•         speaking eloquently of the faith;

•         providing a reason to visit a church – something we have tapped with our Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area;

•         making links between churches and local arts organisations/ initiatives; and

•         providing a focus for people to come together for a shared activity.

These then are key reasons why, in commission4mission, we seek to encourage the commissioning and placing of contemporary Christian Art in churches.

I would like to end with a poem by the German kinetic sculptor Heinz Mack who has had much experience of trying to work in and with Catholic chapels in Germany:

“Church art is not always art.

Art that happens to be placed in church, is art in the church,

But not Church art.

Church art that is shown in museums, remains church art in museums.

Art for the Church is not always regarded as art by the Church.

The Church does not always want art.

Art is art without the Church.

Great Church art is art in the church and for the church.”

In seeking to encourage the commissioning and placing of contemporary Christian Art in churches, commission4mission is aiming to be about “art in the church and for the church.”

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Switchfoot - New Way To Be Human.

Art Sacré in the South of France

ArtWay have published an article I have written on Art Sacré in the South of France: Matisse, Chagall and Cocteau. Many of the greatest modern artists - including great colourists such as Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall - sought to secure their reputations with work, commissions and museums on the Cote D’Azur. But for some the influence of the region was not solely in terms of colour, money, legacy or sun but also of spirituality. Chagall, Matisse and Jean Cocteau all created work which drew on the Bible for inspiration for religious contexts in the region.

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The Impressions - It's All Right.

Airbrushed from Art History: An update

The revised index to my 'Airbrushed from Art History' series of posts is as follows:
1 - Introduction I
2 - Introduction II
3 - Traces du Sacré
4 - Symbolism I
5 - Gauguin and Bernard
6 - Vincent Van Gogh
7 - Maurice Denis
8 - Symbolism II
9 - Jacques Maritain
10 - Albert Gleizes
11 - Sérusier, Severini and Gleizes
12 - Couturier, Régamey, Bell and Hussey
12a - Victor Kenna, Moelwyn Merchant and Bernard Walke
12b - Graham Sutherland and Jacques Maritain
13 - Expressionism I
14 - Expressionism II
15 - Reconciliatory art
16 - Australia and Poland
17 - Abstract art
18 - Ireland and Malta
19 - Divisionism and Futurism
20 - Contemporary artists
21 - Africa and Asia
22 - Icons
23 - Wallspace
24 - Albert Houthuesen
25 - Stained Glass
26 - Self-Taught artists
27 - Conclusion

Additions to the series and related posts are as follows:

Airbrushed from Art History: Peter Fuller
Airbrushed from Art History: Polish Painters in Post-War Britain
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 1 - Dean, Fujimura, Reinhardt and Emin
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 2 - Walter Navratil
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 3 - Caribbean and South African Art
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 4 - Daniel Siedell
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 5 - Marcus Reichert
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 6 - Lord Harries on Christian Faith and Modern Art
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 7 - Coptic Art and Mexican Retablos
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 8 - The Pilgrim Project
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 9 - Christof Schlingensief
Beyond Airbrushed from Art History 10 - Indian Art
Anselm Keifer: Il Mistero delle Cattedrali
Anselm Kiefer: Il Mistero delle Cattedrali (2)
ArtWay Meditation: Reto Scheiber
Being in the World: Charles Lutyens
British Design 1948 - 2012 and 1948 Olympians
Commission: contemporary art in British Churches
Clay as Earth and Flesh - Stephen de Staebler
Emil Nolde: Inner religious feeling
Forsaken: Marlene Dumas
Howson does not shy away from the role that Christianity plays in his work
Is the Art world anti-Christian?
John Piper and the Church
McCahon, Baxter and Hayman
McCahon, Baxter and Hayman (2)
Moreau, Rouault and Chagall in Paris
On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art
Reaching Beyond - Smith and Moore
Seeing in new and different ways - John Dillenberger
Spirituality in Contemporary Art
When was the last time you saw an explicitly religious work of contemporary art?
William Congdon - The Sabbath of History
Cocteau Chapel: Notre Dame de Jerusalem
Matisse Chapel: Chapelle du Rosaire Vence
Musée National Marc Chagall
Notre Dame de France and the murals of Jean Cocteau

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Bill Fay - Be Not So Fearful.

Launch of new Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area

“For centuries the Arts have been an important medium through which public communication of the faith has taken place and the Church has had a lengthy and happy marriage with the Arts” (Bishop of Barking).

Work has just been finalised on a new Art Trail which has been initiated by commission4mission and hopes to raise awareness of some of the rich and diverse range of modern and contemporary arts and crafts from the last 100 years within 36 churches in the Barking Episcopal area. These significant works of art collectively represent a major contribution to the legacy of the church as an important commissioner of art; through this new art trail, it is hoped to increase interest and stimulate engagement with the visual arts in the service of contemporary Christian faith.

The deep relationship between the church and the arts continued to be fruitful throughout the Twentieth century in the Barking Episcopal Area with the contributions of significant artists such as Eric Gill, Hans Feibusch, John Hutton and John Piper. In recent years, churches have 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.

The visual arts can contribute to the mission of the church by speaking eloquently of the Christian faith; providing a reason for people to visit a church; making a link between churches and local organisations and providing a focus around which local people can come together for a shared activity. For these, and other, reasons there are more than 30 churches in the Barking Episcopal Area which have significant artworks on show and which are included on the Art Trail.

A leaflet documenting the Art Trail , which has been researched and developed by commission4mission member, artist and Fine Arts lecturer, Mark Lewis, will publicise the Trail and provide information about the featured artists and churches.

The Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area is to be launched at St Pauls Goodmayes on Thursday 17th February at 12.00 noon by the Bishops of Chelmsford and Barking. You are invited to join them for the launch reception. Please RSVP to jonathan.evens@btinternet.com or 020 8599 2170.

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John Tavener - Song of the Angel.

Biblical Art from Wales

Biblical Art from Wales is a fascinating book and DVD Rom which has emerged from the very valuable Imaging the Bible in Wales project of the University of Wales Lampeter. This project (focussed on 1825–1975), analyses the social, political and theological questions raised by Welsh biblical visual culture so that its contribution to the intellectual, artistic and cultural heritage of Wales can be recognized and preserved.

The book showcases the wide variety and range of biblical art found in Wales, much of it little known and explores the significance and influence of the Bible in the visual culture in Wales in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – from the simplicity of the Nonconformist chapel and the synagogues to the colourful array of stained glass found in many churches and the icons of the Orthodox tradition.
Throughout Wales, the Bible has been interpreted and illustrated in a surprisingly wide range of media: in paint and sculpture, needlework and ceramic, woodcarving and engraving. The illustrations in the book demonstrate how the process of ‘visual exegesis’ was an important feature of religious and cultural life in Wales in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As well as evaluating the work of particular artists, such as David Jones, John Petts and Ivor Williams, specific examples of Pre-Raphaelite work in Wales and in the artisan visual tradition are also discussed.

The DVD adds a further interpretative dimension. It contains over 600 images and allows the reader to explore further subjects introduced in the book, arranged and structured as seven key representative themes such as 'Word and Image', 'the Bible in the Welsh Landscape', 'Domestic Piety', and so on. Both the book and DVD are supported by an online database of images. From the DVD one can click directly into the online database (which contains over 3,000 images), hosted by the National Library of Wales, to find out more information about the context of individual images.

The book, DVD, and overall project are invaluable simply in documenting the range and variety of artworks engaging with Biblical themes in Wales and demonstrates the profound impact that the Bible has had on British culture. While the work of artists such as John Petts and Ivor Williams, whose work is not well known, is highlighted, there are nevertheless no great discoveries in terms of the originality of the work uncovered and there is a clear tailing off of the quantity of images as the record comes to the contemporary period. This suggests that the impact of the Bible on contemporary Welsh culture has lessened and the book is ambivalent about the future of Biblical art in Wales as a result.

The final paragraph of the book notes that "the culturally-Christian upbringing and biblical education which were once such powerfully formative influences are increasingly outside the experience of younger generations." If this book and project serve as a resource for future generations of artists to tap those influences then they will have been worthwhile indeed.

Other projects documenting (on a less rigorous basis) church commissions within the UK include:

• Ecclesiart, Art & Christianity Enquiry's (ACE) project to map significant works of Modern (post 1920) and contemporary art in UK churches and cathedrals. ACE hope that the works included so far: stimulate debate about the merits of such works; encourage further nominations from the public as well as a selected panel of publicly-known figures from the worlds of art and religion; demonstrate the variety and richness of the works which are part of a collective ownership; and encourage increased responsibility towards works which may be under-appreciated.   
• commission4mission's Art Trail for the Barking Episcopal Area which will publicise the extent to which churches in this Area of the Diocese of Chelmsford contain significant art and craft works. Examples of art within the Barking Area's churches include work by significant twentieth century artists such as Eric Gill, Hans Feibusch, John Hutton and John Piper, together with contemporary work by the like of Mark Cazalet, Jane Quail and Henry Shelton.

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Johnny Cash - Down There By The Train.