Images of Jesus by DANK

A second print of a painting of Jesus by the street artist DANK has been gifted to St Andrew's Wickford.

Dan Kitchener (DANK - https://www.dankitchener.com/) hails from Wickford and specialises in worldwide street art, epic scale murals, interior and exterior works of art (https://www.dankitchener.com/street-art-murals). He has several large murals in Essex including at Rochford and Southend. His murals also include images of Christ in Belfast, Vassa (Finland) and elsewhere.

He says of ‘Garden of Light’, the new image: “When I paint I need to respond naturally to my subject matter, without overthinking, over planning or procrastination - often people comment how ‘quickly’ I paint murals and canvas works - for me it’s almost like a pent up explosion of creativity that I feel welling up like a bubbling spring inside me - I went to my studio last night and put on loud, powerful music, grabbed my cans and canvas and then released all the energy in me to create this canvas - I don’t stop when I paint like this - I paint until I feel it’s finished - for me this artwork achieved my intentions - light filled, nature, flowers and plants. Trees, branches with light flickering through - a sense of peace, calm, beauty and love - I could feel that warm sunlight on me, smell those flowers as I painted (could have been the MTN94 though) and heard his footsteps on the trail ahead.”

These prints will be on display when their hanging space is not required for our art exhibitions.

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Moya Brennan - Perfect Time.

The Resurrection of the Soldiers

Here's the Remembrance Sunday sermon I shared at St Mary's Runwell this morning:

The acclaimed war artist Sir Stanley Spencer painted an epic series of large-scale murals after World War II for the Sandham Memorial Chapel. “Built to honour the 'forgotten dead' of the First World War, who were not remembered on any official memorials, the series was inspired by Spencer’s own experiences as a medical orderly and soldier on the Salonika front, and is peppered with personal and unexpected details. The paintings took six years to complete in all, and are considered by many to be the artist’s finest achievement, drawing such praise as 'Britain’s answer to the Sistine Chapel'.”

“Spencer painted scenes of his own wartime experiences, as a hospital orderly in Bristol and as a soldier, also on the Salonika front. His recollections, painted entirely from memory, focus on the domestic rather than combative and evoke everyday experience – washing lockers, inspecting kit, sorting laundry, scrubbing floors and taking tea – in which he found spiritual resonance and sustenance ...

the paintings ... describe the banal daily life that, to those from the battlefield, represented a ‘heaven in a hell of war.’ For Spencer, the menial became the miraculous; a form of reconciliation.”

The scheme is dominated by a “Resurrection scene behind the altar, in which dozens of British soldiers lay the white wooden crosses that marked their graves at the feet of a distant Christ.”

“Painted on canvas adhered to the wall of the high altar at Sandham,” the 'Resurrection' took Spencer nearly a year to complete. “It dominates the Chapel and all the other scenes are subordinate too it. The picture is a reminder of the relationship between war, death and Christianity, not merely a convenient and familiar religious image behind the altar. The composition is based on a complex pattern of wooden crosses which was suggested to Spencer by his habit of squaring up the canvas in order to work out the design. As a living soldier hands in his rifle at the end of service, so a dead soldier carries his cross to Christ, who is seen in the middle distance receiving these crosses. Spencer's idea was that the cross produces a different reaction in everybody;” so we see these crosses serving as an object of devotion; ... or marking a grave from which a soldier emerges; or framing a bewildered face. “This is Spencer’s vision of the end of war, in which heaven has emerged from hell.”

So, Spencer gives us two versions of heaven in a hell of war. The first, the mundane acts of service that people do for each other, while the second is the new life that we receive in Christ following our resurrection from the dead. The first is, in some ways, a taster for the second.

Our readings today focus on the second of these, the resurrection from the dead (Job 19. 23 – 27a and Luke 20. 27 – 38), but, before thinking about that briefly, I would like to think a little about the first.

When Jesus spoke to his disciples shortly before his own death, he said they had been chosen and appointed to bear fruit – fruit that will last (John 15. 16). The fruit that he was talking about was his characteristics of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control. Christlike behaviour and actions he said lasts or endures. Similarly, St Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 that actions which are based on faith, hope and love remain. The word he used for remain hints that such actions continue beyond the grave into eternity i.e. that we can take something with us when we die, that the fruit or acts of faith, hope and love grown in this life continue into, and continue to bear fruit in, the next.

So there is a connection here between the two things which Stanley Spencer described as being heavenly; acts of loving service in the here and now and our future resurrected life in eternity.

Poppies were one of the few flowers able to survive in areas severely damaged by fighting. The flowering of poppies from seeds which germinated in the mud of the World War I battlefields (and Flanders, in particular) became a symbol of hope on the battlefields, and after the war it became associated with Remembrance, a sign of life continuing after the horrors of conflict.

As Christians, we believe that we will grow into new life through death because of Jesus. Jesus was a seed sown into our world which died and was buried only to live again. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15, “the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.” The tomb therefore becomes a womb, a place of new birth, not just for Jesus but, through Jesus, for each one of us as well.

St Paul writes that, “This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body — but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural — same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!”

Stanley Spencer painted a vision of that future life in his Resurrection of the Soldiers. The resurrection life is different from this life because the soldiers are leaving war behind – handing in their rifles to Christ as these are no longer required – and contemplating with devotion the cross on which he died for their salvation. Their acts of loving service – washing lockers, inspecting kit, sorting laundry, scrubbing floors and taking tea – have not been left behind however; as they look out from their scene of resurrection it is these things that they see in the Chapel before them. It will be the same for us - our acts of faith, hope and love will continue to be with us in our resurrected future – and this can be a source of inspiration and encouragement as we seek to bear fruit for Christ in the here and now by living Christlike lives; lives which are characterised by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, humility, and self-control.

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Mark Knopfler - Remembrance Day.

Image of Jesus by DANK

A print of a painting of Jesus by the street artist DANK has been gifted to St Andrew's Wickford.  

Dan Kitchener (DANK - https://www.dankitchener.com/) hails from Wickford and specialises in worldwide street art, epic scale murals, interior and exterior works of art (https://www.dankitchener.com/street-art-murals). He has several large murals in Essex including at Rochford and Southend. His murals also include images of Christ in Belfast, Vassa (Finland) and elsewhere. 

He says of this image that it is a very special painting for him: 'I wanted to paint this portrait of Jesus Christ not in pain and sorrow but full of light and joy and love - a positive and uplifting portrait of the saviour and Creator.'

The print will be on display when its hanging space is not required for our art exhibitions.

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Cosmic Cathedral - The Heart Of Life.

The Monastery of Saint John the Baptist

It was a joy to visit The Monastery of Saint John the Baptist today together with my friend Tim Harrold. We were grateful to Fr Andrew for his hospitality and information as we were shown around.

The Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, (also known as Community of Saint John the Baptist) is a monastic community which was founded in 1959 by Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov (1896-1993). On 27 November 2019, Archimandrite Sophrony was added to the list of Saints by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople. His Feast Day is on the day of his repose, the 11 of July. The Monastery is situated in Tolleshunt Knights near Tiptree, in the United Kingdom. It belongs to the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church, and is under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople.

During the first decades after the community had moved to England, the building and decorating of the churches of the monastery required much of his prayer and attention. After having abandoned painting for many years, he began to paint icons and frescos for the new places of worship. He strove to express the Face of Christ which had been revealed to him in the Light. However, he was never satisfied with his work and often adjusted and repainted the icons of Christ he had created.

Art has the ability to touch that inner part of man and convey directly a creative experience and response difficult to express in words. It was the life long vocation of Saint Sophrony to offer this living experience through art. His artistic training had its roots in both Imperial and Soviet Russia where as a young student, he was influenced by the writings of Kandinsky on the spiritual in art. It was the spiritual life that called him ever more strongly and after working as a portrait and landscape artist in Paris, Father Sophrony abandoned his painting to become a monk on Mount Athos.

Sister Gabriela joined the Community of Saint John the Baptist in 1983 after studying iconography in Paris on Saint Sophrony’s insistence. She was part of the team which was painting the murals of Saint Silouan’s Chapel and worked closely with the saint. After the mural work, Saint Sophrony continued to teach her the art of icon painting, and she assisted him in some larger works. Her work includes a series of large icons created for Chelmsford Cathedral.

On the 3rd of December 1985, while Sister Gabriela and Father Sophrony were working on the murals in the chapel of St Silouan, Father Sophrony told her: “Later, you have to write a book about our experiences; which colours were used, the mistakes you made and so on.” Thirty three years later she set herself to the task and dealt with the time of her apprenticeship as a story, copied out from her notes and adding a few explanatory notes. Failures & Discoveries: Notes from an icon workshop is the book she wrote.

Since Saint Sophrony’s repose, to the extent that she has been able to understand them, Sister Gabriela has tried to further his vision and ideas in various artistic projects. This includes painting the icons and murals for the round chapel which was completed earlier this year. 

As Saint Sophrony’s mind was always very creative, he had many ideas about how to create a space for the celebration of the Liturgy. In 1992, he made a plan to build a round chapel and supervised the construction of a model which specified all the various dimensions as well as the exact location. Whilst at the time it was not possible to fulfil the project, its realisation came thirty years later. Initially, Saint Sophrony had wanted to dedicate the chapel to the Holy Trinity; but when he himself was numbered amongst the saints, it was decided to change the plan and name the chapel after our founding Father. 

The Monastery has not written a history, but the books written by Saint Sophrony and members of his Community provide an insight into the spiritual basis of its life. These books are on sale at the Monastery’s bookshop in Tolleshunt Knights, as well as online.

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John Tavener - Ikon Of Light.

Charles Mahoney: The Pleasures of Life

Developed in partnership with Liss Llewellyn, Charles Mahoney: The Pleasures of Life at the Fry Gallery is the most significant show dedicated to the artist since a touring exhibition at the Fine Art Society in 1999, also organised by Liss Llewellyn.

Interest in Mahoney's work has since enjoyed a steady rise, together with that of Royal College contemporaries such as Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden, and he was one of the most prodigiously skilled artists of his generation. This was a view shared by the former Director of the Tate Gallery, John Rothenstein, who called Mahoney ‘an artist of very exceptional gifts’, and ‘a distinguished successor to the finest of the Pre-Raphaelites’.This exhibition brings together works from throughout Mahoney’s career, and demonstrates the full range of his artistic vision. It includes preparatory studies for all of Mahoney’s major mural cycles, as well as superlative views of Oak Cottage and the gardens he so lovingly cultivated there that provided the inspiration for his keen, minutely observed botanical works. The majority of the pictures have been gathered from the artist’s studio, and never previously exhibited before.

Mahoney was a frequent visitor to Great Bardfield, helping Bawden to decorate Brick House, and sharing his love of gardens with Bawden and with John Aldridge. He shared his own earthly paradise, Oak Cottage at Wrotham in Kent, with his wife Dorothy (Bishop) from the end of WWII until his death in 1968. Like many of the Bardfield artists, he had a love of the domestic and the overlooked scene.

Bawden, Mahoney and Ravilious won the commission to paint the murals at Morley College in Southwark between 1928 and 1930. Mahoney’s contribution was the central panel in the hall depicting seven large figures and titled ‘The Pleasures of Life’. Unfortunately these murals were destroyed during World War II. The work led to further murals: at Brockley School, Kent, with Evelyn Dunbar; and at Campion Hall Lady Chapel, Oxford. His oil paintings are frequently of a religious nature.

The wall paintings for the Lady Chapel at Campion Hall are unique and exquisitely executed depicting the life of Our Blessed Lady, with Mahoney’s great love of colour and horticulture on full display.

When Martin D’Arcy, as the recently appointed Master of Campion Hall, was planning the new building of the Hall in Brewer Street, he naturally wished to make something special of its Lady Chapel. He was enabled financially to do this through the benevolence of his close friend, Evelyn Waugh, who had recently completed writing his life of Edmund Campion and who now agreed to donate the royalties from the sales of the book to finance the painting of a set of Lady Chapel murals.

D’Arcy first invited the celebrated artist Stanley Spencer to consider taking on the Lady Chapel project, but Spencer proved himself eccentric and unpredictable. D'Arcy’s friend, Sir John Rothenstein, Director of the Tate Gallery, recommended a promising young teacher at the Royal College of Art, Charles Mahoney, who already had several murals to his credit. Mahoney enthusiastically accepted the commission, and his working relationship with Campion Hall would continue for ten years, resulting in a set of richly coloured and detailed murals portraying the life of Our Blessed Lady which constitutes one of the most splendid and engaging treasures in Campion Hall.

Not a Catholic, Mahoney was thoroughly instructed in the details of Our Lady’s life and traditional Marian devotion, and the Lady Chapel narrates the events and providential role of Mary’s life in three major panels along with the two altar and sacristy walls, and all in the setting of a richly flowered vaulted ceiling. The artist achieves both contemporary relevance and artistic immediacy by dressing participants in everyday clothing and including portraits of some members of the Campion Hall community.

The dominating panel shows Mary crowned as Queen of Mercy surrounded by a garland of flowers and angels and spreading her protective cloak over four kneeling child-sized suppliants: a workman, a student, a uniformed soldier (it was wartime) and a clergyman, his friend the Jesuit Father Vincent Turner. The other two panels continue the theme of the year’s seasons by portraying, first, a winter night Nativity scene, with mundane shepherds replacing an earlier setting with kings; and then a summer-reflecting canopied Coronation of Our Lady by her risen Son when she was assumed into heaven by the accompanying angels.

The wall of the chapel which contains a doorway into the sacristy presented the artist with a challenge. Lutyens had designed the large elaborate door to fit in with his systematic use of wood throughout the Hall. Mahoney incorporated the doorway into his work by placing at the top the scene of the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt, with two panels on either side of the door portraying several other Marian events: the traditionally wondrous birth of Mary to elderly parents; her Visitation to her pregnant cousin, Elizabeth; her betrothal to Joseph, preferred to the other apocryphal suitors; and the unfinished Dormition, or ‘falling asleep’, of Mary, the term traditionally applied to the completing of her earthly life.

The Chapel’s wall which includes the windows above the altar was chosen by Mahoney to display the Annunciation by the angel Gabriel to the young Jewish girl dressed in red, while below (incomplete) two other angels are playing xylophones; and spread across the top are illustrations of Old Testament prophetic titles which are applied to Mary in the traditional Litany of Loreto.

Finally, the ceiling of the chapel draws on Mahoney’s floral expertise to display a delightful luxuriant garden, which may portray a new Eden as the life setting for the new sinless Eve, and may also, with its surrounding wall, recall her being the ‘enclosed garden’ (hortus conclusus) beloved of God in Song 4:12, all surmounted by a radiant blue sky stretching across the ceiling’s vault.

As it happened, the sensitive Mahoney’s work was left unfinished, for several possible reasons: the artist did not feel his efforts were sufficiently admired by D’Arcy after the latter ceased to be Master; or Waugh’s donated royalties grew less over the years and were proving insufficient for what was becoming a lengthy project; or the physical demands of the work were affecting Mahoney’s declining health. The consequence was that the small Dormition panel to the right of the Sacristy door (including Fathers D’Arcy, Martindale, Corbishley, the architect Lutyens and the Hall’s carpenter), and the two other panels placed immediately on either side of the altar, remained incomplete in their grey undercoating. Interestingly, this unplanned feature has produced a simple graceful effect, particularly in Mary’s deathbed, and it also serves in its unfinished condition to highlight the interplay of strong colours which pervades the work as a whole, while also evidencing the otherwise concealed patterning of fabrics and garments which underlies Mahoney’s entire work.

Not completed, and therefore never officially unveiled nor publicly launched, Mahoney’s insufficiently known Lady Chapel murals in Campion Hall are nonetheless capable of making a deep impression on their viewers. They elicit admiration for the peaceful prayerful space which they create, while also being valued as a visible illustration of St Ignatius Loyola’s practice of biblical imaginative meditation.

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Francis Poulenc - Stabat Mater.

Artlyst: Ai Weiwei - The Artist of Resistance - The Design Museum

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is about Ai Weiwei: Making Sense and Yinka Ilori: PARABLES FOR HAPPINESS at the Design Museum:

'Ai is the artist of resistance and resilience par excellence. For him, conceptual art and ‘readymades’ have become a way of life because art has become his way of responding to oppression. For him, art has become more than creative expression and a career; art has become his worldview and default response to each and every circumstance of oppression he has faced personally because he has consistently chosen to make art from those experiences ...

Elsewhere in the Design Museum, we can also encounter the work of Yinka Ilori, who makes good use of the phrase, ‘Love always wins’. Ilori has a background in the Pentecostal church and, like Lakwena Mciver, another contemporary artist whose church experience shows up in her work, uses vibrant colour, strident patterns and positive slogans to fashion murals that inspire.'

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

• Sean Scully A Humility Towards Nature
• Winslow Homer: American Passage An Interview With Biographer Bill Cross
• Grayson Perry Tapestries On Show At Salisbury Cathedral
• Sidney Nolan’s Africa: Interview With Andrew Turley
• Ilona Bossanyi: Tate’s Ervin Bossanyi Stained Glass Window Mothballed After 2011 Redevelopment
• Louis Carreon: Sampling Art History
• Modus Operandi - What Makes Successful Public Art: Vivien Lovell InterviewedGenesis Tramaine: A Queer Devotional Painter
• Lakwena Maciver: Review-Interview Hastings Contemporary
• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

Monthly diary articles -

• The Art Diary May 2023
• The Art Diary April 2023
• The Art Diary March 2023
• The Art Diary February 2023
• Surveying New Exhibitions With A Spiritual Twist January 2023 Art Diary
• Christmas: The Art Of Faith December 2022 Diary
• Soulages And Strange Clay November 2022 Art Diary
• Alexander de Cadenet And Michael Forbes October 2022 Diary
• Spiritual Joseph Beuys Plus More: September Diary
• Holiday Snaps – End Of Summer Art Diary
• Art Search: August 2022 Diary
• Re-imagining Essex July 2022 Diary
• Art Illuminating spirituality June 2022 Diary
• Venice To London May 2022 Diary
• Jacob Epstein, Louis Carreon, Titus Kaphar, Betty Spackman – April 2022 Diary
• Audrey Flack Carlo Crivelli And Robert Indiana – March Diary
• My Art Diary And Other Thoughts February 2022
• And On An Art Note: End Of Year Diary 2021
• International Autumn Art Exhibition Reviews
• And On An Art Note: End Of Year Diary 2021

Articles/Reviews -

• Saint Francis of Assisi A Timely Exhibition - National Gallery
• Why Critics Have A Problem With The Pre-Raphaelites?
• Religion and Spirituality in Post Impressionism National Gallery
• Black Artists From The American South Royal Academy
• Donatello: The Divine Fused With The Human V&A
• Lucian Freud And His Circle Surveyed In Two London Exhibitions
• A Question Of Clay: Strange Clay – Hayward Gallery
• William Kentridge: Merging Politics With Aesthetics – RA
• Winslow Homer: Beyond The Sea – National Gallery
• Hidden Depths: The Woman in the Window – Dulwich Picture Gallery
• Heavenly Visions: Churches As Spaces For Contemporary Art
• In The Black Fantastic London’s Best Summer Exhibition
• Hew Locke And The Christian Roots Of Carnival – Tate BritainLes Lalanne, Schütte And Gursky London Spring Exhibition Highlights
• Sensuous Sickert and Philpot Two Major UK Solo Exhibitions
• Raphael The Human And Divine – National Gallery
• Damien Hirst The Visceral Reality Of Death
• Ali Cherri: Artist in Residence National Gallery
• Surrealism Outside The Usual Story – Tate Modern
• Marcus Lyon Creates Fields of Vision At St Martin-in-the-Fields London
• Van Gogh Self Portraits The Infinite And The Ordinary
• Marvellous Icons: The London Jesuit Centre
• Albrecht Dürer Travels Of A Renaissance Artist – National Gallery London
• Diasporan Identities: Life Between Islands Caribbean British Art – Tate Britain
• Isamu Noguchi: Socially Engaged Art – Barbican Centre
• Pablo Bronstein: A This-World Vision Of Hell
• Bosco Sodi: In The Beginning Of Wisdom
• George Condo Lockdown Works Hauser & Wirth
• Theaster Gates Clay As A Profound Metaphor
• Mark Rothko: Mesmerising And Intimate Works On Paper
• Roger Cecil: A Once In A Generation Welsh Painter
• Tino Sehgal: Location, Nature And Pandemic – Blenheim Palace
• Michael Armitage And The Power Of Art – Royal Academy
• Marie Raymond And Post-War Avant Garde Painting In Paris
• Rachel Kneebone: A Complex Tableau Of Organic And Geometric Forms
• Rodin: Suffering And Conflict – Tate Modern
• Barbara Hepworth: Symbols Of Art & Life – Hepworth Wakefield
• 20th Century Women Artists Challenging Conventions In Britain
• Chaiya Art Awards 2021 Gallery OXO
• Marc Chagall’s Exquisite Stained Glass Window Commissions
• George Gittoes Equal parts artist and warrior
• Keith Haring: Personal Spiritual Imagery
• Sean Scully: Philosophical Poetic Pastoral The 12 / Dark Windows
• Arthur Jafa: The Art Of Cutting And Pasting
• Blackpentecostal Breath: Spirit-Led Movement Jumps From Music To Visual Art
• Made in USA Ed Ruscha An American Perspective
• Robert Smithson: The Archetypal Nature Of Things
• If Jesus Is A Man Of Colour Why Did We Make Him Aryan?
• Cosmic Patches And Quilts Five Exhibitions
• Everyday Heroes: Southbank Exhibition Celebrates Low-paid Key Workers
• Entwining Spiritualism And Art – Three Shows
• Of Church And The Visual Arts
• Has The Word Master Reached Its Sell-By Date?
• The People Behind Community Is Kindness Billboard Campaign
• André Daughtry: Art, Rebellion And Racial Justice
• Salisbury Cathedral 800 Years Of Art And Spirit
• Home Alone Together Twenty Five Artists
• Botanical Mind Online: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree
• Salvador Dalí The Enigma of Faith
• Art And Faith A Time For Seeing
• Andy Warhol: Catholicism His Work, Faith And Legacy
• Kiki Smith: Embodied Art
• Art and Christianity Awards A Positive New Millennium Legacy
• Arnulf Rainer: 90th Birthday Exhibition Celebrated At Albertina Museum
• A Belonging Project And Exiles Loss and Displacement
• Robert Polidori: Fra Angelico Opus Operantis
• Art, Faith, Church Patronage and Modernity
• Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art
• Mat Collishaw Challenges Faith Perspectives With Ushaw Installation
• Waterloo Festival Launches At St. John’s Waterloo
• John Bellany Alan Davie Spiritual Joy and Magic
• RIFT Unites 17 Art and Science MA Graduates At Central St Martins
• Visionary Cities: Michael Takeo Magruder – British Library
• Van Gogh’s Religious Journey Around London
• William Congdon Holy Sites And The Kettle’s Yard Connection
• Mark Dean Premieres Pastiche Mass At Banqueting Hall Chelsea College of Arts
• John Kirby: The Torment
• Underlying The Civilised Facade
• Curating Spiritual Sensibilities In Changing Times
• Homeless Highlighted: New Beau Exhibition At St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Ken Currie: Protest Defeat And Victory
• Bosco Sodi: A Moment Of Genesis
• Bill Viola And The Art Of Contemplation
• Art In Churches 2018: Spiritual Combinations Explored
• Sister Wendy Beckett – A Reminiscence
• Guido Guidi: Per Strada Flowers Gallery London
• Peter Howson: The play is over – Flowers Gallery
• Camille Henrot: Scientific History And Creation Story Mash Up
• Nicola Green Explores Recent And Contemporary Religious Leaders – St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Art And The Consequences Of War Explored In Two Exhibitions
• Helaine Blumenfeld Translating Her Vision
• Sam Ivin: Physically Scratched Portraits Of Asylum Seekers Exhibited
• Sacred Noise: Explores Religion, Faith And Divinity
• Bill Viola: Quiet Contemplative Video Installation St Cuthbert’s Church Edinburgh
• The ground-breaking work of Sister Corita Kent
• Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Polish Art In Britain: Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Refugee Artists: Learning from The Lives Of Others
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

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The Amazons - Dark Visions.

Reflective Tour: St Mary's Runwell

St Mary’s Runwell: A reflective tour of its art and architecture

St Mary's is a magnificent mediaeval building which boasts an interesting and mixed history. The church is often described by both visitors and regular worshippers as a powerful sacred space to which they have been drawn. This powerful impact comes in part from the art and architecture in the space. This leaflet provides information about that aspect of the building and suggests reflections and prayers as you view the building and its artworks.

To find out more about St Mary's Runwell or to visit click here.

Art and architecture

The modern rood screen in the perpendicular style is by W.F. Unsworth (1909). The figure of Our Lord on the cross is suspended from a tie beam, west of the rood screen, is in memory of Paymaster Lieutenant John Rochester Graves, RNVR, who died in HMS Hood in 1941. The colouring of the screen at St Mary's and the murals the one pillar in the south aisle dates from the 1930s-1950s and was undertaken, by his sons, under the guidance of then Rector, Revd John Edward Bazille-Corbin to 'reproduce as closely as possible' the decoration of the medieval church.

The painting of St Peter and the crucifix below it were by Anthony Corbin and are 'restorations of medieval work which had been well and truly scraped out, but the traces of which could, at that date, still be faintly seen.' Two modern olive wood statues depict Our Lady and Our Lord, the latter given as a thank-offering for the remarkable survival and recovery of a son of Bazille-Corbin, from injuries received during service in the 1939-45 war. The statue of Our Lady was carved by a Carmelite Sister who had carved a similar statue for the Shrine Church in Walsingham.

The chancel is entirely perpendicular in style. The original fifteenth century East window with three trefoiled lights in four centred heads with a moulded hood, was reset in the east wall when the chancel was lengthened in 1907. A slim one-light cinque-foiled east window high over the chapel altar contains the only surviving fragments of medieval stained glass. The rest of the stained glass is modern and is entirely taken up with memorials to various members of the Kemble family with the exceptions of the east window of the chancel and the west window in the tower. This is in memory of the mother of the Rev. H.K. Harris, Rector 1891-1912. The figure of Gabriel, the Archangel, is in the west window.

A large painting of 'The Baptism of Our Lord' by Enid Chadwick of Walsingham was gifted to the church by Fr David John Silk Lloyd. Local woodworker David Garrard has crafted Stations of the Cross using the motif of the Runwell Cross (found originally on the Prioresses Tomb) which have been placed around the church. Garrard also built an altar for the side chapel together with an inscribed cross on the side chapel wall.

The south door ‘unusually wide and large’ has an original, fifteenth century oak door with original hinges and strapwork. The timber has a curious burn-like mark said to be the mark of the ‘Devil’s claw’. An interesting feature is the medieval scratched sundial on the west jamb of the doorway. The south chapel contains two original piscine and a squint.

Reflective tour

Inscribed cross: Reflect on your start in life, your own personal mortality, and the ways God has been present with you on your journey through life and will be with you into eternity.

Annunciation windows: Reflect on the possibilities that always exist for new beginnings and fresh opportunities in life. Pray that God will break into your life or those of others just as Gabriel suddenly appeared to Mary.

Nativity window: Reflect on Jesus moving into our neighbourhood. Pray for your neighbourhood that Christ may be recognised there.

‘The Baptism of Our Lord’: Reflect on your need for turning away from what is wrong in your life and finding new direction. Hear God speaking to you, as to Jesus, saying, “You are my beloved child.”

Statues of Our Lady: Reflect on Mary's lifelong commitment to God. Pray for inspiration from Our Lady and for your own commitment to be strengthened.

Peter (window and mural): Reflect on Peter’s courage and fallibility in walking on water and then sinking. Pray that you might be used by God, as Peter was, despite your own fallibilities.

Stations of the Cross: Reflect on the many ways in which people suffer throughout the world. Pray for people, countries and situations of which you know where people are suffering today.

Crucifixion: Reflect on Christ’s sacrifice of his life for you. Pray that you may know Christ through participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.

Resurrection window: Reflect on the transformation that Jesus’ resurrection brought to the disciples. Pray for resurrection in any circumstances where things seem to have come to a dead end.

Devil's claw: Reflect on the ways in which evil manifests itself today. Pray that goodness may always be stronger than evil and love than hate.

Gabriel window: Reflect on the meaning of Gabriel’s name – “strength of God.” Ask that you might be strengthened by God and God’s angels in whatever challenges you currently face.

Prioress’s tomb: Reflect on the Runwell Cross, formed by four circles in a square; the instrument of our redemption set within a sign of the perfection of God. Pray that you might know God more fully in his divinity and his humanity.

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Walsingham Way - Hymns To The Virgin Mary.

Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1940s

This is Part 6 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s.

• From 1940-42, T.S. Eliot publishes Four Quartets. He is awarded the Nobel Prize in 1948.
• W.H. Auden returns to the Anglican Church in 1940 after seven years of thought about the moral content of Christianity, about what it means to love—or not to love—one's neighbour as oneself.
• In 1941, Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Man Born To Be King is broadcast on the BBC. The Mind of the Maker, which explores the analogy between a human creator and the doctrine of the Trinity in creation, is published.
• Murals are commissioned in 1941 from Duncan Grant, Vanessa and Quentin Bell for St Michael & All Angels Berwick representing a fulfilment of George Bell’s vision to be a catalyst for promoting the relationship between the Arts and the Church.
• In 1941, Sándor Nagy completes frescos in Pesterzsébet St. Elisabeth Church.
• Dominique and John de Menil meet regularly with Marie-Alain Couturier in New York from 1941 until his return to France after the War.
• Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) is first performed in January 1941 to an audience of prisoners and prison guards, with the composer playing a poorly maintained upright piano in freezing conditions. The title's "end of time" alludes to the Apocalypse.
• Simone Weil writes her Letter to a Religious to Marie-Alain Couturier at the suggestion of Jacques Maritain in 1942 when both Weil and Couturier are in the United States.
• In 1943, David Gascoyne publishes Poems 1937-1942 with illustrations by Graham Sutherland. In these mystical poems Gascoyne writes as an agonized Christian seeker desperate for a transcendent realm beyond the mortal world. Sutherland and Francis Bacon, friends at that time, work on crucifixion-inspired images which drew on photos of the recently liberated Nazi death camps and took inspiration from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and Picasso’s crucifixion drawings. Sutherland paints a Crucifixion for St Matthew’s Northampton (1946) and Bacon, Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944).
• In 1943, José Clemente Orozco paints Cristo destruye su cruz.
• In 1943, the artist Colin McCahon and poet James K. Baxter first meet in Brighton, New Zealand.
• Albert Gleizes writes Spirituality, Rhythm, Form at the end of 1943 for a special edition of the Lyon-based journal, Confluences, devoted to 'Les Problèmes de la Peinture'. A Benedictine monk, Dom Angelico Surchamp, still at the time only a novice, came on the strength of Spirituality, Rhythm, Form to study with Gleizes. In 1951, the publishing house Zodiaque was established by Surchamp at his monastery, l'Abbaye de Ste Marie de la Pierre-qui-Vire, becoming well known for its large and impressive collection of books on Romanesque art.
• On a three-day retreat in 1943 with the writer Camille Bourniquel, Alfred Manessier experiences a profound religious conversion at the abbey of Notre Dame de la Trappe de Soligny (Orne).
• In 1944 André Girard has the first of several solo shows featuring his religious work at New York’s Bignou Gallery. In 1948 Girard is commissioned by Saint Vincent Archabbey to execute a triptych depicting St. Bernard of Clairvaux for the Archabbey’s crypt. In 1949 he visits Blessed Sacrament Church at Stowe to install his paintings of the Way of the Cross and offers to decorate the entire church, painting 36 windows plus large-scaled murals on the outer walls of the church.
• Henry Moore's 'Madonna and Child' sculpture (1944) and Graham Sutherland's 'Crucifixion' (1946) are unveiled at St Matthew’s Northampton. 'Litany and Anthem for St Matthew's Day' is commissioned from W.H Auden (1945) and 'The Outer Planet' from Norman Nicholson (1949).
• Max Jacob is arrested by the Gestapo in France in 1944 and dies at the Drancy internment camp en route to Auschwitz. Meditations Religieuses a volume of the artist’s devotional writings from the time of the Nazi Occupation is published posthumously.
• In 1944, the poet Kathleen Raine converts to Catholicism.
• The literary and arts review Orígenes is founded in 1944 by José Lezama Lima and José Rodríguez Feo.
• In 1944, Thomas Merton publishes his first poetry collection and, in 1948, The Seven Storey Mountain. He writes his first letters to Evelyn Waugh, who was editing The Seven Storey Mountain. Until his death in 1968, Merton corresponded with writers around the world, developing an ever-widening circle of friends including Czeslaw Milosz, Henry Miller, Walker Percy, Boris Pasternak, and others.
• In 1944, Religious Art Today and An Exhibition of Religious Art Today at the Dayton Museum of Art in Ohio and the Institute of Modern Art in Boston respectively features contemporary American and European painters known for their interpretations of biblical themes.
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s 1945 hit ‘Strange Things Happening Every Day’ is the first gospel record to cross over, hitting no. 2 on the Billboard "race records" chart, the term then used for what later became the R&B chart, in April 1945. The recording has been cited as a precursor of rock and roll and has been called the first rock and roll record.
• Bill Monroe, with his band the Blue Grass Boys, creates the bluegrass music genre. The classic lineup of the band comes together with the addition of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs in December 1945. Gospel-themed numbers are credited to the "Blue Grass Quartet", which featured four-part vocal arrangements accompanied solely by mandolin and guitar – Monroe's usual practice when performing "sacred" songs. Monroe's performing career spans 69 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader.
• In 1945, Romare Bearden exhibits his Passion series at G Place in Washington D.C.
• In 1945, Arthur Boyd paints The Mockers and The Mourners.
• In 1945, E. Martin Browne takes over the 150-seater Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate, and devotes it for the next three years to the production of modern verse plays, with first productions of plays by Christopher Fry, Ronald Duncan, Norman Nicholson and Anne Ridler, all directed by Browne himself.
• In 1946, Hans Feibusch’s Mural Painting is published.
• Nikos Kazantzakis writes Zorba the Greek (1946) and Christ Recrucified (1948).
• In 1946, The Dixie Hummingbirds sign a record deal with Apollo Records, a growing New York based label. Apollo Records also sign Mahalia Jackson. Groups such as the Dixie Hummingbirds, Pilgrim Travelers, Soul Stirrers, Swan Silvertones, Sensational Nightingales and Five Blind Boys of Mississippi introduce more stylistic freedom to the close harmonies of jubilee style Black Gospel.
• Nationwide recognition comes for Mahalia Jackson in 1947 with the release of "Move On Up a Little Higher", selling two million copies and hitting the number two spot on Billboard charts, both firsts for gospel music.
• In 1947, Arnold Schoenberg writes his memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, A Survivor from Warsaw.
• In 1947, Alfred Manessier receives a visit from Georges Rouault, who advised him to take up stained-glass design. Stained glass windows created by Manessier in 1948 for the church of Sainte-Agathe des Bréseux are the first non-figurative designs to be incorporated in an ancient building.
• On November 24, 1947, Caroline Gordon converts to Catholicism. Gordon is a friend and mentor to Brainard Cheney, Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy. Influenced by Gordon, the Cheney’s also convert to Catholicism. Gordon introduces the Cheney’s to Flannery O'Connor, with whom they became close friends.
• In 1947 Sadao Watanabe wins the first prize from the Japan Folk Art Museum; and the Kokugokai Prize in 1948.
• In 1948, Jacques Le Chevallier organizes the Centre d’Art sacré in collaboration with Maurice Rocher.
• In 1949, Pál C. Molnár creates a winged altar in the parish church of the Inner City in Pest, Hungary.
• Completion of commissioning in 1949 for Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce du Plateau d'Assy, bringing together works by Braque, Matisse, Bonnard, Lurçat, Rouault, Léger, Bazaine, Chagall, Berçot, Briançon, Richier. Subsequently, Germaine Richier’s Crucifix was removed from the church and an instruction on sacred art issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1952 was the beginning of two year initiative by the Vatican which severely constrained the modernizing programme of the French Dominicans and represented a victory for the traditionalists within the Church.
• In 1949 Salvador Dalí creates the first version of The Madonna of Port Lligat. He presents it to Pope Pius XII in an audience for approval, which is granted. Dalí creates a second painting in 1950 with the same title and themes.
• Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory (1940), The Ministry of Fear (1943) and The Heart of the Matter (1948), Francois Mauriac’s A Woman of the Pharisees (1941), Norman Nicholson’s An Anthology of Religious Verse Designed for the Times (1942), George Bernanos’ Monsieur Quine (1943), C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters (1942) and The Great Divorce (1945), Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945), Jack Clemo’s Wilding Graft (1948), Heinrich Böll’s The Train was on Time (1949) are published.

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Sister Rosetta Tharpe - This Train.

Art and faith: Decades of engagement - 1920s

This is Part 5 in a series of posts which aim to demonstrate the breadth of engagement there has been between the Arts and religion within the modern period and into our contemporary experience. The idea is to provide a brief introduction to the artists and initiatives that were prominent in each decade to enable further research. Inevitably, these lists will be partial as there is much that I don’t know and the lists reflect my interests and biases. As such, the primary, but not exclusive, focus is on artists that have engaged with the Christian tradition.

The introduction and the remainder of the series can be found at: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s.

• Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavansdatter (1920 - 1922) and Master of Hestviken (1925 – 1927), Oskar Milosz's Ars Magna (1924) and Les Arcanes (1926), Julien Green's Mont-Cinère (1926), Adrienne Mesurat (1927), and Léviathan (1928), Georges Bernanos’ Under the Star of Satan (1927) and Joy (1928), Francois Mauriac’s Le Desert de l’amour (1925), Thérèse Desqueyroux (1927), and Destins (1928), Dorothy L. Sayers’ first novel Whose Body? (1923), Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet (1923), Alfred Noyes’ The Return of the Scare-Crow (1929) are published.
• In 1920, Maire-Alain Couturier begins studying at the Ateliers d'Art Sacré. 
• Art and Scholasticism by Jacques Maritain is published in 1920. It was in thinking of Rouault that Maritain wrote Art and Scholasticism and he also made frequent references to his artist friend in Creative Intuition in Art and Poetry (1953).
• In 1920, Louis Barillet meets Jacques Le Chevalier and they begin collaborating on their first stained glass windows founding their own workshop. Jean Hébert-Stevens and Pauline Peugniez do the same in 1923. Barillet and Le Chevalier found L'Arch et les Artisans de l'Autel, (The Arc and the Artisans of the Altar).
• During the 1920s, Bernard Walke, the Vicar of St Hilary’s in Cornwall invites many Newlyn School artists to contribute works to decorate the church and also installs statues and other paintings from other sources. The majority of the new work, including the white crucifix, the pulpit and two relief works on copper is executed by Ernest Procter. Other artists include Dod Procter, Norman Garstin, Alethea Garstin, Harold Knight, Harold Harvey, Roger Fry and Annie Walke. Some of the artifacts and Walke’s Anglo-Catholic practices are highly controversial and result in a Consistory Court and a raid by Protestant activists in 1932. Items are removed, some damaged in the process, but over the succeeding years many are returned.
• In 1920, the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic is formed at Ditchling. David Jones becomes a Roman Catholic in 1921 and joins Eric Gill at Ditchling.
• El Cristo de Velázquez (The Christ of Velázquez) (1920) is a religious work of poetry by Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, divided into four parts, where Unamuno analyzes the figure of Christ from different perspectives. For Unamuno, the art of poetry was a way of expressing spiritual problems. His themes were the same in his poetry as in his fiction: spiritual anguish, the pain provoked by the silence of God, time and death.
In 1921, the poet Pierre Reverdy is baptised into the Catholic faith with Max Jacob as his godfather. Jacob publishes Le laboratoire central before leaving Paris for Saint-Benoit-sur-Loire to live in the town’s historic abbey and in nearby rooms. He attends daily Mass, writes poetry, and paints in gouache. In 1922 Jacob publishes Art poétique.
• In 1921, Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone ask Albert Gleizes to become their teacher.
• In March-April 1922 the statutes of the Maritain’s Thomistic Circles are drawn up with Father Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange becoming advisor of the circles. Prayer and Intelligence is to be provided by by Jacques and Raïssa. September 30 -- October 4 sees the first retreat of the Thomistic Circles preached by Garrigou-Lagrange at Versailles.
• L’Arche participate in the exhibition of Christian Art in Paris in 1922.
• In 1922, G.K. Chesterton is received into the Roman Catholic Church.
• Alfred Noyes' epic verse trilogy The Torch-Bearers – comprising Watchers of the Sky (1922), The Book of Earth (1925) and The Last Voyage (1930) – is an eloquent exposition of a religious synthesis with the history of science.
• On 5 June 1923 Jacques and Raïssa Maritain move to 10 rue du Parc at Meudon, where they will live until war breaks out in 1940. September 26-30 sees the second retreat of the Thomistic Circles at Meudon. These will continue annually until 1940, save for 1936.
• Gino Severini returns to the Roman Catholic Church in 1923, initially through Jacques Maritain.
• In 1923, Maurice Denis, Marie-Alain Couturier, and Marguerite Huré create the first abstract stained-glass windows in the church of Notre Dame du Raincy, built by Auguste Perret.
• Valentine Reyre creates Christ aux outrages for the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Wisques in 1923 and a Virgin of the Apocalypse for the church of the French Village of the Exhibition of Decorative Arts in 1925.
• In 1924, Gino Severini receives his first church commission, wall paintings for the Swiss church of Saint Nicolas de Myre in Semsales. The work is completed between 1924 and 1926.
• After befriending a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Nicholas, following his move to Nice in 1924, Igor Stravinsky reconnects with his faith. He rejoins the Russian Orthodox Church and afterwards remains a committed Christian.
• In 1925 Jean Cocteau meets Père Henrion at Meudon and three days later makes his confession. In January 1926, Cocteau’s Letter to Jacques Maritain is published and, at the same time, Maritain’s Reply to Jean Cocteau. The exchange is published in English as Art and Faith.
• In 1925, Jacques Maritain and the novelist Julien Green meet for the first time. They correspond with one another from 1926 to 1972 with their correspondence being published as The Story of Two Souls in 1979.
• In 1925, the Society of Spiritual Artists is founded in Hungary, with Barna Basilides as a founding member.
• G.K.'s Weekly, a publication by G. K. Chesterton, is founded in 1925 (its pilot edition appearing in late 1924), which continues until his death in 1936. Its articles typically discuss topical cultural, political, and socio-economic issues as well as poems, cartoons, and other such material that pique Chesterton's interest. It contains much of his journalistic work done in the latter part of his life, and extracts from it are published as the book The Outline of Sanity. Among those whose work appears in G. K.'s Weekly are E. C. Bentley, Alfred Noyes, Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw, and George Orwell. The publication advocates the philosophy of distributism in contrast to centre-right and centre-left attitudes regarding socialism and industrialism.
• Antoni Gaudi dies in 1926 with the Sagrada Familia uncompleted.
• Together with Dom Paul Bellot, Maurice Stolz constructs the Saint-Crysole church in Comines (North) from 1926-1928.
• In 1926, Stanley Spencer begins work on his commission to fill a new chapel at Burghclere with images of his experiences in the First World War, at home and abroad.
• In 1926, Georges Desvallières paints L’Ascension and O Salutaris Hostia for the Church of Saint John the Baptist in Pawtucket (New England).
• Hugo Ball publishes Byzantinisches Christentum (1923) and Flucht aus der Zeit (1927), his diaries covering the beginnings of Dada and his conversion. He dies of stomach cancer in 1927.
• Bernard Walke’s Christmas story play ‘Bethlehem’ is broadcast from St Hilary’s on Christmas Eve in 1927 and it was the first ever BBC Radio drama to be broadcast from outside the BBC studios.
• In 1927, Albert Gleizes establishes an artists’ commune at Moly Sabata, where he is joined by Robert Pouyaud, François Manevy, César Geoffrey, Mido, and Anne Dangar.
• Alfred Noyes converts to Catholicism in 1927.
• In 1927, Viking Press commissions Aaron Douglas to illustrate the text of James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse.
• From the 1920s through the 1930s, groups such as the Dixie Hummingbirds, who formed in 1928, become popular. Such groups sing, usually unaccompanied, in jubilee style, mixing careful harmonies, melodious singing, playful syncopation and sophisticated arrangements to produce a fresh, experimental style far removed from the more sombre style of hymn-singing.
• In 1928, T.S. Eliot announced to a startled world, and the disapproval of his contemporaries, that his general point of view could be described as ‘classicist in literature, royalist in politics and anglo-catholic in religion.’ The previous year he had been baptised behind closed doors in Finstock Church, near Oxford.
• In 1928, Rot-Blau (Red-Blue) is formed in German-speaking Switzerland, led by Hans Stocker and Otto Staiger. Together, they win the Basel-Stadt art credit competition for the stained-glass windows of the Antonius Church in Basel. Stocker becomes an innovator of church art in Switzerland and creates stained-glass for the Catholic cathedral in Kyōto which is designed by the Swiss architect Karl Freuler.
• In 1928, while attending a church service with his sister-in-law, Thomas A. Dorsey claims the minister who prays over him pulled a live serpent from his throat, prompting his immediate recovery from a two-year long depression. Thereafter, he vows to concentrate all his efforts in gospel music. After the death of a close friend, Dorsey is inspired to write his first religious song with a blues influence, ‘If You See My Savior, Tell Him That You Saw Me’.
• As Dean of Canterbury Cathedral, George Bell commissions a new play from John Masefield which is performed in 1928, an event which, in large part, led to the establishing of a series of Canterbury plays. Bell writes to the cast, ‘We have lighted a torch which nothing can extinguish and have given a witness to the fellowship of Religion and Poetry and Art, which will go on telling in ways far beyond our own imagination.’
• Sigrid Undset is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.
• In 1929, Richard Seewald converts to Catholicism in the Collegio Papio of the Benedictines in Ascona and accepts orders for murals in sacred spaces including the chapel SS. Annunziatain Ronco.
• In his 1929 enthronement address as Bishop of Chichester, George Bell expresses his commitment to a much closer relationship between the Anglican Church and the arts.

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People! - I Love You.