Controversy and conversation: Churches and art

Here's the talk I gave at last night's Unveiled event in St Andrew's Wickford:

St Andrew’s has a hidden painting – ‘The Descent from the Cross’ by David Folley – which illustrates some of the issues involved in showing modern art in churches. In this talk I want us to look at Folley’s painting and other controversial art commissioned for churches to see the ways in which they open up conversations about faith for those who wouldn’t ordinarily come to church or consider faith.

David Folley is an English painter based in Plymouth. He paints subjects that range from abstracts, landscapes, seascapes, portraits, and race horses, including a life size painting of the famous British racehorse Frankel. He has completed portrait commissions for Trinity College, Cambridge, and University College Plymouth and has had major commissions from Plymouth City Council and Endemol UK (a production company for Channel 4). He describes himself as “a twenty-first century romantic with a belief in the spiritual and redemptive possibilities of art.” Exploring the spiritual and redemptive possibilities of art is the foundation of his “romantic associations with the aesthetic tradition of Northern Romantic painting.”

Revd Raymond Chudley, a former Team Vicar at St Andrew’s, knew Folley and had supported him in his artistic career. As an act of gratitude, Folley made this painting as a gift for Chudley when he got married, around the time he retired from parish ministry. The painting was too large for Chudley’s home, so was gifted to St Andrew’s and was dedicated by the Bishop of Bradwell in 1996.

Folley’s friend Alan Thompson has described the work well. Thompson writes: “David Folley has painted The Descent from the Cross, the melancholy depth of hopelessness, in a major work of heroic proportions. It is a large canvas painted traditionally to inspire the viewer to contemplate all that had culminated in what seemed at the time to be the final act of a tragedy. The viewer cannot share the utter despair of the participants in the painting because he or she knows what they didn't - that the body will be resurrected.

The way David has painted the body expresses the physical suffering Christ endured, whilst the dripping blood from the wound the soldier inflicted on Him, is shown as a rainbow. The explanation of this is that God told Noah that the rainbow was the sign of the new covenant with the earth. This is just one of many examples of Christian iconography illustrated in this work.

Mary, looking up at her son, is depicted as a modern provincial character in the manner we have associated with Stanley Spencer. Behind Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, with a moustache, is painted in blue to denote spiritual love, constancy, truth and fidelity.

At the extreme right hand side of the picture, the Revd. Raymond Chudley, who commissioned the painting, is shown in the traditional fifteenth century role of the donor, kneeling in prayer, with his attention fixed upon the body of Christ.

Facing him is the artist. He has included himself, portrayed as holding a broken spear as if to suggest that he had been responsible for the wound in the side of Christ. He is balancing precariously on a skull, a memento mori, signifying the transitory nature of life and also reading across to Calvary, which is derived from Golgotha, which is Hebrew for skull. He is also 'pregnant' with a foetus, which the artist sees as humanity giving birth to the Christ within, and transforming themselves into Sons of God rather than sons of man.

From the bottom of the painting is an outstretched arm, which just fails to touch Christ's hand, because the hand is withdrawn. This is intended to signify man's desire, through science, to explain the laws of the universe and so become almighty. He is almost there but cannot touch. There is a visual tension between God and man.”

Folley says, “I sum up this painting as being made up of a composite of the works of great masters of the past. Not copying them slavishly but developing my own concept of individualism with emphasis on vivid imagery, technical refinement, complex iconography and innovation.” Among the artists referenced are: El Greco, Grunewald, and Donatello.

The painting disturbs some through a mix of its expressionist style, its strong colouration, and its unusual symbolism. As it dominates the space in the church where children’s activities have often taken place it was eventually decided to cover it with a large curtain and banner.

Such a response to contemporary art in churches is not unusual. During my sabbatical I visited churches linked to three significant controversies over the commissioning of modern art: 

(i) a set of Stations of the Cross and an altarpiece, The Death of St Teresa, commissioned from the Flemish artist Albert Servaes for the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Luithagen, a suburb of Antwerp. This led, in 1921, to a decree from the Holy Office based on Canon 1399.12, which states that images may not be ‘unusual’, resulting in first the Stations and then the altarpiece being removed from the chapel; 

(ii) the rationalist design for Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil in the Swiss Alps by architect Alberto Sartoris (who had strong links to the Futurists) created a scandal in the Swiss press in 1931, the same year that the publication of a 'Manifesto of Futurist Sacred Art' led to a censure from Pope Pius XI in a speech at the inauguration of a new Vatican Art Gallery and; 

(iii) Germaine Richier’s Crucifix was removed from Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce at Assy and a subsequent instruction on sacred art issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1952, which was the beginning of two year initiative by the Vatican that severely constrained the modernizing programme of the French Dominicans and represented a victory for the traditionalists within the Church.

Many church commissions are controversial because they introduce something different and therefore dissonant into a familiar building, as is the case with David Folley’s painting. That was the case with modern images of the crucifixion by Servaes and Richier and, in the UK, Graham Sutherland at St Matthew’s Northampton and St Aidan’s East Acton. These viewed Christ’s sacrifice as emblematic of human suffering in conflict and persecution. They were controversial as they challenged sentimental images of Christ and deliberately introduced ugliness into beautiful buildings. On my sabbatical I spoke to parishioners in both Northampton and East Acton who stated that they did not like Sutherland’s Crucifixions but who also appreciated why the paintings were as they were and the challenge that they provided as a result.

I was particularly moved to find, on entering Saint Martin’s Kerk in Latem in Belgium, that the baptistery contains a Passion charcoal by Albert Servaes. Servaes and Richier were both affected by decrees from the holy office which led to the removal of their artworks from the churches for which they had been commissioned. Servaes, with his Stations of the Cross and altarpiece for the Carmelite Chapel in Luithagen and Richier, with her crucifix for the church at Assy. Given all that Servaes experienced in the controversy over the Luithagen Stations, including the removal of work which was a genuine expression of his faith by the Church of which he was part, I found it profoundly moving that a work of his, in the same vein as the Luithagen Stations, should be displayed in the church and area where his faith and art first fused. Richier’s crucifix was later returned to its place in the sanctuary at Assy and the church, like many other churches in France with modern art commissions, is now classed by the Government as a national monument and has become a significant tourist location.

It seems, therefore, that scandals of modern art, whether the reception of the works themselves or that of their challenging content, are, with time, resolved as congregations live with the works and learn to value the challenge of what initially seems to be scandalous.

My main personal experience of this kind of situation was when a sculpture by the Street artist Ryan Callanan was moved ahead of a Stations of the Cross exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook. Complaints from several parishioners at the church prompted, after considerable discussion, the rehanging of the exhibition although initially it had seemed as their complaints would result in the work being removed from the exhibition. That possibility attracted press interest which then calmed down after the work was moved to a different position in the church. Controversy of this sort and attempts to ban, remove or censor artworks thought to be in some way blasphemous or challenging, are, as we have seen, part of the story of faith and art in the modern period.

Let’s think for a moment about the reasons why displaying a crucified stormtrooper in a City church might stimulate those viewing it to think about Christ afresh. In the Star Wars films, stormtroopers are the main ground force of the Galactic Empire, under the leadership of Emperor Palpatine and his commanders, most notably Darth Vader. They are on the dark side in that conflict. That the artist Ryan Callanan chose to create a ‘Crucified Stormtrooper,’ provides Christians and others with the possibility of experiencing something of the sense of scandal that Christ’s crucifixion originally generated.

The imagery of the dark side in the Star Wars films can be seen in this context as equating to the Christian belief that we are all sinners. If we use the imagery opened up for us by ‘Crucified Stormtrooper,’ then we are forced to reflect, much as we dislike the thought, that we are all on the dark side. We are all stormtroopers.

The amazing message of love at the heart of Christianity is that God does something about that situation. God becomes one of us in Christ. He becomes a stormtrooper in order that, through his death, he can take the darkness onto himself and enable us to live in the light. That is the original heartbeat of Christianity, which continues to radically change people's lives on a daily basis around the world when they genuinely acknowledge their own sinfulness. The scandal - the stumbling block - that is the cross, was brought home to us afresh by including this artwork in this exhibition; particularly to any who view their own assets as the basis for their own self-esteem. To show this work in a church enabled that reflection on Christ's love to be seen and shared in a new way and that is why it worthwhile for the Church to show art, especially controversial art, and to explore the questions that it opens up to us.

In the context of the Private View, I was able to talk to people, for whom churchgoing is not necessarily a regular feature of their lives, about the art in relation to the love of Christ. That is both a great privilege and opportunity. Many of those who saw the exhibition described it as 'striking', 'intriguing', 'uplifting' and 'interesting.' It was commended as an extraordinarily broad-minded, human and thought-provoking exhibition in an extraordinary place with others asking that the church reach out to current artists more often. As a result of the controversy, the curator of the exhibition wrote publicly about his own faith.

Additionally, the conversations generated by the exhibition have an ongoing life online at a website documenting Art Below’s Stations of the Cross exhibitions: https://stationsofthecross.co.uk/blog/how-does-a-crucified-stormtrooper-glorify-god and https://stationsofthecross.co.uk/blog/controversial-art-protest-or-engagement.

The reactions from some within the Church to Art Below’s Stations of the Cross exhibitions suggest that we still need to learn that it is far better to engage with art and artists by discussing and debating the questions they raise, instead of seeking to suppress or censor. One example of this being done effectively would the many Da Vinci Code events, bible studies, websites etc. that the Church used to counter the claims made in The Da Vinci Code featured reasoned arguments based on a real understanding of the issues raised which made use of genuine historical findings and opinion to counter those claims. The Church, it seems, still needs to learn that the way to counter criticism is not to try to ban or censor it but to engage with it, understand it and accurately counter it. In other words, to enter into conversation with art and to generate conversations about faith with those who come to visit to see art.

That is what we are seeking to do here with David Folley’s ‘Descent from the Cross’; to make the painting itself and the story of how it came to be hidden talking points that encourage people to explore the ways in which the painting engages with Christ’s Passion and our understandings of it. To put those things in dialogue and encourage people to visit in order to engage in that conversation; a conversation about Christ and the nature of atonement.

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 Bob Dylan - Sign on the Cross.

ArtWay Visual Meditation: Albert Servaes

My latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay concerns three stained glass windows by Albert Servaes in the Church of the Holy Family in Woluwé-Saint-Lambert, a district of Brussels. 

I greatly enjoyed my visit to the Church of the Holy Family, with its welcoming worship and congregation, in August. The bright and busy pair of East windows provide colourful focus for the space, although they lack clarity in the content of their imagery, while the contemplative West window provides a creative turn away from the colour and clamour of the central lights.

In the meditation I write: 'In contrast to the minimal figural focus of Servaes’ Luithagen Stations, these are busy designs filled with figures and faces. The colours and contrasts are generally brighter than is usual within the work of Servaes and, despite the themes which include expulsion and judgement, the look and feel of the work has less of the anguish and strain that characterises much of Servaes’ oeuvre.'

My other ArtWay meditations include work by María Inés Aguirre, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Antoni Gaudi, Maciej Hoffman, Giacomo Manzù, Maurice Novarina, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, and Henry Shelton.

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Julie Miller - All My Tears.

Art in Brussels

My recent brief visit to Brussels provided the opportunity to see work by James Ensor, George Minne, Albert Servaes, and also contemporary art at the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula.

Housing more than 13.000 works of arts, the Ixelles Museum presents all the greatest European’s painting styles spanning four centuries. This includes realism, impressionism, luminism, neo-impressionism, symbolism, fauvism, expressionism, surrealism. This museum also owes its reputation to its prestigious collection of end-of-the century posters featuring more than one thousand original items among which many lithographs. The Museum of Ixelles’ collections are particularly rich in works of Belgian art of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries: a period that corresponds to the history of Belgian modern art. As a result, this was my first opportunity to see work by Ensor and Minne, in particular Ensor's stunning Christ calming the Waters and Minne's L’Agenouillé.

Located at the heart of Brussels, where between 1884 and 1914 the exhibitions of Les XX and La Libre Esthétique made the city one of the artistic capitals of the late nineteenth century, Musée Fin-de-Siècle Museum (part of Musées Royaux des Beaux Arts) is distinguished by visual artists like Constantin Meunier, James Ensor, Henri Evenepoel, Fernand Khnopff, Léon Spilliaert and Georges Minne testify to the effervescent activity of this period, reflected also in all other creative fields: literature, opera, music, architecture, photography and poetry (Maurice Maeterlinck, Emile Verhaeren, Octave Maus, Victor Horta, Henry Van de Velde, Maurice Kufferath, Guillaume Lekeu and others).

Here was much work by Ensor, together with works by Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh that mirrored some of Ensor's achievements, interests and themes. Around the turn of the 20th century, several artists came to live and work in the rural village of Sint-Martens-Latem, about a dozen kilometres from Ghent: George Minne, Valerius de Saedeleer, Karel and Gustave van de Woestyne, Albert Servaes. They sought to live close to the local peasants, believing that these simple folk, and the countryside itself, would help them develop a new, more profound and more inward-looking art. Religious feeling played a major role in their lives and in their work. A selection of their work can be seen at this Museum. I also particularly appreciated seeing works by Jan Toorop and Jakob Smits as well as the opportunity to see for the first time the work of Charles de Groux and Henry de Groux. I also appreciated seeing the remnants of the excellent Andres Serrano retrospective exhibition which had recently ended.

In 1937, Albert Servaes collaborated with the stained-glass glazier Florent-Prosper Colpaert to produce three large stained-glass windows for the World Exhibition in Paris, entitled, respectively The Creation of Eve, Redemption and Original Sin. In 1939, these stained-glass windows were donated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs to the church wardens of the Church of the Holy Family in Woluwé-Saint-Lambert, who housed them there. I visited the church in order to see these three pieces which are the only stained-glass windows designed by Servaes that have survived in Belgium.

Each term the ambulatory in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula hosts an exhibition of contemporary art organised by Alain Arnould OP. When I visited the exhibition was by Jacques Noe. Following the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the main altar was brought forward. Michel Smolders was commissioned to sculpt a new altar, which was consecrated in June 2000. On the left-hand side pillar, the Christ in ascension in beaten copper (1968) is a work by Camille Colruyt. Elsewhere in the Cathedral, works by Felix de Boeck, Charles Delporte and Malel can also be seen,

The Église St-Nicolas is a delightful little church behind the Bourse which has modern stained glass from a 1950s restoration.

Finally, A Lighthouse for Lampedusa was at BOZAR. Thomas Kilpper is an artist who wants to encourage public debates on politically sensitive issues. Inaugurated on 19 June, his lighthouse invites European citizens to put pressure on their governments to bring an end to the massacre of refugees in the Mediterranean and adopt a humane and fair immigration and integration policy. The work of Thomas Kilpper refers to two very real lighthouses: the Lighthouse of Alexandria, considered one of the wonders of the ancient world, and the Cape Grecale lighthouse on Lampedusa, which is no help to the refugees, turned as it is towards Europe.

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Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Jesus Alone.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Report - Part 4

I visited churches linked to three significant controversies over the commissioning of modern art: (i) a set of Stations of the Cross and an altarpiece, The Death of St Teresa, commissioned from the Flemish artist Albert Servaes for the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Luithagen, a suburb of Antwerp led, in 1921, to a decree from the Holy Office based on Canon 1399.12, which states that images may not be ‘unusual’, resulting in first the Stations and then the altarpiece being removed from the chapel; (ii) the publication of a 'Manifesto of Futurist Sacred Art' in 1931 led to a censure from Pope Pius XI in a speech given in October 1932 at the inauguration of a new Vatican Art Gallery and the rationalist design by Alberto Sartoris (who had strong links to the Futurists) for Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil in the Swiss Alps at Lourtier also created a scandal in the Swiss press in the same year; (iii) Germaine Richier’s Crucifix was removed from Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce at Assy and a subsequent instruction on sacred art issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1952 was the beginning of two year iniative by the Vatican which severely constrained the modernizing programme of the French Dominicans and represented a victory for the traditionalists within the Church.

Many church commissions are controversial because they introduce something different and therefore dissonant into a familiar building. Harmonization can, as we have seen, help to minimize this sense of dissonance and difference but with some works their value derives from the sense of dissonance they create.

This was the case with those images of the crucifixion by, for example, Servaes, Richier and Graham Sutherland which viewed Christ’s sacrifice as emblematic of human suffering in conflict and persecution. These were often controversial as they challenged sentimental images of Christ and deliberately introduced ugliness into beautiful buildings. I spoke to parishioners in both Northampton and East Acton who stated that they did not like Sutherland’s Crucifixions but who also appreciated why the paintings were as they were and the challenge that they provided as a result.

I was particularly moved to find on entering Sint Martinuskerk in Latem that the baptistery contains a Passion charcoal by Servaes. Servaes and Richier were both affected by decrees from the holy office which led to the removal of their artworks from the churches for which they had been commissioned. Servaes, with his Stations of the Cross and altarpiece for the Carmelite Chapel in Luithagen and Richier, with her crucifix for the church at Assy.

Given all that Servaes experienced in the controversy over the Luithagen Stations, including the removal of work which was a genuine expression of his faith by the Church of which he was part, I found it profoundly moving that a work of his, in the same vein as the Luithagen Stations, should be displayed in the church and area where his faith and art first fused. Richier’s crucifix has been returned to its place in the sanctuary at Assy and the church, like many other art sacré churches, is classed by the Government as a national monument and has become a significant tourist location.

It seems, therefore, that scandals of modern art, whether the reception of the works themselves or that of their challenging content, are, with time, resolved as congregations live with the works and learn to value the challenge of what initially seems to be scandalous. It is my contention, therefore, on the basis of these examples that criticism of the Hussey Memorial Commission would dissipate over time if the work were to be installed. It is a particularly ironic and inappropriate memorial to Walter Hussey that his memorial commission should be the subject of such controversy that it is prevented from being installed.   

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Luigi Russolo - Serenata.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Art as worship

In 1919 the French artist Maurice Denis wrote, 'We hardly see any contemporary work in visual arts that matches the vision of a Leon Bloy, a Paul Claudel, a Peguy or a Sertillanges. The indisputable worthiness of the writers I am citing here is proved by their conversions. Their distinctive characteristics and their literary originality served their way of thinking well. Do we have any religious art that endorses the prestige of Catholicism with as much strength and freshness?'

One of those writers Paul Claudel published a famous letter in which he described the contemporary churches against which Maurice Denis and his colleague, Swiss artist, Alexandre Cingria were reacting, as ‘heavily laden confessions.’ Their ugliness, Claudel insisted, was the ‘demonstration to all the world of sins and shortcomings, weakness, poverty, timidity of faith and feeling, disgust with the supernatural, dominations by conventions and formulae ... worldly luxury, avarice, boasting, sulkiness, Pharisaism and bombast.’

Running alongside that situation in the Churches, was a discourse in modern art that distanced art from Christianity. David Morgan has written that, "Moving through the discourse of Modernism in art was a dominant conception of the sacred, one which distanced art from institutional religion, most importantly Christianity, in order to secure the freedom of art as an autonomous cultural force that was sacralized in its own right."

As a result, there was the need for a reconciliation of the Artist and the Church. This is what George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, sought to bring about through his ministry:

‘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.’

Bell believed that pictures could bring home to us ‘the real truth of the Bible story’ and ‘help the pages of the New Testament to speak’ to us – ‘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 ... today.’

Bell seemed to have had a deep personal need for things that made him feel ‘human’ in a world of increasing mechanisation. His God was a ‘humanising’ God, expressed most clearly in the life and ministry of Jesus. Art was a vehicle that helped him to feel human and to feel that God was close to him. He was aware of how the church could become a dehumanising system and of how the creativity of the artist could help to rectify this and redeem both individuals and the religion itself.

Bell’s colleague Walter Hussey wrote, in preparation for his final commission that it had been the great enthusiasm of his life and work ‘to commission for the Church the very best artists I could, in painting, in sculpture, in music and in literature.’ He was guided by the principle that, ‘Whenever anything new was required in the first seven hundred years of the history of the cathedral, it was put in the contemporary style.’ Like Bell, Hussey believed that ‘True artists of all sorts, as creators of some of the most worthwhile of man’s work, are well adapted to express man’s worship of God.’ When this is done consciously, he suggested, ‘the beauty and strength of their work can draw others to share to some extent their vision.’

As a result, his aims and work were very similar to that of the Dominican Friars Marie-Alain Couturier and Pie-Raymond Régamey who argued in ‘L’Art sacré’, the journal that they edited that ‘each generation must appeal to the masters of living art, and today those masters come first from secular art.’ Bell, Hussey, Couturier and Régamey took forward the work begun by Denis and Cingria, which by 1933 had improved so much that Denis could write, 'Catholicism is in the vanguard of the modern movement, it has its place in the forefront of arts and sciences alike ... The characteristics of the new religious art are freedom and sincerity.'

Denis, in his work, has been described ‘as a mystic of daily life.' Marc Chagall, one of the great twentieth century stained glass artists, spoke of colouring life ‘with our colours of love and hope.’ He wrote of ‘seeing life’s happenings, as well as works of art, through the wisdom of the Bible’ and of trying to express this sense in works ‘shot through with its spirit and harmony.’

The light which creates stained glass ‘is natural,’ he noted, ‘and all nature is religious.’ Therefore, ‘every colour ought to stimulate prayer’ and, whether in cathedral or synagogue, ‘the phenomenon is the same: something mystical comes through the window.’

Similarly, Alfred Manessier, another great modern stained glass artist, wrote of wanting to ‘express man’s inner prayer’ through his art. ‘The further I penetrated into non-figuration,” he said, “the more I approached the inwardness of things.’ His goal was not to ‘portray a man in his state of suffering’ but to portray ‘suffering itself.’ Similarly, paintings of the Crucifixion by artists like Albert Servaes and Graham Sutherland convey ‘a pure vertigo of grief.’

In these ways, as another stained glass artist Ervin Bossanyi said of his windows at Canterbury Cathedral, the endeavour of these artists was to give their fellow people ‘a visual and a spiritual presence which, by the force of the impact it exercises will long remain with them, just as this Cathedral's views accompany the people and remain in their memory as ever active components of a great living event.’

Basil Spence, the architect for Coventry Cathedral stated that artists create “understandable beauty to help the ordinary man to worship with sincerity.” Bishop Bell also extolled the work of artists, their imagination and their painting, a work of praise. He wrote:

‘With their hearts they are saying it - with their colour and their brushes - ‘We praise Thee, O God: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord’. The very walls with this new glory on them are singing their praises - and we in the congregation - clergy and people - with our hearts attuned with the subject painted and that the artist created, are stirred afresh and exalted to new heights of adoration as we take our place in the great chorus of praise lifted to the Creator by all creation - man and nature - all that is noblest, strongest, wisest, and swiftest, in heaven and on earth. ‘Every created thing which is in the heaven and on the earth and under the earth and in the sea - all things that are in them - heard we saying ‘Unto Him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb be blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, for ever and ever.’

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Henryck Górecki' - Totus Tuus.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce du Plateau d'Assy

William S. Rubin writes in ‘Modern Sacred Art and the Church of Assy’ (Columbia University Press, New York & London, 1961) that, 'In August 1950, the Dominican-inspired church of Notre-Damede Toute Grâce at Assy was consecrated amid great jubilation and even greater hope that it represented the commencement of a "Renaissance" of sacred art. The appearance there of religious works which, in power and purity, recalled those of the great ages of faith, certainly seemed symptomatic of a genuine religious revival.’

Yet, as my sabbatical art pilgrimage has been demonstrating, a renaissance of sacred art had been underway from the beginning of the century. The decoration of St. Paul Grange-Canal in Geneva by Maurice Denis, Alexandre Cingria and others in 1913 – 1915 had served as a manifesto for this renaissance and led on to the founding in 1919 of the Ateliers d’Art Sacré by Denis and Georges Desvallières as well the Group of St Luke and St Maurice by François Baud, Cingria, Marcel Feuillat, Marcel Poncet and Georges de Traz. Both groups produced significant work for a significant number of churches in subsequent years.

In 1935 the Group of St Luke secured the decoration of the new church of Notre-Dame-des-Alpes Le Fayet in the French Alps by means a tender process assessed by a panel which included the philosopher Jacques Maritain, the Catholic art critic Maurice Brillant and the director of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Geneva Adrien Bovy. The process and the resulting work was therefore set up to be a showcase for the renaissance of sacred art in France and Switzerland during the first half of the twentieth century in which Denis, Maritain and Cingria had played key roles. It was this stage of the revival that was challenged by the commissions for Notre-Dame-de-Toute-Grâce.

Rubin continues, ‘For the first time in centuries, great artists had directed their efforts towards church art. Bonnard, Chagall, Léger, Lipchitz, Lurçat, Matisse, and Rouault had all contributed significantly.’ The Dominican Friars Marie-Alain Couturier and Pie-Raymond Régamey had argued in the journal ‘L’Art sacré’ that they edited that ‘each generation must appeal to the masters of living art, and today those masters come first from secular art.’ Couturier worked with the parish priest at Assy, Canon Jean Devémy, to commission those modern masters who contributed work to the church of Assy.

Interestingly, Couturier himself and the commissions at Assy had begun within the earlier phase of the renaissance of sacred art. On the basis of his work at Le Fayet, Devémy selected Maurice Novarina as architect. Novarina used his regional style at Assy with a chalet-style pitched roof and locally sourced materials. The chalet style is intimate and warm while the wooden carved beams suggest a Nordic hall. The interior is dark, as a result, but this tends to sets off the work well. While appropriate to Alpine setting in terms of aesthetics and practicalities, Novarina was not, at this stage of his career, working in the modernist style first exemplified by Alberto Sartoris’ design for the church at Lourtier and subsequently further developed by Le Corbusier at Ronchamp, La Tourette and Firminiy. Couturier had trained at the Ateliers d’Art Sacré and had worked on schemes of stained glass with artists at the Atelier and others, such as the L’Arche artists. Several of these artists, included Couturier himself, received commissions for the nave windows. Rubin comments that this was Couturier allocating some commissions to the ‘family’ of artists ‘active in modernist circles of Church decoration before the war’ before he then moved on to ‘the more radical aspect of the decorative plan for Assy.’

This ‘radical aspect’ of Couturier’s plan was to prove deeply controversial as commissioning modern ‘masters … from secular art’ meant that ‘Side by side with works of the pious Catholic Rouault one saw those of Jews, atheists, and even Communists - a revolutionary situation that struck the keynote of a new evangelical spirit ...’ As a result: ‘Even before its dedication in 1950, the church had become the center of an increasingly bitter dispute which was to cause a marked rupture between the liberal and conservative wings of the clergy and laity during the following years. The violent polemics on both sides involved not only the French Church, but also the Vatican, usually through the voice of the Congregation of the Holy Office. As its destiny was linked to the fortunes of the entire liberal religious movement in France, the Church at Assy and its decorations were vehemently attacked and defended by an army of critics, most of whom had seen only a few photographs of the works in question.'

The polemic against the Assy commissions was centered on the crucifix created by Germaine Richier but this was used as a focus for a wide-ranging attack by traditionalists on the desire of French Dominicans for a Christianity that was engaged with the secular world. As a result, they argued that priests should not live in ‘Christian ghettos’ but should join with the citizenry ‘to establish a new, spiritually inspired system of social justice’ - the worker-priest movement – and, with artists, to preach a ‘new gospel of sacred art’ that could help these artists come to ‘Christian awareness.’ These initiatives were representative of ‘a new evangelical spirit’ which was concerned with contextualized mission.

Richier’s bronze crucifix resembles ‘craggy and weathered wood’ in its surface and the undefined figure has a cruciform shape, the combination conveying a ‘tortured and sacrificial appearance.’ It is a stunning image of the effect which suffering has on human beings by reducing a person to mere flesh and bone. Couturier related the image to the ‘root out of dry ground’ of Isaiah 53. Richier’s crucifix therefore connects with the strand in modern sacred art, exemplified by Albert Servaes and Graham Sutherland, which viewed Christ’s sacrifice as emblematic of human suffering in conflict and persecution. Works in this vein were often controversial as they challenged sentimental images of Christ and deliberately introduced ugliness into beautiful buildings. The crucifix was described by those who opposed its inclusion in the church as a caricature of a crucifix in which it was no longer possible to ‘recognise the adorable humanity of Christ’ making it ‘an insult to the majesty of God’ and ‘a scandal for the piety of the faithful.’

Servaes and Richier were both affected by decrees from the holy office and saw their artworks removed from the churches for which they had been commissioned. The instruction on sacred art issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1952 was the beginning of two year iniatiatve by the Vatican which severely constrained the modernizing programme of the French Dominicans and represented a victory for the traditionalists within the Church.

Richier’s crucifix has, though, subsequently been returned to its place in the sanctuary at Assy and the church, like many other art sacré churches, is classed by the French Government as a national monument becoming a significant tourist location – the secular state recognizing the value of sacred commissions. As a similar level of acceptance and understanding has also evolved in relation to other controversial commissions, including those by Servaes and Sutherland, it would seem that scandals of modern church commissions, whether the reception of the works themselves or that of their challenging content, are, with time, resolved as congregations and communities live with the works and learn to value the challenge of what initially seemed to be scandalous.

Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce was planned as a showcase for the value of contemporary church commissions with Couturier taking on the primary role of curator but, as most of the commissions included were on the basis of his friendships with the artists involved, the decisions he made or did not make illustrate the tricky balance required to succeed in commissioning. Couturier criticized the Ateliers d'Art Sacré for being a 'world closed in on itself, where reciprocal indulgence, or else mutual admiration, quickly becomes the ransom paid to work as a team and maintain friendship.' Yet Couturier's scheme of work at Assy suffers from the opposite problem, as work by individual masters produced in isolation from each other, with work assigned on the basis of what they could with integrity contribute, results in a decorative scheme with no cohesiveness or focus. Couturier, here, fails to be sufficiently decisive as a curator. As Rubin states, 'the subject was almost as often picked for the man as the man for the subject.'

Too much work was commissioned for Assy from too many artists making the resulting iconographic scheme muddled and esoteric. There are inappropriate clashes of style (e.g. the Lipchitz sculpture dominating the Rouault windows or the different styles used in each of the nave windows), inappropriate positioning of some works (e.g. stained glass by Bazaine and reliefs by Chagall which can barely be seen), commissions which do not work in the space (e.g. the intimiste style of Bonnard is not suited to being viewed from a distance) and central commissions with esoteric symbolism (e.g. the Lurçat tapestry). Couturier, presumably to sustain his friendships with the artists involved, seems not to have exercised sufficient control regarding the overall scheme which therefore means that the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts.

The overall lesson of Assy would seem to be that simplicity is of the essence. The most effective works are those which are simplest, clearest and most pared back i.e. the work by Léger, Matisse, Richier and Rouault. The Rouault windows, in particular, are luminous, effective translations of his paintings into stained glass combining beauty and sorrow. The floral windows seem a strange choice initially but function as memento mori. Chagall created a wonderful 'Exodus' mural on ceramic tiles which was an inspired choice for the baptistery. He depicts a crucifixion in the top right hand corner; the act of Exodus for Christians which is symbolised by baptism. Although he was uncertain about undertaking this first commission for a church, his work here shows clearly the suitability of his vision and practice for churches and led to many subsequent commissions.

The Lurçat tapestry, by contrast, seems particularly ineffective both in itself and as a central focus. Its imagery is undeniably personal and esoteric. It provides visual focus through its size but, although intended as an apocalyptic evocation of the conflict between good and evil, fails to convey menace or threat. The beast seems funny and friendly in a way which could suit it to a walk on part in Teletubbies or In the Night Garden, while the female figure that opposes it is a non-entity as a realized, dynamic creation. The work of Adam Kossowski at St Benet Mile End and St Mary Leyland provide much stronger examples of apocalyptic imagery put to devotional rather than esoteric use. That said, Lurçat’s work is by no means fundamentally unsuited to an ecclesiastical context as his vibrant ‘Creation’ tapestry for the Chapel at Bishop Otter College ably demonstrates.

The artists Couturier commissioned were his friends but the work of his friends was not always suited to this particular sacred environment and scheme as some were clearly working outside their comfort zones and were not able to solve the inherent issues either of engaging with the space i.e. Bonnard’s intimiste style lost in the space and Lurçat’s esoteric apocalyptic imagery.

As noted earlier, Couturier and Régamey argued that "each generation must appeal to the masters of living art, and today those masters come first from secular art." However fashions and reputations in the art world (as elsewhere) change considerably with time. In their own day and time Pablo Picasso and Matisse were considered unassailable as the giants of twentieth century art while now, in terms of continuing influence on contemporary artists, Marcel Duchamp is generally considered to be the most influential twentieth century artist. Lurçat’s tapestry provides the central focus for the Church at Assy, where those artists commissioned were considered current masters, but his reputation has not been sustained into the current day, and the same is also true of Lipchitz.

The reputations of many of those who were commissioned by the Church in the twentieth century (e.g. Bazaine, Denis, Gleizes, Lurcat, Manessier, Sutherland, Piper, Rouault, Severini) have declined following their deaths. The same is likely to be so for those receiving contemporary commissions (i.e. Clarke, Cox, Emin, Le Brun, Wisniewski). The pace with which modern art moved from one movement to next in the twentieth century quickly and, often unfairly, condemned as passé what had previously been avant garde.

The Church cannot, and probably should not, seek to keep up with the fickle nature of fashion and instead should value both those artists with significant mainstream reputations wishing to receive occasional commissions and artists with less significant mainstream reputations who receive commissions which form a more significant part of their practice. In practice, that combination is what we find at Assy and it also there in the contrast between the commissioning practices at Assy and Le Fayet.

As a result, in my view, setting up dichotomies between artists with significant mainstream reputations versus those without and between secular artists and artists who are Christians represents an unnecessary division often advocated on the basis of subjective quality criteria. The reality is that both have happened simultaneously in the story of modern and contemporary church commissions and both have resulted in successes and failures. What is warranted and rewarded is sustained and prayerful attention to each and every artwork in order to discern what is good and of God in and through it.

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Young Disciples - As We Come To Be.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Sint Martinuskerk Latem

  

 

1919 was a significant year in the twentieth century revival of sacred art. Alexandre Cingria and others formed the Society of Saint Luc andSaint Maurice which went on to decorate hundreds of churches in Switzerland and elsewhere. In that same year, Maurice Denis and Georges Desvallières also set up the Ateliers d’Art Sacre in Paris that was to play a similar role in France. Yet, unlike these positive developments, 1919 also saw the beginnings of the first significant controversy arising from the revival.  

In 1919 a set of Stations of the Cross and an altarpiece, The Death of St Teresa, were commissioned from the Flemish artist Albert Servaes for the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Luithagen, a suburb of Antwerp. From the point that the Stations were exhibited in Ghent prior to being placed in the chapel at Luithagen they attracted criticism as well as praise on account of their use of deformation in service to expression; as Lydia Schoonbaert has noted emaciated bodies, sunken features and incomplete execution offended against classical aestheticism (Ecce Homo, ed. Jos Huls). In 1921 a decree from the Holy Office based on Canon 1399.12, which states that images may not be ‘unusual’, resulted in first the Stations and then the altarpiece being removed from the chapel.

Servaes had moved to Sint-Martens-Latem in 1905 where he became part of what is now known as the Second Group of Sint-Martens-Latem which also included Frits van den Berghe, Constant Permeke, Léon de Smet and Gustave de Smet. Gustave van de Woestyne, Valerius de Saedeleer, George Minne and Alfons Dessenis formed the first 'generation' of the Latem School. Robert Hoozee writes in Belgian Art 1880 - 1914 that the "central idea of the little artists' colony was to search for a meaningful, spiritual art."

Examples of work by these artists can be found at the Gemeentelijk Museum Gevaert-Minne (as well as at other museums in Deinze, Ghent and Latem). This museum is the former home and studio of the painter Edgar Gevaert (1891-1965) who married Marie Minne, the eldest daughter of George Minne. In the early 1920s Gevaert build this house and studio, in a style that combines monastic and Gothic influences with those of cottages. The museum opened in 1994 and houses, in addition to the work by Gevaert enthusiast, pictures and sculptures by George Minne, Xavier de Cock, Albert Servaes, Gustave van de Woestyne, Valerius de Saedeleer, Frits Van den Berghe, Gustave and Leon De Smet, and Constant Permeke, among others.

Servaes moved to Sint-Martens-Latem in 1905 and the depth of spirituality among both the artists and the local farmers stimulated his own faith leading to his taking the discalced Carmelite, Father Jerome of the Mother of God, in Ghent as his spiritual director. Schoonbaert has noted that “Neo-Thomism was the basis for the spiritual affinity that Father Jerome had with Cardinal Mercier in Belgium, with Titus Brandsma, his fellow Carmelite in Holland, and with Garrigou-Lagrange O.P., Jacques Maritain, Pieter van de Meer de Walcheren, and later with Raymond Régamy O.P., editor-in-chief of Art Sacré in France.”

Under Father Jerome’s direction Servaes explored Carmelite spirituality including those mystics who visualised the crucifixion during their prayers. Servaes linked this spirituality with the sense of suffering which still resonated in society following the First World War and, as a result, was a pioneer in the creation of images of the crucifixion for the context of churches which viewed Christ’s sacrifice as emblematic of human suffering in conflict and persecution. Maritain accurately wrote that the Stations were conceived as “a pure vertigo of grief.”

Brandsma and Maritain were amongst those who sought to support Servaes in the controversy which arose from the Luithagen commission, although Servaes ultimately felt betrayed when Maritain, advised throughout the controversy by van de Meer de Walcheren, distanced himself from Servaes by writing in the second edition of Art and Scholasticism that the Stations were “false to certain theological truths of capital importance.” While Maritain pushed the boundaries in his friendships with artists and in the ideas which he explored as a result, he also understood Church politics and knew when to rein back in order to keep his wider programme on track.

Despite the controversy Servaes continued to receive and create commissions for churches. During the Second World War, however, he was caught in another controversy as he was lured into the cultural activities of the Nazi occupiers. As a result, after the War, he moved to Switzerland where he continued to undertake church commissions. Father Jerome was initially moved from Ghent to Bruges. In 1946 he was sent to Les Méjades where he prepared Albert Gleizes for his first communion. The propensity for controversy that existed within the revival of sacred art is indicated by the fact that relations between the two soured as a result of disagreements over Neo-Thomism. Gleizes distrusted Thomism, which he saw as the beginning of Humanism, and instead wanted to return to the thinking of St Augustine. This aligned him more with the Benedictines than with the Dominicans and, in 1948, resulted in a further quarrel over sacred art; on this occasion with Father Régamy through articles in the journals Arts and Art Sacré.

My day in Sint-Martens-Latem was free from controversy, however, and began in the most leisurely way of my entire Sabbatical art pilgrimage. After a lengthy drive from Lyon and a late arrival in Latem, breakfast was a relaxing affair in a room overlooking the River Leie. Cattle grazed and rabbits played in the fields stretching into the distance where the roofs of houses in the next village could just be seen. The scene was exactly as would have been painted by artists from the Sint-Martens-Latem artist's colony were it not for the presence of a large, lurid red sculpture of what appeared to be a pitbull terrier on the river bank.

On entering Sint Martinuskerk I see that the baptistery contains a Passion charcoal by Servaes. Given all that he experienced in the controversy over the Luithagen Stations, including the removal of work which was a genuine expression of his faith by the Church of which he was part, I found it profoundly moving that a work of his, in the same vein as the Luithagen Stations, should be displayed here in the church and area where his faith and art first fused.

Other work in the church by the Latem School includes a painting above the left side altar by Gustave Van de Woestijne which represents Mary giving the rosary to St. Dominic and a Sacred Heart statue in the front right aisle by George Minne. Minne’s grave with a sculpture of a grieving woman, can also be found in the churchyard.

The church has continued to commission new work and accept gifts of art. The stained glass in the church was designed by Harold Van de Perre (1978 and 1993) and includes a sequence of scenes from the Annunciation to Pentecost. The rear windows depict the glorification of Sint-Martens-Latem and the heavenly Jerusalem with the apocalyptic vision of St John, while the baptistery contains images of Mary, St Joseph; the Nativity, the Sacraments; the Eucharist, Alpha and Omega. Van de Perre’s stained glass can be found at churches or chapels in Oudenaarde, Diksmuide, Bruges, Ghent, Dendermonde, Tongeren, Nederboelare, Antwerp, Lille, Aarschot, Zwijndrecht, the Abbey of Königsmünster, Meschede (Germany) and Pietermaai Cathedral, Willemstad (Curaçao).

In 1966 the painter Maurice Schelck donated a painting, which is now above the right side altar, showing St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar. Stations of the Cross from 1983 are the work of ceramist Paul de Bruyne. Other contemporary work is by Omer Gielliet, Erna Roelens and Dick de Gryse. 

As in many Belgian churches, contemporary art is integrated with the artwork of the past in a melange of different styles which, while not specifically harmonised, nevertheless possesses integrity. It is a great encouragement to see churches, already rich in heritage, wishing to continue to develop and add to that tradition from the work of their own day and time. Here this can be seen as a continuation of the legacy created by the Latem School of artists.

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Julie Miller - Jesus In Your Eyes.