Wikio - Top Blogs - Religion and belief
Showing posts with label nicholson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nicholson. Show all posts

Friday, 31 October 2025

Artlyst - Into Abstraction Meaning Connection And Hope Firstsite

My latest review for Artlyst is on ‘Into Abstraction: Modern British Art and the Landscape’ at Firstsite Gallery:

'Spirituality was a major source of inspiration for many in this period. Nash shared a Christian Science practitioner with Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. Sue Hubbard has noted that Hepworth produced her first ‘pierced’ sculpture ‘at the height of her commitment to a religion that denied the reality of material existence’. Piercing her compositions, as here with ‘Mincarlo, Three Curves with Strings’, ‘allowed her to sculpt not only with matter but with space’, to elide the formal with the spiritual. Christianity informed the work of both Sutherland (a Roman Catholic) and Piper (an Anglican), as it had earlier for Constable. Both Sutherland and Piper were inspired by the spiritual landscapes of The Ancients, particularly Samuel Palmer. They went on to receive major ecclesiastical commissions, as also did Hepworth, Heron and Moore. The access to emotion and atmosphere that Abstraction offers was particularly well-suited to spiritual engagement.'

For more on the spirituality of these artists and of abstraction see here, here, here, here, here, here and here. 

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -
Articles/Reviews -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mumford and Sons (With Hozier) - Rubber Band Man.

--------------------
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 08:32 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday, 10 January 2024

Artlyst: Li Yuan-chia And Friends Kettles Yard Cambridge

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on ‘Making New Worlds: Li Yuan-chia & Friends’ at Kettles Yard, Cambridge:

'The boundary-defying artistic practice of Li Yuan-chia, particularly through his LYC Museum and Art Gallery, turns aspects of modern art history on its head...

Li’s initiative linked the earlier avant-garde represented primarily by Winifred Nicholson, who was part of the ‘7 & 5’ Society, with the then-current avant-garde including Takis, Liliane Lijn, and dsh (Dom Sylvester Houédard) and on then to emerging artists such Lygia Clark, Andy Goldsworthy, David Nash and Mira Schendel.'

For more on Winifred Nicholson click here.

Interviews -
Monthly diary articles -
Articles/Reviews -


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Hollies - Jesus Was A Crossmaker.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 18:24 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, 2 December 2021

HeartEdge Mailer - November 2021


We're into Advent with all sorts of HeartEdge 4 C ideas and inspiration.

In this months HeartEdge Mailer:
Pioneering tactics, and being on the edge - with Jonny Baker, Fiona MacMillan, Sam Wells and Lorenzo Lebrija.
Miranda Threlfall-Holmes on checking your filters and lenses.
Plus, Porters Gate, and social media tactics with Sarah Rogers.
Dave Nicholson on maximising income via... your church carpark. The repair café.
And celebrating diversity with Out of the Box cards!
Plus what next - building on COP 26...
And Pádraig Ó Tuama on Advent in an extract from 'what were you arguing about along the way'.

Read the November Mailer here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Call - Let The Day Begin.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 23:15 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sunday, 23 October 2016

Paul Nash and James Ensor

Paul Nash opens at Tate Britain on 26 October. Paul Laity has an excellent piece in The Guardian on Nash and his work:

'Nash’s transformations of reality were the product of a visionary sensibility that harked back to William Blake and Samuel Palmer; he searched for inner meanings in the landscape, what he called the “things behind” ...

he was caught up, as ever, in looking at the world and seeing patterns and mysterious “things behind”. An artist both full of wonder and wonderful, knowing the end was near, painted pictures that were stranger than ever.'

 Paul and Margaret Nash practiced Christian Science, and Paul shared a Christian Science practitioner with Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson. Hepworth, Nicholson and Winifred Nicholson were profoundly influenced by Christian Science (a faith that was of great importance to Stanley Spencer’s wife, Hilda Carline).

For Intrigue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans at the Royal Academy of Arts from 29 October 2016 — 29 January 2017, Tuymans, a fellow Belgian and admirer of Ensor, will look back at Ensor’s singular career through a selection of his most bizarrely brilliant and gloriously surreal creations.
 Astrid Schenk has written that

'It was 1888 when James Ensor began work on his monumental painting Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889. The painting would become one of his most iconic and eagerly analysed compositions, and is now regarded as a milestone in the history of modern art. Not surprisingly, perhaps, it has also encouraged art historians to take a closer look at the representation of religious subject matter in Ensor's oeuvre in general. The focus of this scholarly attention has been mainly on Ensor's various approaches to the Crucifixion (especially the grotesque or sinister elements in some of his renderings), as well as on the series entitled The Aureoles of Christ or the Sensitivities of the Light, which Ensor first exhibited in 1887, and on different versions of The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Abbot of Egypt ...

The size of his religious oeuvre, the great variation in religious subject matter, and the fact that he continued throughout his life to produce religious work are strong indications that, to Ensor, religious sources of inspiration were key to achieving his artistic goals. This relevance went well beyond the supposed identification of the artist with the suffering of Christ and the exploration of particular visual effects. Ensor borrowed from the Christian iconography in order to be able to visualise his ideas in a recognisable idiom and to conduct visual experiments in his quest for exaltation.'

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gungor - You.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 21:07 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, 19 August 2016

Modern Gods: Religion and British Modernism

Great to see that The Hepworth Wakefield is holding a one-day conference, accompanying the exhibition Stanley Spencer: Of Angels and Dirt, that draws on recent research to demonstrate that many influential British modernists, working in a variety of mediums and styles, were motivated by spiritual ideals.

Scholarship on British Modernism has traditionally portrayed artists like Spencer and Eric Gill as religious eccentrics; stalwarts clinging to the fading spirituality of a pre-modern era. ‘Modern Gods: Religion and British Modernism’ will investigate the religious beliefs of a variety of British artists and critics who were active during Spencer’s lifetime in relation to their work.

Clive Bell described art as a point of access to ‘the God in everything’, while Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson and Winifred Nicholson were profoundly influenced by Christian Science (a faith that was of great importance to Spencer’s wife, Hilda Carline). Paul and Margaret Nash also practiced Christian Science, and Paul shared a Christian Science practitioner with Hepworth and Nicholson.

Perhaps the greatest champion of British modern art, Herbert Read, reflected at the end of his career: ‘All my life I have found more sustenance in the work of those who bear witness to the reality of a living God than in the work of those who deny God’.

Increasingly we are beginning to discover that, in many ways, British Modernism represents the natural outgrowth of Victorian spiritual idealism, rather than a radical reaction against it. This one-day conference, at which Dr Sarah Turner (Deputy Director for Research at the Paul Mellon Centre) and Dr Sam Rose (Lecturer at the University of St Andrews) will give the keynote addresses, aims to complicate oppositions between ‘modern’ and ‘non- modern’ art by examining the common threads of religious belief that ran throughout twentieth century aesthetic discourse.

Last year I reviewed still small voice: British biblical art in a secular age at The Wilson in Cheltenham which provided an exclusive opportunity to see major works by many of those influential 20th century British artists who will be discussed at this conference, including Stanley Spencer, Eric Gill, Jacob Epstein, Barbara Hepworth, Edward Burra and Graham Sutherland. 

That exhibition was based on the Ahmanson collection "which begins with the Nazarene and Pre-Raphaelite styles of William Dobson and William Bell Scott, and continues, with Eric Gill as the bridge between Modernism and the earlier Arts and Crafts movement, through the inter-war period of the 1920s and 1930s, the Second World War, the post-war era, and the later 20th century, into the early 21st century. Its closest equivalent in the UK is the Methodist Art Collection, which, while broader in the range of artists collected, has less depth, particularly in the focus that the Ahmanson Collection has on the middle years of the 20th century, with its renewed interest in religious art." 

I suggested then that "if the Ahmanson and Methodist collections were exhibited together with a judicious choice of contemporary work, this would offer a relatively comprehensive review of modern British religious art."

My Airbrushed from Art History and Sabbatical Art Pilgrimage posts also document much that this conference will discuss as it explores the common threads of religious belief that ran throughout twentieth century aesthetic discourse.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gungor - Upside Down.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 23:27 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Thursday, 18 June 2015

New English Art Club's Annual Open Exhibition 2015

On Wednesday I attended the Private View for the New English Art Club's Annual Open Exhibition 2015 at the Mall Galleries.

I was there at the invitation of Paul Curtis, who is exhibiting flower studies painted at St Ives. These share a quality of light with the work of Winifred Nicholson and have a similar interest in contrasts and movements between the interior and exterior.

Paul lives between London and Sheffield whilst painting full-time and delivering workshops and courses on painting and drawing throughout the UK. He is the resident curator of artworks for the Blue Moon Cafe and gallery in Sheffield and in 2011 was elected a Life Member of the New English Art Club.

I also enjoyed seeing the work of Louise Balaam, Michael Cooper, Julie Held, Peter Kelly, Salliann Putman, and William Selby, among others. Bob Brown, Charlotte Halliday, Anthony Morris and Charles Rake have all contributed paintings of churches, while Paul R Gildea has included Saint Boy and John Whitehill Jacob's Ladder.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters - Rainbow.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 22:59 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Saturday, 13 June 2015

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.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Patti Smith - Tarkovsky (The Second Stop Is Jupiter).
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 15:54 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tuesday, 22 July 2014

Out and About

One Equall Light was an exhibition themed on the “Sermons and Holy Sonnets of John Donne” was held from 30th June - 20th July, 2014 at St Giles, Cripplegate and St James, Piccadilly. Christian Arts collaborated with Art and Christianity Enquiry on the exhibition organisation and the ACE International Conference was held during the beginning of the exhibition period. The exhibition coincided with the City of London Festival. The exhibition included selected work from Christian Arts members and work from invited artists, Susie Hamilton at St. James and Margot Perryman at St. Giles. Link to the exhibition catalogue here - Catalogue. I attended Sam Wells' talk on 'Art and the Renewal of St Martins' at St Giles Cripplegate (which was part of the ACE conference) with Jean Lamb and Wendy McTernan and then visited the St James Piccadilly half of the exhibition with Wendy again and Hayley Bowen.


Art and Life at Dulwich Picture Gallery: Ben and Winifred Nicholson were at the forefront of the Modern British movement and produced some of the most memorable works of the period. Discover ten years of artistic exploration by the couple in this exhibition curated by their grandson, Jovan Nicholson. It provides a rare opportunity to see their views of the same landscapes, seascapes, still lifes and portraits alongside pieces by contemporaries Christopher Wood, Alfred Wallis and the potter William Staite Murray. I thoroughly enjoyed this excellent show when I visited on Friday.


Can't Tell Nathan Caton Nothing is a Radio 4 comedy that mixes stand-up with re-enacted scenes from comedian Nathan Caton's family life. Regarded as one of the best young comics in the UK, Nathan's award-winning combination of personal and topical anecdotes has lead to appearances on BBC2's Mock The Week, BBC3's Russell Howard's Good News, BBC Radio 4's Now Show, News Quiz. I watched part of the recording of the third series with Paul Trathen.


The sheer variety of work presented each year is what makes the RA's Summer Exhibition an annual highlight of the cultural calendar. I went with Christopher Clack who has 'Teenage Boy', one of his portrait photographs, included in the show. Alongside Chris' marvellous image, in a room which also includes work by James Turrell, is a wonderful video by Everton Wright which was, for me, one of the best things in the show. I also particularly enjoyed work by John Bellany, Peter Freeth, Kaori Homma, Anselm Keifer and Wolfgang Tillmans.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gene Clark - Ship Of The Lord.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 22:58 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Friday, 13 April 2012

Cultural enrichment from outside

For the last day of my short post-Easter break I've been at Tate Britain to see the Migrations and Picasso and Modern British Art exhibitions.
Migrations: Journeys into British Art explores British art through the theme of migration from 1500 to the present day, reflecting the remit of Tate Britain Collection displays. From the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Flemish and Dutch landscape and still-life painters who came to Britain in search of new patrons, through moments of political and religious unrest, to Britain’s current position within the global landscape, the exhibition reveals how British art has been fundamentally shaped by successive waves of migration.

Picasso and Modern British Art explores Picasso's extensive legacy and influence on British art, how this played a role in the acceptance of modern art in Britain, alongside the fascinating story of Picasso’s lifelong connections to and affection for this country. It offers the rare opportunity to see celebrated artworks by Picasso alongside seven of his most brilliant British admirers, exploring the huge impact he had on their art: Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney.

Nicholas Cranfield reviews both in the current edition of the Church Times arguing that they are two mag­nificent shows celebrating the very best of British art, with a strong reminder that it is often foreign-bred or in­fluenced by life on mainland Europe:

"So much cultural en­richment has come from outside that we would be foolish not to recognise its value. In which direction would British art have gone without Holbein and Lely or Kauffmann and Singer Sargent?

Like the exhibition “Migrations”, [Picasso and Modern British Art], too, provides viewers with a new way of looking at familiar art, and in several cases provided a real oppor­tunity for a rethink. It would be unfair to claim that Picasso alone stirred British art from the lethargy of the Edwardian salon, but the effect of his work’s becoming known after 1910, thanks to Roger Fry, is difficult to underestimate."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

U2 - The Hands That Built America.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 17:30 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)