Barbara Hepworth: linking the numinous with the real

Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World at Tate Britain includes mention of Hepworth's spirituality.

'In 1931, [Barbara Hepworth] made a sculpture in pink alabaster (destroyed in the war), which she pierced for the first time. This “irrational, inorganic piercing of the closed form”, as AM Hammacher describes it, “entailed a literal and spiritual breakaway from the tradition of the closed volume”.

Hepworth said: “I had felt the most intense pleasure in piercing the stone in order to make an abstract form and space; quite a different sensation from that of doing it for the purpose of realism.” The technique became integral to her art, expressing not just her sculptural creed, but – as Lucy Kent points out in the Tate catalogue – giving expression to her spiritual beliefs, allowing her, as a Christian Scientist, to find a way of expanding the inner life of her sculptures beyond their physical limitations, of linking the numinous with the real.' (Sarah Crompton)

Pam Twiss notes that, 'Although Ben [Nicholson] was clearly interested and gained much from Christian Science - and Barbara [Hepworth] toyed with its teachings - neither were fully committed Christian Scientists. Of the three, only Winifred [Nicholson] was a Christian Scientist in the sense of being a member of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Mass.(The Mother Church) and active in local branch churches.'

Henry Myric Hughes writes that 'Winifred, whose own talents were considerable, seems not merely to have given Nicholson confidence in his artistic mission, but to have provided him with a rationale for continuing to work. Through her, he came into contact with the teachings of Christian Science, and the author argues, plausibly enough, that these strengthened his belief in the spiritual value of his art and its enduring ability to communicate values of universal significance.'

In an essay written for The Christian Science Monitor in 1965, Barbara Hepworth wrote: `I believe most strongly that any sculpture made now should be valid in its form and ideas a thousand years hence. A sculpture should be an act of praise, an enduring expression of the divine spirit.'

As Chancellor of Salisbury, Moelwyn Merchant acknowledged Hepworth's success in expressing the divine spirit by accepting from Hepworth, his friend, the gift of a large bronze Crucifixion which he controversially had placed near the door of the cathedral. To him it was an important expression of faith by a major contemporary artist; to some conservative Salisbury residents, it was threatening and sacrilegious.

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John Piper and the Church

The commissioning of contemporary art for churches from significant British artists that began through the work of Walter Hussey and George Bell led to numerous stained glass and tapestry commissions for churches and cathedrals by John Piper, among others. Among Piper's most notable church commissions are pieces for the new Coventry Cathedral, Chichester Cathedral and Hereford Cathedral.
Piper had a life-long fascination with, and care for, church buildings; a relationship which began as a young boy when he produced his own sketches and guidebook to the churches in his home county of Surrey. In addition to his links with churchmen such as Hussey, Bell and Moelwyn Mer­chant, Piper enjoyed a 50 year friendship with Revd. Dr. Victor Kenna writing that “Kenna . . . had a lasting and import­ant influence on my life, combining as he did (and alas so few clergymen do) an understanding of the author­ity of the Church and the authority of form in paintings and sculpture.”

While, in his early artistic career, Piper was involved with the modernist 7 and 5 Society and Axis, the modernist journal edited by his wife Myfanwy, he moved from the creation of purist abstracts to celebrate and record, in forms that are both romantic and modern, an English provincial world of old churches and stately homes. His subsequent paintings mainly focus on the British landscape and churches. 

Stephen Spender noted that Piper and Eliot, among others in this period, were linked in their commitment to the "idea of the sacred." Christopher Frayling has written that, the Neo-Romantic movement (of which Piper was part along with Graham Sutherland who also gained significant church commissions in the period), "sometimes chimed with the aspirations of the post-war Church of England" as they "searched for a lost Eden amid the ruins of the contemporary landscape: who wanted to depict its desolation while striving to reach beyond it; who felt it might soon be closing time in the gardens of the West, and who thought of the pastoral as one of the few remaining symbolic ideas in the culture from which to draw hope." 

An exhibition at Dorchester Abbey currently celebrates the contribution John Piper made to the development of modern art in British churches throughout the twentieth century. More than 70 works spanning Piper’s diverse and illustrious career are in the exhibition along with key works from public collections including the Britten-Pears Foundation; Manchester City Art Gallery; Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester; The Collection, Lincolnshire and the V&A. The exhibition also includes special works from private collections, most of which have been rarely seen.

For the first time ever, one of each of the ecclesiastical vestments designed by John Piper for Coventry Cathedral, Chichester Cathedral, St Paul's Cathedral and the very first cope commissioned by Walter Hussey in c. 1954 are on show together. Piper's first piece of stained glass, together with his stained glass designs and cartoons, tapestries, photographs, drawings, collages, paintings and prints are also be on display in this major exhibition of his overwhelming artistic passion.

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Airbrushed from Art History (12) An addendum

Last weeks Church Times had an interesting article highlighting the support of Anglican clergy other than Walter Hussey for contemporary art over a similar period to that of Hussey.

The article focused primarily on the friendship between John Piper and Revd. Dr. Victor Kenna but also mentioned the role of Moelwyn Mer­chant, a parish priest, academic, and sculptor. Piper wrote that “Kenna . . . had a lasting and import­ant influence on my life, combining as he did (and alas so few clergymen do) an understanding of the author­ity of the Church and the authority of form in paintings and sculpture.”

Stephen Laird writes in the article that "Kenna’s influential association with John Piper was to span 50 years. Nevertheless, the significance of their friendship has never been in­vestigated fully by art historians, or recognised by the Church." It has only now come to light as a result of Frances Spalding’s biography of John and Myfanwy Piper (John Piper, Myfanwy Piper: Lives in art) which is being published this month.

From his obituary in The Independent comes the following about Moelwyn Merchant: "Having achieved an international reputation as Shakespeare scholar and art critic, he became Chancellor of Salisbury. There he caused a stir in the Close by accepting from his friend Barbara Hepworth the gift of a large bronze Crucifixion which he controversially had placed near the door of the cathedral. To him it was an important expression of faith by a major contemporary artist; to some conservative Salisbury residents, it was threatening and sacrilegious. Again, he relished the debate.

He took up sculpture himself in his sixties and demonstrated an instinctive sense of form which was the envy of many a trained artist. He had some 30 one-man exhibitions, dominated by his trademark challenging figures precariously balanced. In his sculpture, as in other aspects of his life, he delighted in living near the edge, in querying received wisdom, in elegantly probing the limits of orthodoxy.

As his physical strength began to wane, Merchant returned to creative writing and published no fewer than 11 volumes of prose and poetry over his final decade. Full of energy and endlessly creative, he was a constant source of ideas and insights, one of those enriching beings who make you see things in a different, clearer light."

To these can also be added Bernard Walke for his relationship with the Newlyn Artists. He persuaded Harold Knight, Norman and Alethea Garstin, Gladys Hynes, Ernest and Dod Procter and others to decorate St Hilarys Marazion.

Entering by the south door and turning eastwards, one comes to a picture of St Joan of Arc, painted by Annie Walke, which formed the reredos to an Altar to St Joan. The pictures on the chancel stalls either side were painted by Harold Knight, Gladys Hynes, Ernest Procter, Dod Procter, and Annie Walke and depict scenes from the lives of Cornish Saints. Those on the priest's stalls represent, on the south St Hilery, and on the north the dedication of the church by the Abbot and monks of St Michael's Mount. The pictures on the pulpit, the work of Ernest Procter, represent legends connected with St Neot, St Kevin and St Mawes. The reredos of The Lady Chapel represents the house of the Visitation and was painted by Ernest Proctor. A large crucifix on the north wall is the work of Phyllis Yglesias, a memorial to Canon F Rogers of Truro Cathedral who died in the parish in 1928. West of the crucifix there used to be an altar to St Francis. The reredos, still in position was painted by Roger Fry. In the south west corner of the church there is the reredos, painted by Ernest Procter, of an Altar of the Dead, built in memory of Gerard Collier who during world was one sought to find a way of peace for the world.

Walke faced opposition both for the way in which he went about this redecoration of the church and for his Catholicism. Complaints were made, court action taken, and finally the church was despoiled by protesters, who smashed the altars and other ornaments and left the church in a sad and barren state.

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