Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Latest ArtWay report

My new Church of the Month report for ArtWay focuses on St Mary the Virgin, Downe. Evie Hone’s Crucifixion at Downe, installed in 1950, is a bold and simple design with the crucified Christ on a red cross in the central light, his arms and those of the cross extending into the two side lights where Mary and John are located.

This Church of the Month report follows on from others about Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chelmsford Cathedral, Lumen, Notre Dame du Léman, Romont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem and St Aidan of Lindisfarne, 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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Clannad - In A Lifetime.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Eton College Chapel

Reproduced by permission of the Provost and Fellows of Eton College.

Due to building work public visits to Eton College have not been possible during 2014, so I was grateful to the Provost for allowing a private visit to see the College Chapel and its modern windows by Evie Hone and John Piper. Verger Tom Oakshott introduced me to the space and, despite being relatively new to the post, provided a wealth of information.

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 inserted 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.

Patrick Reyntiens wrote in The Technique of Stained Glass that Hone’s window was, "a dramatic breakthrough ... Which may look historic now but when it was done it proved to be the herald of a new period of co-operation between the eye of the painter and the eye of the artist in stained glass." He also suggested that it was “John Piper's interest in stained glass, following on from the remarkable achievement of Evie Hone, at Eton College Chapel in 1948-49, that started the medium towards the sensibility of the painter."

In Hone’s work, this painterly sensibility derived from the dual influences of Albert Gleizes and Georges Rouault. Despite his influence on Jacques Maritain and the ideas Maritain developed in Art and Scholasticism, the work of Georges Rouault had not been well received by the Roman Catholic Church and until 1950, when five windows based on his designs were included among the many artworks commissioned through Père Couturier for Notre-Dame-de-Toute-Grâce at Assy, he received no church commissions. One incident demonstrating the continuing controversy caused by his work concerned a painting Christ in His Passion which was presented to the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin in 1942 by the Friends of the National Collections of Ireland but was rejected on the grounds that it was ‘offensive to Christian sentiment’ despite its creator being widely recognised as the foremost Catholic artist of the twentieth century.

Evie Hone was among those who defended Rouault’s work in this controversy. In the stained glass that she increasingly produced from the 1930s onwards, Hone has been said to have passed from the influence of Albert Gleizes, her teacher of many years, to “the rugged, emotional, representational style of Rouault’s paintings” (Bruce Arnold, Mainie Jellett and the Modern Movement in Ireland). However, what Hone and her close friend Mainie Jellett (both students of Gleizes) appreciated about the work of Rouault involved continuity with the teachings of Gleizes. Jellett spoke of the “harmonic quality of colour” in Rouault’s work with his use of “velvety black lines” (often compared to the lead lines of stained glass) which are “used to emphasise the rhythm of the form.” She perceived “a close link with primitive Christian art and Celtic Christian art,” a link which was also of importance to Hone who had, on other occasions, related “her sense of rhythm and colour to her Irish Celtic roots.” (Bruce Adams, Rustic Cubism)

Hone’s design for the window takes a layered approach with a lower tier Last Supper scene flanked by the sacrifices of Melchizedek and Abraham below an upper tier Crucifixion scene flanked by worshippers on the surrounding hillsides and finally a sequence of ten Christian symbols. While each band of images is complete in itself, the lower tier precedes the upper tier visually and within the narrative. This design provides a sense of structure and order conveying a sense of stillness and peace despite the strength of colour and emotion contained within.

The centre for this expression of emotive colour is the crucifixion scene which revisits that found at St Mary’s Downe. The window at Downe was installed in 1950 and has three lights containing the crucified Christ, Mary and St John with related symbols above, as here. Its effect at Downe is quite different, however. There the image dominates the church as the primary focus within a smaller space and being closer and larger to the viewer, the emotive power of its colour and design is more apparent. Here, the image is within a larger scheme and at a greater remove reducing the visceral emotive impact but gaining a sense of story and sequence that is both immediate (the Passion narrative) and which also links to past and future (the Old Testament images in the lower tier and the Revelation-linked images of worshippers in the upper tier).

Piper and Reyntiens had considerable opportunity to study Hone’s design as they were commissioned to create eight windows in the Chapel; the subjects of these being: the Miraculous Draft of Fishes, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, the Stilling of the Waters, the Raising of Lazarus, the Light Under a Bushel, the House Built on the Rock, the Lost Sheep, and the Sower.

In the design of their own windows they made a number of clever and sensitive connections to the east window. The deep reds and blues of their first two windows mirror the colours which predominate in the Hone window. As we noted, the Hone window is designed with an early and concluding scene from the narrative. Piper and Reyntiens structure their windows in the same way. So, in the Light Under a Bushel, we have below the light hidden and above the light revealed; in the House Built on the Rock, the scene below is the house which was destroyed while above is the house that stood firm. This pattern continues throughout the sequence of parables and miracles.

As there is no resurrection image at the east end of the Chapel (the tapestry below the window depicting the Nativity), Piper and Reyntiens begin their sequence of miracles with the Raising of Lazarus. Each of their miracle and parable windows are also paired across the nave. So, light hidden and revealed in the Light Under a Bushel is contrasted with death and resurrection in the Raising of Lazarus; the Stilling of the Waters is linked with the House on the Rock; the Lost Sheep with the Feeding of the Five Thousand (the significance of the few, rather than the many); and the Sower with the Miraculous Draft of Fishes (scarcity and abundance).

Hone’s “earlier abstract work helped her create a newly simplified style of stained glass where superfluous detail was removed and pure colors and shapes soared” (Marianne Hartigan in When Time Began To Rant and Rage). It is this that we see continued and developed in the work of Piper and Reyntiens. Hitherto, Reyntiens writes, ‘the craft had been dominated by line rather than by blocks of colour.’ We were conscious, he says, ‘of bringing stained-glass into the modern movement of painting and design and in so doing bringing the eye of the painter to the medium.’

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Maurice Duruflé - Libera Me.



Sabbatical art pilgrimage: St Mary the Virgin, Downe

  

  

  
The post-war rebuilding of Britain resulted in a significant programme of new church builds with many providing opportunities for contemporary artists to gain commissions. It wasn't only new builds, however, which provided scope for the commissioning of modern art.

At St Mary the Virgin, Downe the East window was completely destroyed when in August 1944 a bomb landed on the opposite side of High Elms Road. After the war the Church applied to the War Damage Commission for funds to install a new East window and consulted with Robin Darwin, Principal of the Royal College of Art as to suitable artists to invite to submit designs. Darwin advised throughout the selection process, also garnering views from Sir Jasper Ridley, a trustee of the Tate Gallery. The result was the award of the commission to Evie Hone.

Evie Hone's masterpiece is generally thought to be her windows for Eton College Chapel of which Patrick Reyntiens wrote that it was, "a dramatic breakthrough ... Which may look historic now but when it was done it proved to be the herald of a new period of co-operation between the eye of the painter and the eye of the artist in stained glass." Apart from these windows and the window at Downe there is little opportunity to view her work in England, as she was, together with her friend Mainie Jellett, a pioneer of modern art in Ireland. Patrick Pollen wrote that Hone had "done much to bridge the gap here in Ireland between a slow moving public taste and the revolutionary ideas of the continental schools."

For two artists who were also committed Christians, this may seem an unusual or unlikely place to choose to be. As David Morgan has written, "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." However, despite this dominant narrative, some of the leading artists in France were also committed Christians exploring ways of reviving sacred art. It was to France that Hone and Jellett went in order to study art. Again this was unusual, as they were both at that time Church of Ireland (Hone later became a Roman Catholic) while Albert Gleizes, who became their tutor, was in the process of returning to the Catholicism of his youth.

Reflecting on time spent with Gleizes, Hone spoke of: "A direction to the spirit to contemplate the divine. Author of the rhythm and form of all created life by composition of form and colour, by a circular movement symbolic of eternity, by a sublimity of form, by simplicity and severity of colour - an idea almost rediscovered by the cubist painters."

Gleizes wrote of the three "discarding the subject," by which he means the reproduction using perspective of classical drawings and, by familiarity with the "laws that govern painting" creating images which are "skillfully blended from the different suggestions that arise in the linear organisation of a composition."

Bruce Arnold writes that, in her stained glass work, "Evie could be said to have passed from Gleizes to the rugged, emotional, representational style of [Georges] Rouault's painting." JamesWhite suggests that "it is possible to consider that Rouault's drawings and paintings were responsible for awakening in her the realisation that in stained glass lay the possibility of combining formal statements of religious art with the underlying abstract design she desired to incorporate in her work." C.P.Curran suggests that "To Gleizes vocabulary and method, she added a whole language and a less exclusive practice."

The Crucifixion at Downe is a bold and simple design with the crucified Christ on a red cross in the central light, his arms and those of the cross extend into the two side lights where Mary and John are located. Above, are an unusual choice of symbols relating to the Passion narrative. Blues predominate in the background with the red of the cross repeated in St John’s robe and greens used to further delineate St John and Mary.

Unlike other Irish stained glass artists of her time, such as Harry Clarke and Michael Healy, Hone relies on the essential brilliance of stained glass to create her effects without use of techniques – like aciding in pinpoints - to create irradiation. Within the simplicity of the design, her focus is on the essential components of harmonising bold colours and the linked rhythms of interlocking lead lines. As White suggests, the necessary data is ordered to the available space without irrelevant decoration distracting from her central powerful focus. As the brief from the Parish had stated that the design “should aim at simplicity, and there should be an avoidance of any mass of detail,” it is clear that they found the right artist for this commission.  

The impact is apparent on entry as the window dominates the interior. I arrived late and flustered after losing my way in torrential rain to be met by Sue King, a patient, understanding and very informative churchwarden. Her papers provided the background to the commission as well as reflections on Evie Hone’s work and legacy.

Sue pointed out Robin Darwin’s wry comment about artist expenses in his correspondence over the commission: “If all artists were paid by a grateful public for the cost of painting pictures, which they fail to sell, they would have a fine time, but the country would rapidly go bankrupt.” He recommended that the unsuccessful artists, including Leonard Evetts and Lawrence Lee, who had created designs for what was essentially an informal competition, were paid £2.00 in expenses. As one who tries to ensure, through my work with commission4mission, that artists are paid for design work, I was relieved to see that Darwin’s comment didn’t lead to these artists being completely out of pocket.  

  

Sue also highlighted other twentieth century glass found in the church; the work of Keith and Freda Coleborn, both well regarded artists, village residents and husband and wife. Freda’s panel is a copy of one in the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Dijon which has been placed in a window in the north wall while Keith has two original designs commemorating members of the Knox-Johnston family. His Tree of Jesse shows Jesse, the father of David, at the bottom of his family tree which leads up, through all the human ancestors of Christ to Him and His monogram at the top, while the other window commemorates the first solo round the world voyage under sail as undertaken by Robin Knox-Johnston in ‘Suhaili.’

There is clearly much more to see and explore in Downe, not least its connections with Charles Darwin, but today, after a late arrival and a schedule that takes me next to Tudeley and windows by Marc Chagall, there is only time for a quick meal in the Queen’s Head, opposite the churchyard, before moving on through the rain. I carry with me, in my mind’s eye, the image of Hone’s imposing, expressive Christ, light streaming into life through his loving sacrifice.

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Iona - Strength.