Never Again: Artistic Peace Projects

My latest article is for Epiphany, the magazine of Epiphanyart, an ecumenical society of Christian artists in Britain formed over 70 years ago and affiliated to the international movement Société Internationale des Artistes Chrétiens (SIAC) which supports national Christian arts events in many countries.

Epiphanyart aims: 1.To bring the work of Christian artists to the notice of churches and the public; 2. To provide opportunities for mutual support and encouragement to its members; 3. To provide a resource for exhibition organisers and others to contact and commission artists via its website; and 4. To serve as a focus for all forms of creativity.

This edition of Epiphany features: Kreg Yingst, an American print maker; Helen Armstrong on commissions at St George's Hove; poetry by Janet Wilkes; and Peter Osbourne on Lincoln Cathedral. 

Among the many artists forced to flee Nazi Germany were the sculptor Ernst Müller-Blensdorf and Ervin Bossányi. In my article, I give an account of two war-time artists who made their way to Britain and ended up making an important contribution to the cultural life of the country through their art:

"The focus on peace promotion that we find in the work of Blensdorf and Bossányi was characteristic of other émigré artists in this period, a concern shared more widely still within society at the time. ‘Never again’ was a common expression after 1945, symbolizing a universal desire to avoid another world war, a desire that was clearly expressed in 1945 through the establishment of the United Nations. The stories and works of these two demonstrate that artists can make a significant contribution to the cause of peace. In these days of increased conflict within Europe, we would do well to revive our awareness of such artists and find inspiration in their search for peace."

For more on Blensdorf click here and on Bossányi here.

Join Epiphanyart to receive the Epiphany magazine.

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Henryk Gorecki - Symphony No.3.

Begin again at Bethlehem

In 1935, Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer accepted an invitation from the confessing church in Germany to direct an underground seminary that would recover their rich Christian tradition and train a new generation of church leaders in practice and belief.

The seminary at Finkenwalde became a social experiment in intentional Christian community modelled on the Sermon on the Mount, “a sort of new monasticism.” Bonhoeffer’s book ‘Life Together’ gives the details for anyone interested in finding out more. In practice the seminary lasted but a moment; the Gestapo, the secret state police, closed the seminary in 1937 and arrested more than two dozen of its students. Bonhoeffer was also arrested in 1943 and executed in 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II.

Following the closure of the seminary, Bonhoeffer wrote circular letters to the disbanded seminarians of Finkenwalde. In the first letter, he wrote that 27 members of the group had spent time in prison. Bonhoeffer speaks in the letter of a “time of testing for us all” and implores his students not to allow their physical separation to result in their isolation from one another. A major theme of Bonhoeffer’s correspondence to the seminarians was a summons to pursue and maintain fellowship with one another in any and every way possible.

In his letters Bonhoeffer was not simply concerned to support and connect the seminarians. He also wanted to continue their theological reflection, particularly in relation to the question of who Jesus Christ is for us today. Christmas, he thought, was the key to answering that question. His view was that all the theology of the ancient church about Jesus “really arose at the cradle of Bethlehem”, and so “the brightness of Christmas lies on its weather-beaten face”. Even today, he wrote, “it wins the hearts of all who come to know it”. So, “at Christmas time we should again go to school with the ancient church and seek to understand in worship what it thought and taught, to glorify and to defend belief in Christ.”

In a letter sent at Christmas 1939, he wrote:

“No priest, no theologian stood at the cradle in Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of all wonders, that God became [hu]man … Theologia sacra arises from those on bended knees who do homage to the mystery of the divine child in the stall. Israel had no theology. She did not know God in the flesh. Without the holy night there is no theology. God revealed in the flesh, the God-[hu]man Jesus Christ, is the holy mystery which theology is appointed to guard.

What a mistake to think that it is the task of theology to unravel God’s mystery, to bring it down to the flat, ordinary human wisdom of experience and reason! It is the task of theology solely to preserve God’s wonder as wonder, to understand, to defend, to glorify God’s mystery as mystery.”

That is what we are here to do together tonight; to glorify the mystery of God revealed in the flesh.

So, what can we say is going on here, where Mary becomes the mother of God, where God comes into the world in the lowliness of the manger, where pious shepherds are on their knees, and where kings bring their gifts? Bonhoeffer says that because God is in the manger, “God is near to lowliness” and “loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak and broken.”

That is the unrecognized mystery of this world: Jesus Christ as God with us. “God as the one who becomes low for our sakes, God in Jesus … that is the secret, hidden wisdom… that “no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived” (1 Cor. 2:9).” It is a redemptive mystery “because God became poor, low, lowly, and weak out of love for humankind, because God became a human being like us, so that we would become divine, and because he came to us so that we would come to him”. It is also a mystery of judgment because the Christ child in the manger “pushes back the high and mighty; he overturns the thrones of the powerful; he humbles the haughty; his arm exercises power over all the high and mighty; he lifts what is lowly, and makes it great and glorious in his mercy.”

In a letter sent out at Christmas 1939 Bonhoeffer wrote about the nativity ''The body of Jesus Christ is our flesh. He bears our flesh. Therefore, where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; that is true because of the incarnation. What happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. It really is all our "poor flesh and blood" which lies there in the crib; it is our flesh which dies with him on the cross and is buried with him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. So the Christmas message for all … runs: You are accepted. God has not despised you, but he bears in his body all your flesh and blood. Look at the cradle! In the body of the little child, in the incarnate son of God, your flesh, all your distress, anxiety, temptation, indeed all your sin, is borne, forgiven and healed."

In a later Advent letter, he wrote:

“The joy of God goes through the poverty of the manger and the agony of the cross; that is why it is invincible, irrefutable. It does not deny the anguish, when it is there, but finds God in the midst of it, in fact precisely there; it does not deny grave sin but finds forgiveness precisely in this way; it looks death straight in the eye, but it finds life precisely within it.”

If we want to understand this mystery, find God and forgiveness in the midst of anguish, look death straight in the eye and find life within it, then we must participate in the Christmas event, “we cannot simply sit there like spectators in a theatre and enjoy all the friendly pictures”. “Rather, we must join in the action that is taking place and be drawn into this reversal of all things ourselves.”

The 17th century German mystic, Angelus Silesius, warned:

“Though Christ a thousand times / In Bethlehem be born / If he’s not born in thee, / Thou art still forlorn.”

Ricky Ross, the lead singer of Deacon Blue, wrote:

“You got to go back, gotta go back, gotta go back in time / To Bethlehem / To begin again.”

This Christmas begin again by looking in the cradle to see not only Jesus, but also yourself. That is the great insight of Bonhoeffer’s letters; where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; what happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. He became a human being like us, so that we would become divine. He came to us so that we would come to him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. Like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, so, when we look in the manger, we see ourselves looking back at us.

“How shall we deal with such a child?” Bonhoeffer asks. “Have our hands, soiled with daily toil, become too hard and too proud to fold in prayer at the sight of this child? Has our head become too full of serious thoughts … that we cannot bow our head in humility at the wonder of this child? Can we not forget all our stress and struggles, our sense of importance, and for once worship the child, as did the shepherds and the wise men from the East, bowing before the divine child in the manger like children?”

This Christmas, go back in time to begin again. Amen.

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Deacon Blue - Bethlehem Begins.

CTiW Christmas Message

Here's my Christmas message to the members of Churches Together in Westminster:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor who directed an underground seminary in Germany, an intentional Christian community that practised a new form of monasticism. The seminary was closed down in 1937 by the Gestapo and more than two dozen of its students were arrested. Bonhoeffer, too, was arrested in 1943 and executed in 1945, just weeks before the end of World War II. Earlier, while still at liberty, he wrote circular letters to his students encouraging them to pursue and maintain fellowship with one another in any and every way possible; just as we also need to do in the challenges of the pandemic.

In his circular letter sent at Christmas in 1939 Bonhoeffer wrote this about the nativity:

‘The body of Jesus Christ is our flesh. He bears our flesh. Therefore, where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; that is true because of the incarnation. What happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. It really is all our “poor flesh and blood” which lies there in the crib; it is our flesh which dies with him on the cross and is buried with him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. So the Christmas message for all … runs: You are accepted. God has not despised you, but he bears in his body all your flesh and blood. Look at the cradle! In the body of the little child, in the incarnate son of God, your flesh, all your distress, anxiety, temptation, indeed all your sin, is borne, forgiven and healed.’

That is the great insight of Bonhoeffer’s letters; where Jesus Christ is, there we are, whether we know it or not; what happens to Jesus Christ, happens to us. He became a human being like us, so that we would become divine. He came to us so that we would come to him. He took human nature so that we might be eternally with him. Where the body of Jesus Christ is, there we are; indeed, we are his body. Like new parents seeing their new-born child for the first time and recognising their features in their child, so, when we look in the manger, we see ourselves looking back at us. I pray that that might be your experience this Christmas.

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Tessera - Mary, Did You Know.

Merville

Merville is a town 15 kilometres north of Bethune and about 20 kilometres south-west of Armentieres. The Communal Cemetery is on the north-east side of the town on the north side of the road to Neuf-Berquin.

Built in the 1920s, St. Peter's Church consists of two square towers surmounted by a Byzantine cap. Its dimensions make it a prominent landmark, visible at considerable distances from the town. Merville is a parish of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Lille. The diocesan seminary of the Lille diocese was formerly located in Merville. It is also a very large structure, built on four storeys around a central cloister, with large chapel and refectory, and accommodation for over 200 staff and students. The seminary closed in 1970 and the extensive buildings were briefly occupied by a community of religious sisters before becoming the Lille diocese's retreat and conference centre.

The main town square is dominated by the town hall, which dates from the late 1920s and is built in the Flemish Renaissance style. It incorporates a very tall clock tower. Inside, architect Louis Marie Cordonnier laid out imposing staircases, lounges of honour and beautiful stained glass windows in the colours of neighboring towns.

Merville was the scene of fighting between the Germans and French and British cavalry early in October 1914 but from the 9th of that month to 11 April 1918, it remained in Allied hands. In October 1914, and in the autumn of 1915, the town was the headquarters of the Indian Corps. It was a railhead until May 1915, and a billeting and hospital centre from 1915-1918. The 6th and Lahore Casualty Clearing Stations were there from the autumn of 1914 to the autumn of 1915; the 7th from December 1914, to April 1917; the 54th (1st/2nd London) from August 1915 to March 1918, and the 51st (Highland) from May 1917 to April 1918. On the evening of 11 April 1918, in the Battles of the Lys, the Germans forced their way into Merville and the town was not retaken until 19 August. The cemeteries were not used again until the concentration of battlefield burials into the Extension began, after the Armistice. 

During the Second World War the river Lys was the southern end of a deep but narrow area held by British forces at the end of May 1940. Merville is on the territory over which were fought desperate rearguard actions during the withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force to the coast, for evacuation from Dunkirk. 

Merville Communal Cemetery was used by French troops (chiefly cavalry) in October 1914, and for Commonwealth burials from that date until August 1916 (in the case of officers, to March 1918). It now contains 1,268 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, and 12 French war graves. There is also 1 non war burial. 

Merville Communal Cemetery Extension was opened in August 1916, and used by Commonwealth and Portuguese hospitals until April 1918. It was enlarged after the Armistice when graves were brought in from the battlefields immediately north and east of Merville and from the Caudescure Halte Cemetery, Morbecque. It was made by fighting units, and it contained the graves of 38 soldiers from the United Kingdom who fell in the period April-August, 1918. The Extension now contains 920 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 345 of them unidentified. The 92 Second World War burials (18 of them unidentified) occurred mostly during the fighting in May 1940 and are interspersed among the First World War graves. The Extension also contains 19 war graves of other nationalities.

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Malcolm Guite - Lente, Lente.

Sabbatical Art Pilgrimage: Latest ArtWay report

My latest Church of the Month report for ArtWay focuses on Eton College Chapel:

'A bomb that fell on Upper School in 1940 shattered all the Chapel glass except that in the window above the organ. The east window, which was created by Evie Hone and installed in 1952 as a replacement, is considered by many to be one of the masterpieces of modern stained-glass art. The designs for the windows flanking it, four on each side, are by John Piper and were executed in glass by Patrick Reyntiens from 1959 onwards. The subjects are divided into four miracles on the north side and four parables on the south, each built around a general theme of success and failure.'

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

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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - God Is In The House.

Tasos Leivaditis: The Blind Man with the Lamp

'Tasos Leivaditis (1922–1988) is one of the unacknowledged greats of Modern Greek literature. Not only is he unacknowledged in the English-speaking world, largely because nearly all of his writing remains untranslated, but he also has limited recognition within modern Greek literary circles, where he is often overshadowed by twentieth-century giants such as Cavafy, Seferis, Elytis, Ritsos and Kazantzakis, who have become established names in the literary world at large.'

'His literary output is usually divided into three periods. In his first period (1946–56), Leivaditis develops a ‘poetry of the battlefield’ informed by his commitment to the Leftist struggle during WWII and after. In the tradition of social realism, he evokes the horrors of war but also retains an optimism regarding the future. He paid a high price for these ideals: along with many other leftist writers and intellectuals (including Yannis Ritsos), he was exiled to various camps in Greece, though he continued to write poetry ...

In his second period (1957–66), after the defeat of the Left in the civil war, existentialist concerns begin to surface and his work takes on a bleaker, more introspective and even more religious tone. This religious element becomes most intense during his third period (1972–87), where much of his work is concerned with the question of God and has an almost prayerful and hymn-like quality. Perhaps the best example is his masterly collection, The Blind Man with the Lamp (1983), which includes a ‘Credo’ that has a similar form to the traditional Christian Credo, but is now suffused with highly expressive and surrealistic imagery. The same collection also includes twelve ‘Conversations’, which are actually heartfelt pleadings from the poet addressed to Christ, such as the following:

Lord, we both live in the dark, the one cannot see the other. But stretch out your hand, and I will find it. Let me talk to you, and you will hear me. Only give to my words something of that great ineffability which reduces you to silence.

Leivaditis had an extraordinary ability to capture the depth of things, small and great. In ‘Lighted Window’, for example, he talks of ‘silent moments in which all words weep’, and writes that ‘alone a lighted window at night renders the world more profound’. And in ‘Aesthetics’, he writes: ‘As to that story there are numerous versions. / The best one though is always the one where you cry.’'

'The Blind Man with the Lamp, originally published in Greek in 1983, is the first English translation of a complete collection of poetry by Leivaditis. A pioneering book of prose-poems, Leivaditis here gives powerful voice to a post-war generation divested of ideologies and illusions, imbued with the pain of loss and mourning, while endlessly questing for something wholly other, indeed for the holy Other.'

Conversations: 5

LORD, what would I do without you? I am the vacant room and you are the great guest who has deigned to visit it. Lord, what would you do without me? You are the great silent harp and I am the ephemeral hand which awakens your melodies.

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Nikos Kazantzakis - Askitiki.

Airbrushed from Art History: Ben Shahn and American Expressionism

In Common Man Mythic Vision Stephen Polcari compares and contrasts the work of Ben Shahn with his postwar American art peers:

'During and after World War II, whether one was a Social realist like Ben Shahn and the WPA artists, a Regionalist like Thomas Hart Benson, an Expressionist like Rico Lebrun, Hyman Bloom, or Abraham Rattner, or an Abstract Expressionist like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning, most American artists engaged the principal crisis of their time: the survival of the nation and of humane civilisation.'

'Shahn ... reshaped his style with new subject matter, a more universal outlook, and a new artistic language of symbolic emotion ... his adoption of a new mythic and allegorical language was only one of the ways he contributed to a new American approach to art; particular expressive themes were another ... With works such as Sound in the Mulberry Tree, 1948, with its Hebrew lettering and biblical verse, Maimonides, 1954, which evoked the medieval Jewish sage, Third Allegory, 1955, with its shofar and prayer shawl, and The Parable, 1958, with its drowning or emerging patriarch, Shahn sought to express universal truths. Yet, these works undoubtedly reflect Shahn's new appreciation for the heritage that he had restrained in his early work. The Holocaust brought forth a renewed identification with, and need for reaffirmation of, Shahn's Jewishness ...

fellow radical painter Philip Evergood was also moved to depict the effects of the war in mythic and symbolic language. Evergood's The New Lazarus, 1927 - 54, conflates his typical Social Realist edginess with a mythic biblical image of the evils of war and death, and the hope that these horrors will be redeemed by resurrection ...

Benton Murdoch ... Spruance's Souvenir of Lidice ... depicts three men nailed to crosses - in other words, a modern Calvary. This contemporary crucifixion was inspired by the Nazi slaughter slaughter of the citizens of Lidice, Czechoslovakia ... Spruance followed his war work with a further use of this symbolic language. it is reflected in works of 1943 such as Riders of the Apocalypse with its air war; Pietà - From the Sea showing Christ as a dead seaman; and Epiphany, in which the stars of social reconstruction imagery ... appear in a new context ...

With America's entry into the war, Benton altered his approach, now using biblical imagery to address America's political needs. In 1942, he produced a suite of paintings called the Year of Peril ... the series narrated the war in terms of biblical images and themes ...

The expressionist Abraham Rattner ... painted the subject of lamentation several times. In his Lamentation, 1944, and Pietàs, 1945 and 1949, Rattner created a compact emblem of sorrow ... Although the war is not explicitly represented, it was implicitly understood in the frequent depictions of the crucifixion by Rattner and other artists ...

Lamentation was the formative idea of the Entombment paintings, the largest series in the early work of the Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko ...

Rico Lebrun employed bestial imagery when he represented the dumb soldiers surrounding Christ as horned and armored animals in The Crucifixion, 1950 ...

Although a Jew from the Baltic like Shahn, the expressionist Bloom was a Boston artist and much more devoted than Shahn to visionary, nightmarish imagery, born of the study of Dürer's allegories, and to the work of Rouault (like Rattner and Spruance), Bresdin and Soutine ...

During the 1940s and 1950s, many artists were engaged in representing their personal responses to history ... Shahn joined these artists in coming to terms with history through allegory, myth and tradition.'

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Joanne Hogg -  I Heard The Voice Of Jesus Say.

Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus: From occupation to liberation

Ahead of a recital, Michael Symmons Roberts explained in The Guardian at the weekend how the composition of Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus by Olivier Messiaen at the end of the second world war, and its filmic qualities, inspired his response in poetry to the work

Messiaen wrote his piano piece Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus (20 Contemplations of the Infant Jesus) in 1944. It was originally a Radio Paris commission, based on some poetic tableaux by the French writer Maurice Toesca.

Symmonds Roberts writes: 'What I hadn’t realised was that Messiaen began to write the piece in Paris under German occupation in March of that year, and finished it in September after liberation. Although his commission was to write music to accompany the 12 sections of Toesca’s text, Messiaen soon abandoned that, pursuing his own poetic vision into wilder and stranger territories.

My work on the poems began to reflect aspects of this story. I was fascinated by the idea of Vingt Regards being written in a city as it crossed from occupation to liberation. Not only does the nativity story take place under Roman occupation, but “occupation” is not a bad metaphor for “annunciation”, even if it starts with a willing “yes’”. And in Christian theology, the arrival of God the creator into his own world as a helpless baby is both a huge risk and – ultimately – an act of liberation.'

Pianist Cordelia Williams is presenting ‘Between Heaven and the Clouds’, a year-long series of events setting Vingt Regards alongside words and images, including specially commissioned poetry and paintings, in order to explore these universal themes and Messiaen’s rich variety of inspiration.

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Olivier Messiaen, Vingt regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus.

Vera Brittan: Testament of Experience

It is to be hoped that the release of the film version of Testament of Youth this week will also stimulate interest in Vera Brittan's later memoir, Testament of Experience, where she writes about her Christian faith, pacifism and work with Dick Sheppard and the Peace Pledge Union.

On V.E. day walking up Whitehall she testifies to an immense “certainty” that she articulates as follows:

'I could not yet believe in the Easter morning and the meeting again; I did not expect to see Edward or Roland or Winifred in any future conceivable by human consciousness. But of the existence of a benign Rule, a spiritual imperative behind the anarchy and chaos of man’s wilful folly, I was now wholly assured; the superficial faith which the First War destroyed had been replaced by an adult conviction. Like the girl student in Glorious Morning, I knew that God lived, and that the sorrow and suffering in the world around me had come because men refused to obey His laws. The self-interested, provocative policies which had driven mankind to the edge of the abyss seemed to supply incontrovertible testimony that an opposite policy–the way of God, the road of the Cross–would produce an opposite result.'

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Testament of Youth trailer.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: St Michael and All Angels Berwick

‘Whether it be music or painting or drama, sculpture or architecture or any other form of art, there is an instinctive sympathy between all of these and the worship of God. Nor should the church be afraid to thank the artists for their help, or to offer its blessing to the works so pure and lovely in which they seek to express the Eternal Spirit. Therefore I earnestly hope that in this diocese (and in others) we may seek ways and means for a reconciliation of the Artist and the Church—learning from him as well as giving to him and considering with his help our conception alike of the character of Christian worship and of the forms in which the Christian teaching may be proclaimed.’

On 27th June 1929, the day he became Bishop of Chichester, George Bell famously expressed, in his enthronement address, his commitment to a much closer relationship between the Anglican Church and the arts.

Bell had been intent on re-establishing the link between the Church and the arts from his early days as Dean of Canterbury (1924-9) where he had begun with religious drama, commissioning in 1928 a new play for the cathedral from John Masefield; an event which in large part led to the establishing of a series of Canterbury plays, including Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot. He went on to commission drama, music and visual art, put structures in place (e.g. the Sussex Churches Art Council and its ‘Pictures in Churches Loan Scheme’) to support a wider commissioning of artists, placed his trust in the vision of artists when they encountered opposition and he was called on to adjudicate on commissions and strongly supported the appointment of Walter Hussey as Dean of Chichester Cathedral to take forward the commissioning programme he had initiated there.

Bell viewed his drive to re-associate the Church and the Arts as being “an effective protection against barbarism, whether the barbarism was Nazism, materialism or any other threat to civilization.” Murals commissioned from Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Quentin Bell in 1941 for the Sussex Church of St Michael & All Angels Berwick represented a fulfilment of his vision be a catalyst for promoting the relationship between the Arts and the Church. As Sir Kenneth Clarke wrote in 1941: “...with a little judicious publicity it might have the effect of encouraging other dioceses to do the same. If once such a movement got under way, it would have incalculable influence for the good on English Art.”

The commission for the murals came about in the following way:

‘Sir Kenneth Clark announced in a letter to the Times (1939) the formation of the Central Institute of Art and Design (CIAD) whose purpose was to respond to the plight of artists in wartime … It was a cause that Bell passionately identified with and almost immediately he took up the challenge of stimulating Church patronage of the Arts within his own diocese. He received enthusiastic support from Sir Kenneth Clark at the CIAD and within his diocese from Professor Charles Reilly who had a home near Brighton. The CIAD introduced Bell to the Society of Mural Painters whose membership included both Hans Feibusch, who offered to undertake commissions in the Diocese for no fee, and Duncan Grant who was also a committee member of the CIAD …

Feibusch was the first to complete murals in the Diocese and Prof. Reilly heralded his work at St Wilfrid's, Brighton in 1940 as the first ‘modern’ murals in any English church. By ‘modern’ he meant: a painting belonging to the present generation and based in its forms and colour on the revolution in the graphic arts brought about by the researches and experiments of Cezanne and Picasso.

Prof. Reilly was credited by Bishop Bell with the idea of taking the project to a new level by proposing Duncan Grant undertake a scheme at Berwick. For the first time a modern artist of national standing would undertake a complete decorative scheme for an historic rural church. If the project was successful, they believed it would stimulate demand for commissions in churches all over the country to alleviate the plight of many artists.’

‘Duncan Grant (1885-1978) was the lead artist for the murals and put forward the initial proposals. He moved with Vanessa Bell (1879 – 1961) and her husband, Clive, to Charleston Farmhouse at the foot of the Downs, three miles to the west of Berwick Church, in 1916. Vanessa was sister of Virginia Woolf.

Quentin Bell (1910-1996) was the son of Vanessa and Clive Bell and undertook all the paintings within the Chancel as well as ‘The Supper at Emmaus’ at the end of the north aisle.’

They ‘had in view a ‘decorative scheme’ which, rather than simply being a series of individual paintings within frames, would create an environment with its own particular feeling and aesthetic.’ ‘The six larger works are Christ in Glory and a crucifixion scene, The Victory of Calvary, by Duncan Grant; The Supper at Emmaus and The Wise and Foolish Virgins by Quentin Bell; and The Annunciation and The Nativity by Vanessa Bell.’ 

Grant’s work was ‘influenced by his travels in Italy where, as an art student, he had seen the mosaics at Ravenna and copied the frescoes of Piero della Francesca (1420-1492) at Arezzo. Then in Paris he had copied works by Chardin (1699-1779) portraying scenes from everyday life, ordinary people in work or recreation. At the same time he studied the work of the Impressionists and was later greatly influenced by the Post-Impressionists such as Cezanne, Seurat, and others …

The murals at Berwick exhibit influences from all these traditions, but also something of the artists’ focus on the intimacy of the home and personal relationships and their love of the beauty and simplicity of the Downland landscape.’

Berwick Church was unusual in that ‘the plain leaded lights in its nave did not have figures or colour to clash with the paintings around them, and this was even more pronounced after bomb damage caused them to be replaced with completely plain glass. This gives beautiful views of the surrounding Sussex countryside, which seem to complement rather than compete with the paintings, many of which have the same countryside as their background.’

‘The Berwick commission required the agreement of both the local Parochial Church Council and also the Chancellor of the Diocese. He was himself advised by the Diocesan Advisory Committee (DAC) …

However, just before the Chancellor could give his authorisation, one member of the parish lodged a formal petition objecting to the murals. This triggered a 'Consistory Court' hearing at which evidence was heard from both those in favour and those opposed to the scheme. Bishop Bell along with members of the CIAD felt that much of the future of Church Patronage of the arts might rest upon this commission.

In the small flint schoolhouse, just down the lane from the church on 1st October 1941, the court heard evidence from Sir Kenneth Clark, Bertram Nicholls and Frederick Etchells in support of the scheme. The sincerity of the artists was emphasised along with their generosity in asking for only a fraction of what the work would normally cost. Despite the objections, the Chancellor authorised the commission to go ahead.’

It is difficult to measure the impact that Bishop Bell, and the Berwick murals in particular, have had on Church patronage of ‘modern art’. Grant was only to receive one other church commission – frescoes painted in 1959 for Lincoln Cathedral’s Russell Chantry - and the catalytic effect for which Bell had hoped did not materialise in any dramatic way. However, much commissioning did take place in the post-war years particularly where reconstruction to damaged churches was needed. The murals themselves looked back in terms of style to the grand ‘tradition of ecclesiastical art’ while their content was nostalgic for a past picture of rural England which was rapidly being lost. Both factors meant that the scheme at Berwick could not serve as a model for Church patronage of modern art as Bell had hoped. To visit Berwick today in the context of my wider sabbatical art pilgrimage makes clear that it is no more than a beautiful siding or cul-de-sac in the history of the revival of sacred art in the twentieth century.

The artists at Berwick were considered ‘avant garde’ in their day but they actually produced a scheme for the church which drew heavily on the ‘tradition of ecclesiastical art.’ They paid ‘homage to the high points of the artistic heritage of a European Civilization’ which was, at that time, in turmoil. Though they were modern artists they expressed ‘a respect for both the history and tradition of art and the simplicity of the setting and community for whom they were painting.’

The murals are, like those of Stanley Spencer in the Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere, ‘a unique example of war art:’

‘They record the landscape, the people, and the way of life that was under threat. Christ in Glory depicting, amongst the three servicemen shown, Douglas Hemming who was killed at Caen, takes on a war memorial role. Their religious content reflects the belief of their patron that Christianity was the central pillar of a European civilization that was under threat from the despotic forces of evil.’

As with Spencer’s murals, the artist’s love for and use of ‘local people and the local landscape showed how the divine was a part of the everyday’ enabling them to ‘sense the closeness of God to their own lives.’  As Bell put it in his dedication sermon: ‘The pictures will bring home to you the real truth of the Bible story ... help the pages of the New Testament to speak to you - not as sacred personages living in a far-off land and time, but as human beings ... with the same kind of human troubles, and faults, and goodness, and dangers, that we know in Sussex today.’

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Extreme - Ghost.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: St Andrew Bobola Shepherds Bush

St Andrew Bobola Shepherds Bush is one of London’s hidden gems. St Andrew Bobola was a Polish Jesuit missionary and martyr, known as the Apostle of Lithuania, and this Roman Catholic Church dedicated to him opened in 1961 in a former Presbyterian Church building which has been extensively and beautifully restored as a living memorial to Poles who died during World War II. The church holds the main shrine in Britain to the dead of Katyn, the Second World War massacre of Polish officers by Soviet soldiers.

Alexander Klecki was the architect responsible for the transformation of the building. Klecki, who died earlier in 2014, also undertook architectural projects which included Brighton Marina, Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 3 (with Sir Frederick Gibberd), and Sheik Ali Al Qureishi Palace in Dammam, Saudi Arabia. His sculptural work included a bronze Our Lady of Ostra Brama, Wilno (presented to Pope John Paul II at the Vatican), Katyn Memorial in Clifton, Bristol, an aluminium Christ for an Anglican Church in Newcastle under Lyme, and murals at Putney House, the Curzon Club and in the City of London. He was a member of the Association of Polish Artists in Great Britain.

Klecki's Stations of the Cross at St Andrew Bobola are rectangular bronze reliefs showing stylised figures from the Passion narrative. His sculptures include the large Christ figure forming the altarpiece as well as figures of both St Andrew Bobola and St Maximilian Kolbe. Ten of the stained glass windows at St Andrew Bobola are also his work. Given his involvement with the church it is no surprise to find that he was appointed as its custodian.

A bas-relief icon in the chapel of Our Lady of Kozielsk was carved by a lieutenant in the Polish army, Tadeusz Zielinski, who survived imprisonment in the Soviet camp at Kozielsk. The icon was carved in secret, using for tools fragments of steel lying in the ruins, on a limewood plank from a door of a Russian Orthodox church that had been converted by the Bolsheviks into a prison. Being transported to a camp at Grazowiec, Zielinski hid the carving in the false bottom of his suitcase: there he added colour using paints intended for communist slogans. The icon eventually travelled to England by way of Persia, Palestine, Egypt and Italy, and was installed in the church in 1949. (Extracted from an article by Jan Pieńkowski in the Hammersmith and Fulham Historic Buildings Group Autumn Newsletter)

Jan Pieńkowski has also described the stained glass windows which have been skilfully integrated into the church and which relates to the Polish soldiers, sailors and airmen who fought alongside the Allies in World War II:

“Their most distinguished leader was General Wladyslaw Anders, whose memorial fills the triple lancet stained glass window in the south transept. General Anders led the Polish Second Corps in the final push against German troops in Italy, including the heroic assault on Monte Cassino. The window depicts the crucifixion and includes the most revered Polish military decoration, the Virtuti Militari Cross …

The second remarkable window – in the north transept – commemorates Polish airmen who fought in the Battle of Britain. This was designed by the painter Janina Baranowska, who won the competition set by the Union of Polish Airmen in 1979 … The window was made by the firm of Goddard & Gibbs and inaugurated by Cardinal Rubin on 3 April 1980. The three lancet windows cleverly integrate the Cross with two swooping plane trails. The composition is surmounted by the icon of Our Lady of Ostrobrama.

Another interesting window commemorates the Polish secret underground men who were trained at the SOE centre at Audley End and then parachuted into German occupied Poland.”

Janina Baranowska was born in Grodno and remained there until the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940 she was arrested and deported to Russia. Two years later she was released and joined the Polish Army in its march to the Middle East. In 1946 she moved to London where she studied under Professor David Bomberg at the Borough Polytechnic in 1947-50. For a number of years she was on the Board of the National Society of Painters and Sculptors, and Association of International Arts. In 1980 she became President of the Polish Artists Society in Great Britain, later the Association of Polish Artists in Great Britain and she was a member of the Catholic and Christian Artists group. Baranowska practises painting and graphic art, and designs stained glass windows. She has exhibited in leading galleries in the UK, France, Poland and the United States. Stained glass windows by her can be found at Holy Trinity Church in Wolverhampton, as well as at St Andrew Bobola.

For the last twenty years Baranowska has been working as a Director of the Gallery in the Polish Social and Cultural Centre (POSK) in Hammersmith, in London organising exhibitions and helping artists from Poland and other countries. The mission of POSK is “to promote and encourage access to Polish Culture in all its forms to Poles and non Poles.”

Many Polish artists were forced to flee mainland Europe during the Second World War. Some of these artists journeyed through many countries before settling in the UK, while others were captured and imprisoned before finding their way to British shores. Marian Bohusz-Szyszko was one of the key organisers in this group of artists. Douglas Hall has recounted how Bohusz-Szyszko organised art classes:

“at first in a reception camp, later at various addresses in London and finally at the St Christopher Hospice at Sydenham. The classes became known as the Polish School of Painting, and were eventually taken under the wing of The Polish University Abroad. The relatively younger artists, including [Stanislaw] Frenkiel, founded in 1948 the Young Artists Association … A group calling themselves Group 49 took its place a year later and mainly consisted of pupils of Bohusz-Szyszko … In 1955, with Polish artists beginning to be more successful commercially, a society was formed with the neutral title of The Association of Polish Artists in Great Britain (APA) … Although APA was intended to be a broad church, the pupils of Marian Bohusz were still the most important element.” A former pupil, Halima Nałęcz, was the founder of the Drian Galleries which also regularly hosted “a plethora of personalities from the artistic world of London, both English and Polish.” In addition, Bohusz-Szyszko and other exiled Polish artists (such as Frenkiel, Adam Kossowski, Henryk Gotlib, Marek Zulawski and Alexander Zyw) were part of a consistent but under-recognised strand of artists utilising sacred themes. Bohusz-Szyszko’s work can be found at St Christopher’s Hospice in Sydenham, where he was artist-in-residence.

Many of these artists featured in the recent Pole Position exhibition at the Graves Gallery in Sheffield. Specifically religious paintings in this exhibition, such as Janina Baranowska's Crucifixion and Marian Bohusz-Szyszko's Christ Crowned with Thorns, were “on the anguished side of Christian art” and “agonise in brilliant, almost hellish colour” (Pole Position: Polish Art in Britain 1939 - 1989, Graves Gallery Sheffield, 2014).

As well as organisations like POSK and APA, the Church has been a key source of support for many in the émigré community. Monsignor Bronisław Gostomski was a recent parish priest at the church who was known for working hard to support and unite the Polish community. As parish priest since 2003, he had spearheaded a £1 million renovation project at the church and worked to unite older and younger generations of Poles within his congregation. As the chaplain of  the Polish Ex-Servicemen’s Association (SPK), he cared spiritually for those who had been left in England when the dramatic events of the Second World War and the Cold War took their course.  Moreover, he cared also for those who had come to England in more recent  years in pursuit of a new life and opportunities.  As the Parish Priest he could bring everyone together as one family, regardless of age or personal history. Tragically, he was among 96 victims of a plane crash on April 10 2010, which also claimed the lives of the Polish president Lech Kaczynski, Polish president-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski and many of the country's top officials and dignitaries.

With these connections and links St Andrew Bobola is a significant space for memory and memorial, specifically for Poles who died during World War II, but also, more generally, for the Polish community in the UK as a whole.

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Krzysztof Penderecki - Utrenja I: The Entombment of Christ.