Between: reformation

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Monday, 11 December 2023

Artlyst: Holbein Politics Religion And Draughtsmanship – The Queen’s Gallery

My latest exhibition review for Artlyst is on ‘Holbein at the Tudor Court’ is at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace:

"'Holbein at the Tudor Court' is an exhibition of social history as much as it is an exhibition of art. The art on show is, of course, stunning, as Holbein is a great Renaissance artist and, as curator Kate Heard notes, possessed an ‘unparalleled ability to capture the essence of his subjects’ that ‘still astonishes nearly 500 years later’.

This ability is seen, in particular, through more than 40 intimate portrait drawings of the royal family and the Tudor nobility, which imbue their subjects with a remarkable lifelike quality that brings the viewer as close as they will ever come to the men and women of Henry VIII’s court, from Jane Seymour to Sir Thomas More ...

The exhibition also tells the story of Holbein’s time in England, navigating the shifting sands of religious reform and political intrigue to rise to the position of King’s painter and create the enduring images of Henry VIII and his circle that we know today. This is where the social history aspect of this exhibition comes into play, enabling us to learn about the political and religious landscape of his day."

Other articles on Renaissance artists can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

Interviews -

Monthly diary articles -

Articles/Reviews -

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Neal Morse - World Without End.

Monday, 11 January 2021

Cranach: Artist and Innovator

Here's a review of Cranach: Artist and Innovator, which was at Compton Verney Art Gallery & Park until 3 January 2021. The review for various reasons is backdated.

As a Reformation propagandist who was also a Renaissance man, the works of Lucas Cranach the Elder and his workshop are shot through with paradox. Cranach was an artist, entrepreneur, innovator, and politician, who worked for Protestant and Catholic clients while spearheading the promotion of the Reformation through the publication and illustration of Martin Luther’s writings.

Although the engravings that accompanied Luther’s texts are uncompromising and crystal-clear in their condemnation of the perceived corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, it has been the complexities and ambiguities of Cranach’s work that have primarily engaged later audiences and many artists. This exhibition brings us Cranach’s portraiture (often for his Court patrons), engravings (primarily Reformation illustrations), and Biblical/mythological scenes (a mix of public and private work, with the private predominating here).

Cranach’s paintings are frequently referenced in contemporary art and popular culture. In particular, his distinctive nudes, with pale, serpentine bodies posed against dark backgrounds, have entranced a wide range of artists. In the final section of this exhibition a lively dialogue with Cranach emerges in works by Pablo Picasso. John Currin, Ishbel Myerscough, Michael Landy, Raqib Shaw and Claire Partington, among others, as these artists take the formal structure of a work by Cranach as a point of departure for a creation of their own.

The works on display here chart a range of responses to Cranach by other artists, and correspond with the increased availability of Cranach’s work in books and postcards from the nineteenth century onwards. As variations on a theme, these works show both rupture and continuity with Cranach’s distinctive aesthetic, as Cranach’s familiar icons are overlaid with personal stories and current perspectives. This, then, is an exhibition which can be experienced in reverse with the recent images providing contemporary commentary on Cranach and his work.

Michael Landy’s towering mechanical depiction of Saint Apollonia, made originally for his Saint’s Alive exhibition at the National Gallery, seeks to reanimate the violent narrative of how this saint was tortured by having her teeth pulled out. Landy was responding to Cranach’s rather more serene depiction in an altarpiece that is now in the National Gallery. Cranach’s depiction of Saint Apollonia comes from 1506, prior to the posting of the 95 theses on the door of a church in Wittenberg. The violence in Cranach’s own work was to come later, particularly in the first of his collaborations with Luther, Passional Christi und Antichristi, pages from which can be viewed here and which contrasted the simple, virtuous life of Christ with the perceived privilege and pompous excesses of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church.

Wolfe von Lenkiewicz brings Cranach and Albrecht Dürer together in his Adam and Eve. Von Lenkiewicz has combined Compton Verney’s Venus and Cupid with the figure of Adam from Dürer’s Adam and Eve (1507, Prado, Madrid). Posed against a dark background, the human forms dissolve into flowers after the Dutch still-life painter Ambrosius Bosschaert, which have been clipped into new shapes. Von Lenkiewicz is known for his artistic reconfigurations of well-known imageries from art history and visual culture in order to create ambiguous compositions that question art historical discourses. Typical of his work, this image is a ‘tissue of quotations’. Dürer and Cranach were peers and, together with Hans Holbein, Matthias Grünewald and Albrecht Altdorfer, defined 15th century Northern Renaissance art. Their German Catholic devotional images foundered on the rock of the Reformation with Dürer and Cranach (in particular) laying the foundation for Reformation art.

In addition to the personal and art historical connections between the two, von Lenkiewicz is also aware that Cranach’s Venus figure doubled as Eve in, for example, the 1526 Adam and Eve (Courtauld Gallery). Including the additional element of Bosschaert flowers introduces a third, slightly later Protestant artist whose career in the Netherlands began after leaving Spain due to potential persecution, and a new Reformation art form, the still life, which has particular resonance here as nature morte. The transience of flowers and floral arrangements is aligned with the Reformation belief that our mortality results from The Fall.

Raqib Shaw’s paintings here have been inspired by Cranach’s earliest known engraving The Penance of St John Chrysostom and his painting of Lot and his Daughters. Both, at first sight, seem unlikely material for a Reformation painter. The legend of Chrysostom’s penance was later mocked by Luther as a Roman Catholic lie linked to the selling of indulgences (Cranach’s image precedes his collaborations with Luther), while the story of Lot and his daughters is one of incest.

Shaw gives us characters that are re-evaluating their lives in the light of the traumatic events they have either endured or facilitated. His Lot, like William Blake’s Newton, is using a compass to try to make sense of destructive events – environmental and military - that he cannot explain, although they occur in the shadow of the Tower of Babel. For Lot, all his reference points for understanding have been removed leaving him, in the words of Shaw’s title, without a compass, whilst holding one in his hands. Shaw’s Chrysostom, by contrast, is at a point of understanding having written ‘we cannot see the baggage on our own back’; an acknowledgement of all he had sought to evade about himself up to that point.

For Cranach, however, these stories have a clear and linked Reformation understanding which concerns the repression of sexuality necessitated by the Roman Catholic demand for celibacy in those who are priests or religious. For Cranach and Luther, our sexuality finds its proper and full expression within marriage but, when prevented, by circumstances in the case of Lot and by unnecessary restrictions in the case of Chrysostom, the result is disaster.

This understanding of the Reformation view of sex is vital in understanding why it was acceptable for Cranach, as a Reformation propagandist, to paint alluring nudes, whether as Eve or Venus. Pablo Picasso and John Currin in their re-interpretations of Cranach, amplify the eroticism that their male perspective sees as central, according to their differing styles of work. Ishbel Myerscough and Claire Partington, however, critique the male gaze perspective that underlies Cranach’s moral view.

Cranach’s nudes are images of temptation. The version of Cupid Complaining to Venus included here from 1526-7 has Venus posed as Cranach also posed Eve in the Courtauld version of Adam and Eve. The connection between the two images is further emphasised in that Venus is depicted as holding on to an apple tree. Eating the apple in the story of The Fall is the temptation to step outside of what God has ordained. Venus is not tempting the viewer with an apple but with her body in a way that is outside of the order that God has ordained. The envisaged viewer is, of course, male.

It is this viewpoint that Myerscough and Partington rightly critique. Myerscough, by painting naked women as people, with value and beauty in and of themselves, not idealised morality lessons (Cranach) or objects of lust (Picasso and Currin). Partington, by sculpting women of strength, who reject all the trappings of male fantasy, including and especially the patriarchal identification of Eve as temptress.

Cranach paints through a revolution and his works reflect the confidence of rebels on their way to becoming rulers. We can no longer view his works, or the Reformation that he helped to build, from that perspective. The exhibition ends with Partington redressing the balance of power. Referencing biblical stories in which the underdog wins, including Judith beheading Holofernes and David defeating Goliath, Judith is shown posing triumphantly, with her foot on Cranach’s head.

Cranach: Artist and Innovator is actually artistic and curatorial reinterpretation of Cranach and his legacy. Partington’s reaction to Cranach’s images of Lucretia, a mix of confusion and incredulity which provoked her first Cranach reinterpretation, seems similar to the feedback curator Amy Orrock reported from the early days of the exhibition; of people drawn in by the contemporary reinterpretations and only understanding the Cranach’s in their light.

This contemporary inability to access or understand the Reformation mindset is graphically depicted in Andrew McIntosh’s What No-one Else Had, which sets Cranach’s Cupid Complaining to Venus in an eerily empty building alongside an isolated block of flats and a tree in South East London. The incongruity of both is indicative of the way in which much of what was revolutionary in Reformation thinking now appears oppressive. For those of us who are within the legacy that Cranach and Luther established, it may be that we need to learn the lesson of the legend that Luther mocked and Cranach engraved. St John Chrysostom was restored to his right mind when he received forgiveness from the ones he had abused.

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Good Charlotte - Prayers.

Monday, 3 April 2017

Discover & explore: Patrick Heron (Art)

Today's Discover & explore service at St Stephen Walbrook, explored the theme of art through the life and work of Patrick Heron. The service featured the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields singing Come, ye sons of art by Henry Purcell, Super flumina Babylonis by Giovanni da Palestrina, Aspire to God My Soul by David Bednall and Cantate Domino by Pitoni.

The next Discover & explore service is on Monday 3 April at 1.10pm when, together with the Choral Scholars, I will explore the theme of internet (and the London Internet Church) through the life and work of Peter Delaney.

There will then be a short break and the next series of Discover & explore services, which will explore Reformation500 themes, will begin on 24th April.

In today's service I said:

The Guardian’s obituary for Patrick Heron was entitled ‘The Colour of Genius’. In it, Heron was lauded as having been “one of the half dozen important British painters of the twentieth century.” “Many things contributed to this country's late awakening to the power and importance of modern art after the second world war, but among them Heron's work as painter, critic, and polemicist was a key factor.”

Heron was one of Britain’s foremost abstract painters. He was also a writer and designer, based in St. Ives, Cornwall. He lived in Cornwall as a child from the age of five and returned there for the final 14 months of the war in order to work for the potter, Bernard Leach. “One of his friends was the Guardian journalist Mark Arnold-Forster, who, a few years later, sold him Eagle's Nest, a house with a famous garden high above the Atlantic at Zennor, near St Ives, where Heron had spent childhood holidays. Heron's move to Eagle's Nest coincided with his move into non-figurative painting, and among his first works of the period were the garden paintings, opalescent meshes of colour streaked and dribbled vertically on to the canvases.”

His work became recognised for its bold use of colour and light which redefined British abstract art in the 1960’s. Initially inspired by the French painters Henri Matisse and Georges Braque, he turned to abstraction in his mid-30s, under the influence of Abstract Expressionism, in particular the Colour Field Painting style popularized by Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman. His work is noted for its saturated colour and – despite being unmistakeably abstract – the essential naturalism of its forms. These qualities are apparent in the dazzling kneelers he designed in 1993 to surround Henry Moore’s circular altar at St Stephen Walbrook.

Heron insisted that he ‘was not a member of any church’ and his images were made from a ‘purely pictorial experience’. Our kneelers were the only work he made for a church and the only other Ecclesiastical connection to his work is that the Methodist Collection of Art purchased a painting of a Crucifix and Candles at Night, which is derived from a part of a painting by Titian in the National Gallery. Frances Hoyland speaking about this image said “Heron has used his senses - his body - his flesh -and made something attractive; and maybe he, too, was a channel of Grace.”

I think that another way in which Heron was a channel of grace was through his forging of images from natural forms. His garden paintings were a response to the petals and leaves of the camellias and azaleas that were in flower all over the garden at Eagle’s Nest, their home in St Ives, when he and his wife arrived there to live. Similarly, the paintings that he was making when he died were typical of his style in their use of vibrant colour, and in their imagery, which alluded to the flowers and rocks found around the Cornish coast.

His use of natural forms to create abstract art is a point of connection with Henry Moore who said: “I’ve found the principles of form and rhythm from the study of natural objects.” The architect Antoni Gaudi described nature as “the Great Book, always open, that we should force ourselves to read” and thought that “everything structural or ornamental that an architect might imagine was already prefigured in natural form.”

The argument that Gaudi made begins with God as the creator of all and continues with the recognition that all God made was good. So, when artists or architects base their work on natural forms they are working with God’s good creation and thereby, as his creation reveals his goodness, reflecting and revealing the glory of God. Although Moore and Heron would not necessarily have acknowledged it, in basing their work on natural forms they were reflecting and revealing the glory of God.

Heron’s kneelers do so in a particularly profound manner. They bring the wild fecundity of natural forms into a geometrically ordered building, they bring vibrant colour into the light and dark contrasts of the stone and panelling, and they use these colourful natural forms to designate sacred space. The geometrical perfection of Wren’s architectural design focuses our attention on God’s perfect nature. The wild vibrancy of Heron’s natural forms focuses our attention on the love of God which exceeds all bounds, particularly in Christ’s sacrifice of himself on the cross which shapes and is central to our worship and this space.

In these ways he was, I think, a channel of grace. That thought leads me to another; that he may also have been a recipient of grace. The Guardian's art critic, Adrian Searle, wrote of Heron’s last paintings: "There's an enormous freedom and vitality in them. They are about pleasure and the spirit gets free rein. I certainly don't think he was staring into the dark void of looming death. Quite the opposite."

Intercessions:

Creator of all things, seen and unseen, we praise you for the works of your hand. We declare that you are sovereign over our lives, and that you are the originator of all good things. We humbly ask that you would grant us new ideas, even now. Bless our labours. Fulfill your creative purposes in us today. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer

Creator of the Universe, how infinite and astonishing are your worlds. Thank you for your Sacred Art and sustaining Presence. Divine Imagination, forgive our blindness, open our eyes. Reveal the Light of Truth. Let original Beauty guide our every stroke. Universal Creativity, flow through us, from our hearts through our minds to my hands, infuse our work with spirit to feed hungry souls. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Three in One, we praise you for the extravagant love that you demonstrate in the creation of this world. We ask that you form in us a community of artists that reflect the Divine Community, marked by self-giving love, infectious joy and the desire to honour and glorify the name of God. Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer

The Blessing:

Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of life, Power and Fire, we praise you for sustaining all things in being, energizing them with vitality, and ushering them to their future and final state of glory. Purify our souls; scour our hearts; re-order our minds; strengthen our bodies. Free us to be playful today. And the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always. Amen.

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Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina - Super flumina Babylonis.

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Discover & explore service series

We have recently reviewed our Discover & explore services at St Stephen Walbrook. The past four terms of Discover & explore services using the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields have been service series of musical discovery using music and liturgy to explore themes of:

Spring 2016 - hope, faith , life, love, dreams, joy, truth and soul (based on Eric Whitacre’s anthem Faith, hope, life, love);
Summer 2016 - the lives and thought of the Saints (Julian of Norwich, St Stephen, Venerable Bede, St Columba, St Martin of Tours, St John the Baptist, St Peter);
Autumn 2016 – stewardship and finance (Time, Talents, Treasure/Gold, Guidance, Promises, Safety, Money, and Security); and
Spring 2017 - significant figures in the history of St Stephen Walbrook (John Dunstable, Music; Sir Christopher Wren, Architecture; Thomas Watson, Preaching; Sir John Vanbrugh, Drama; Thomas Wilson, Patronage; George Croly, Poetry; George Griffin Stonestreet, Insurance; Robert S. de Courcey Laffan, Sport; Chad Varah, Charity; Henry Moore, Sculpture; Lanning Roper, Gardening; Patrick Heron, Art; Peter Delaney, Internet).

Themes are agreed between the clergy and music teams involved in these services. In selecting themes we seek to make connections with both the church and the City. We also seek to connect our themes to art exhibitions in the church, where connections are possible (e.g. Soul, which related to a digital installation by Michael Takeo Magruder). Future themes will include Reformation500 and Roman London.

Each service includes:

Opening responses;
4 anthems;
2 hymns;
1 Bible reading;
1 other reading;
Reflective Address;
Intercessions (with a sung and a spoken response); and
Blessing.

Services are planned by our clergy team together with the Deputy Director of Music, Organ at St Martin-in-the-Fields, who directs the Choral Scholars at St Stephen Walbrook. Occasionally, we invite guests to give the reflection on the theme e.g. Carolyn Rosen (ordinand, Westcott House) spoke about Soul and Claire Paine (Christian Aid) spoke on St Stephen.

The Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields gain a great deal from the opportunity to sing for the Discover and Explore services. Musically, they are able to explore an enormous variety of repertoire because the service structure includes four anthems (whereas conventional services such as evensong contain only one anthem). The vast spectrum of themes for the services allows for really creative music selections and the opportunity for the scholars to enjoy building a wider repertoire. In addition to the musical benefits, the Scholars also gain the experience of a different style of liturgy in the Discover and Explore series which contrasts and complements the services they sing at St Martin-in-the-Fields.

A selection of those attending (including new attendees) have commented that:

‘They are thought-provoking and inspiring services and the music is amazing.’
‘I really enjoy the Discover and Explore Services. I find the atmosphere very peaceful and the beautiful music enhances that feeling. I like the fact that it is a different type of service and there is time to contemplate and pray.’
‘I personally like the Discover & Explore services very much. I will admit that I have a great love of choral music so the service format is winner on that ground alone for me. However looking at it objectively, I like the format very much. It hits the right note of a serious but lighter touch, but it is not too light. I like the idea of taking a topic and shaping the rest of the service around that theme. It’s great for example to have excerpts from Shakespeare. The length is right too. I come to church amongst other reasons to think, reflect and learn and I feel this service format is excellent.’
‘Discover & explore brings me into the City. Entering the church feels like entering another world – one which is, though, very much part of its surrounds as well. The thing I most enjoy is hearing the choir’s anthems in a historical site whose acoustics are perfect for that. That said, I probably wouldn’t make the effort if it were just concerts: I like the integration of the music into the themes of the reflections and readings as well. It’s a coherent entity. And the emphasis this term on figures from St. Stephen’s history, the collaboration with the Guildhall Art Gallery – those are the kinds of things that ground the series in its community. But again, the extraordinarily high quality of the music is what really draws me in. I would feel like I’d wasted a wonderful opportunity if I didn’t come to Discover & explore!’
‘I discovered this treasure recently. The choir fills the Dome, as does the tiny organ. I am a keen singer and in that space feel (in the hymns) you are with the choir. The service sheet is very good and I was signed up on first visit to reading. The weekly foci are interesting and often relate to remarkable previous incumbents.’
‘The Discover & Explore format is great - sorry I haven't made it before! You are v fortunate to have the choir in the week! Even better in real life today. Lunchtime service @StStephenEC4N with choral scholars from @smitf_london conducted by @JeremyColeUK.’

Discover & explore is therefore proving effective in developing our mission and outreach as a church.

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Thomas Tallis - If Ye Love Me.

Thursday, 26 January 2017

'Baptism- A Radical Act’

'Baptism- A Radical Act’: An art exhibition featuring artwork produced by those who live with homelessness, and by other artists associated with Bloomsbury. It invites reflection on the theme of radical dissent within the religious and political sphere.

23-27 January, 10am-4pm, Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8EP

An installation of artwork and photography will be on display daily, with further information on the history of the Baptist tradition of radical religious dissent, and the politics of water in the contemporary world.

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church has been working with the homeless and vulnerable of Central London for nearly 170 years, and has a philosophy of ‘inclusion’, where all are invited to participate in the community life of the church. Many of those who live with homelessness are artistic and creative, and the purpose of this exhibition is to display artwork by a diversity of artists.

This project is part of the ‘Still Reforming’ programme by the ‘Reformation’ churches of Central London, to mark 2017 as the 500th anniversary of the reformation. www.reformation500.uk. Find out more about these reformation events by downloading the brochure "Still Reforming".

https://www.facebook.com/BloomsburyBaptist/posts/1539525669410772

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Michael Kiwanuka - Always Waiting.