The final circle of artistic influence found in the French Catholic Revival was that which formed around the Dominicans,
Maire-Alain Couturier and Pie-Raymond Régamey.
Thomas F. O'Meara has described this circle of influence well in
‘Modern Art and the Sacred’, an article for
Spirituality Today:
“Born in the Loire on November 15, 1897, the young Couturier was mobilized for the First World War and wounded on the front. By 1919 he was studying painting in Paris with a group centered around
Maurice Denis and then worked for the next five years in various churches in the media of fresco and stained glass. During the early 1920s he toured Italy, read
Paul Claudel, discovered
Matisse,
Picasso and
Le Corbusier, met
Jean Cocteau at the house of the
Maritains, and worked for Action Française. His interior odyssey, however, moved within not only art but within Christianity, drawing him to religious life, first as a Benedictine oblate and then as a Dominican, receiving the habit in 1925. He speaks of "that day in 1925 when freedom entered into my life, having the face of love."
In the years immediately before and after his ordination, Couturier's superiors, far from discouraging his art, offered some commissions: a novitiate chapel, the chapel of the Dominicans at Oslo, frescoes for the private chapel in Santa Sabina (Rome) of the Master General in 1932. Assigned to a priory in Paris, even while working on churches and windows up through 1937, Couturier assumed a widening ministry of preaching and spiritual direction.
Simone Weil wrote her Letter to a Religious to the Dominican at the suggestion of Maritain in 1942 when both Weil and Couturier were in the United States.”
“Even at the end of the nineteenth century, with the work of
Cézanne and
Monet scarcely absorbed, young artists pondered the sad, derivative state of religious art.
Joseph Pichard's L'Art sacré moderne chronicles the new atmosphere which emerged from 1890 to 1914, and which was then taken up again after World War 1, fostering the first attempts at a modern church architecture in Europe. Pichard himself helped to found conferences and then a periodical which was to exercise particular influence. Within eighteen months of its inception, however, the journal
L'Art sacré was taken over by the publishing house of Cerf which confided its direction to Régamey and Couturier.”
“Régamey writes: “From the time of his training at the Ateliers d'Art Sacré under Denis and
Desvallières, Pere Couturier's greatest ambition was to revive Christian art by appealing to the independent masters of his time. He discussed the project many times between 1932 and 1935 with the Abbé Devémy who was chaplain at the sanatorium in Assy, opposite Mont Blanc. In 1936, his friend Jean Hébert-Stevens, who worked in glass spoke about the project to Bonnard, who was very interested; at this time, however, no opportunity came to make the idea materialize. In 1938, Hébert-Stevens suggested to Couturier that he speak to Braque about the idea.
In 1936 Abbe Devémy thought of commissioning artists who were not "third-rate" for a church in an area near the Alps to serve sanatorium patients. In 1939 Couturier stopped to visit his friend and was asked to collaborate in planning "Our Lady of All Graces." The project began by acquiring a window designed by
Rouault. The war years intervened, with meetings with
Maurois,
Focillon,
Dali,
Stravinsky, and conversations with
Léger and
Chagall on the prospect of collaboration at Assy.”
“Early in 1940 the French Dominican arrived in New York to preach a series of Lenten Conferences in French at St. Vincent de Paul, and then to visit Canada. The war trapped him in North America: lecturing in Canada, meeting artists such as Salvador Dali, painting a
Way of the Cross for the Dominican Sisters of Elkins Park, serving as chaplain to French pilots in Jacksonville, Florida.
Couturier returned to France in August 1945, a changed man, deepened by his exile, filled with new perspectives for art and faith. His activity gave expression to more striking ideas about how the church, in its decoration and liturgy, should relate to modern painting, sculpture, design and architecture.”
“By the time of his return to France, it was clear to Couturier that the resurrection of religious art through an incarnation with modernity would never be accomplished by lesser talents, a quasi-modern religious art, and the institutional church. He had conceived the bold idea of involving the great figures of the twentieth century in aspects of church decoration -- even if they were fallen away from, or indifferent to, the church.”
“In a revolutionary move, Couturier attracted for the decoration of the new church of
Assy in the south of France Léger,
Braque, Matisse, Chagall,
Lipchitz and others. Assy was consecrated in June, 1950. By then Couturier was corresponding with Matisse over the chapel for the Dominican cloistered nuns at
Vence.”
“Three great churches were touched by the Dominican's statement that modern art can express the sacred in line and color: (1) Matisse's chapel for the Dominican sisters at Vence, (2) the windows and mosaic by Léger and
Bazaine at Audincourt, (3) and what we might call the religious art gallery of Assy.”
“Conservative reactions both in France and in Rome became increasingly vocal. In the years which followed, Régamey and Couturier worked on a dual front, explaining and further encouraging the breakthrough of twentieth century art in the decoration of Assy, Vence and Audincourt and defending the very possibility of this new incarnation to the intégristes and to Rome. After an operation, Couturier never fully recovered his health and died in early 1954.”
“What is the lesson of the Assy church where the tapestry backdrop for the sanctuary was done by Lurcat, the facade mosaic by Léger, the tabernacle door by Braque, windows by Rouault, stained glass and a ceramic mural by Chagall? Couturier answered: for Christian art to exist at all, "each generation must appeal to the masters of living art, and today those masters come first from secular art ... there are no dead masters in art." It is not sensationalism which turns the commissions away from the ateliers of the academy or of the hierarchy, but the search for those individuals in whom, in our times (no others exist), art is living. You must employ life where you find it. ‘Let the dead bury the dead’. Devémy, the pastor of Assy observed. Assy is not a masterpiece - it lacks rigor in organization - but as a cultural-theological statement it is of the greatest import.”
Despite the strength of the conservative reactions to their work and writings, Régamey and Couturier were not alone in their views or their initiatives. For example, Patricia Grzonka writes in
‘Better Bodies’, an article for
Freize, of “Vienna’s Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, founded in 1954 and directed and programmed by Monsignor Otto Mauer, a Catholic priest” was, “in the 50s and 60s, the most important centre for contemporary art … hosting “art movements from
Informel and
Tachism in the 50s to the
happenings of the 60s.” Grzonka considers this an unusual development writing that: “Austria had a peculiar way of coming to terms with the present through the paradigms of the past. Only in Austria, for instance, could an avant-garde gallery have been funded by the Catholic church.”
Arnulf Rainer was one of the artists supported by Mauer and, in an interview published as ‘Elf Antworten auf Elf Fragen' (in Otto Breicha ed.,
Arnulf Rainer Hirndrang, Salzburg 1980), said:
"I had many discussions with him [Mauer] at that time and it was he who made it clear to me that connections between religion and artistic creativity, as I saw them, weren't as peculiar as they seemed. He felt that the same way himself about them ... He visited me in my studio, looked at my pictures, chose and bought two of them. And then he made me an offer to have an exhibition in his gallery. I became interested. In those days I had a very particular and rather extreme profile as an artist. It was a daring thing to mount an exhibition of my work. I was amazed how spiritually involved Mauer was; as far as he was concerned, there was no difficulty in relating religion to modern art, which was prevalent at that time in Christian circles. By contrast Mauer seemed shaped by his contact with this form of art. He certainly wasn't a ‘progressive' priest. Theologically he was more traditionally orientated. But he was an incredibly intelligent and articulate man with an extraordinary wide horizon. He was capable of relating things to each other, which was certainly not an everyday achievement. He had important functions in the Church, though there were wide circles within the Catholic world, which absolutely rejected him and, in fact, actually saw in him a particular sort of demon. This was especially because of his contacts with artists. As far as we were concerned he emanated great spirituality as well as being a totally charismatic person. He used to preach sermons which were real works of art. And he gave himself up so utterly to his theme that he literally swayed in ecstasy in the pulpit. He fascinated all of us, just as great artists fascinate.”
The influence of his contact with Mauer can also be seen in the way in which Rainer relates his overpaintings to his interest in mysticism, non-verbal prayer and the teachings of
St John of the Cross:
“I realised that there wasn't only that sort of religious art, as in the nineteenth century, where a figure of Christ or a Madonna was created in the greatest detail; there is also an overall religious ‘seeing', in which one only aims for the general structures of the imagination. Through it I have come more and more to paintings in dark colours - of course not totally black. There is always a small bit of light, mostly at the edge or in a corner. At the beginning I didn't want to do any ‘overpaintings'. I wanted to paint specific subjects. But it was always black, black and black again which came to me. I just couldn't do anything else. I had no idea beforehand that it would turn out like this. More than once, I tried to break away, but it was impossible. I realised that the quality and truth of the picture only grew as it became darker and darker.”
In the interview Rainer reveals what Christ means to him and goes on to describe his first picture of Christ:
“It started as a black figural-structure. I attempted to make a crucified figure. At the start it was a kind of cubic stretch-figure. But it wasn't successful. It was a stylistic platitude. So I went on painting and the figure of Christ became a cross. And finally, this cross became veiled by a dark cloud. But I am quite satisfied that something is still perceptible. It doesn't even have to be consciously perceptible. He [Christ] withdraws when we attempt to represent him. Perhaps he is there in an intimation, in an extinguished, fragmentary way. In certain signs. And yet he even withdraws there. As soon as one thoughtlessly repeats it.”
In the UK,
Walter Hussey, as noted in his
Pallant House biography, “was responsible for commissioning some iconic works of twentieth century music and visual art, first as Vicar of
St Matthew's Church Northampton and subsequently as Dean of
Chichester Cathedral, from likes of
William Albright,
Leonard Bernstein,
Benjamin Britten,
Henry Moore,
Graham Sutherland and
William Walton”:
“It was while he was Vicar of St Matthew's that Hussey decided to celebrate the church's 50th anniversary by organising a musical concert. Seizing the opportunity given by CEMA (Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts), the forerunner of the Arts Council, he invited the BBC Symphony Orchestra to play and commissioned 'Rejoice in the Lamb' from Benjamin Britten. Despite a great many obstacles and in the face of reactionary opposition his tenacity of vision enabled him to get his way. He went on to organise a concert by the great soprano Kirsten Flagsted, and commission Henry Moore's 'Madonna and Child' sculpture, which was unveiled in February 1944, a 'Litany and Anthem for St Matthew's Day' from W.H Auden in 1945, Graham Sutherland's 'Crucifixion' in 1947 and in 1949 'The Outer Planet' from the poet Norman Nicholson.”
“He then became Dean of Chichester Cathedral, an appointment that may well have been influenced by the fact that the Bishop,
Dr George Bell, was also a great patron of the arts, and obviously made the appointment with a view to preserving the artistic continuity. Bishop Bell retired in 1958, but Hussey remained as Dean until his retirement in 1977.”
“After he arrived in Chichester Hussey gave further commissions to contemporary artists and composers, 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." In 1961 Sutherland painted an altarpiece for the Chapel of St Mary Magdalen. Hussey later approached Leonard Bernstein, who he had briefly met in New York, to compose a piece of music for the Cathedral, the result being the 'Chichester Psalms' (1965), which were set to the original Hebrew. The following year
John Piper was approached to design a Tapestry for the screen behind the High Altar. Other commissions include furnishings by the sculptor
Geoffrey Clarke, an altar frontal by
Cecil Collins, a set of Copes by
Ceri Richards and a stained glass window by Marc Chagall.
Kenneth Clark memorably described him as 'the last great patron of art in the Church of England.'”
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Leonard Bernstein -
Chichester Psalms - Adonai ro-i.
