Book Review - Church and Patronage in 20th Century Britain: Walter Hussey and the Arts

Oxford Academic Journals has just published my latest book review in The Journal of Theological Studies:

Church and Patronage in 20th Century Britain: Walter Hussey and the Arts. By Peter Webster.

Peter Webster is an historian based in London and Chichester, with interests in the history of Christianity in twentieth century Britain, particularly the relation of church, law and state, the religious arts, and evangelicalism.

"In this book Peter Webster reviews Hussey's work as a patron between 1943 and 1978, seeking to place Hussey in his theological, cultural and aesthetic context. As such, Hussey is a lens through which Webster views relationships between patrons and artists in the twentieth century and explores ways in which the Church of England met, resisted and negotiated with forces of cultural change in the arts and in the religious life of the nation."

My earlier book reviews for the Journal of Theological Studies are:

• The Sacred Community: Art, Sacrament, and the People of God. By David Jasper.
• Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty. By Cecilia González-Andrieu.
• Wording a Radiance: Parting Conversations on God and the Church. By Daniel W. Hardy with Deborah Hardy Ford, Peter Ochs, and David F. Ford.
• Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination. By Malcolm Guite.

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Malcolm Guite - Singing Bowl.

The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe

My most recent book review has been published by ArtWay and is of Adrian Barlow's Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe (Lutterworth Press 2018).

'Kempe offers a radical revaluation of the life, work and reputation of Charles Eamer Kempe (1837–1907), one of the most remarkable and influential figures in late Victorian and Edwardian church art. Kempe's name became synonymous with a distinctive style of stained glass, furnishing and decoration deriving from late mediaeval and early Renaissance models. To this day, his hand can be seen in churches and cathedrals worldwide.

Drawing on newly available archive material, Adrian Barlow evaluates Kempe's achievement in creating a Studio or School of artists and craftsmen who interpreted his designs and remained fiercely loyal to his aesthetic and religious ideals. He assesses his legacy and reputation today, as well as exploring his networks of patrons and influence, which stretched from the Royal Family and the Church of England hierarchy to the literary and artistic beau monde. These networks intersected at Kempe's stunning Sussex country house, Old Place, his 'Palace of Art'. Created to embody his ideals of beauty and history, it holds the key to understanding his contradictory personality, his public and private faces.'

In the review, I state that: 'Kempe’s is a fascinating story of a self-made man in tune with his own era who built a brand able to endure for sixty years. In common with A.W.N. Pugin, William Morris and G.F. Watts, he also created a home which fully expressed his personal inspiration and vision and was considered a masterpiece in its day. In one volume Barlow tells Kempe’s story and that of his collaborators, assesses key works and considers Kempe’s legacy and reputation. He brings Kempe’s faith-full practice to life while arguing for the ongoing significance of work based on an unchanging belief that past styles of faith were the best expression for contemporary faith.'

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Edward Elgar - The Spirit Of The Lord.

Rupert Loydell poetry reading

Rupert Loydell has some new poems in the March edition of Otata magazine including: Either a Snarl or a Smile: A triptych for Francis Bacon.

Rupert Loydell will read his own and others’ Francis Bacon-related poems, plus poems from his new collection ‘Dear Mary’ at St Stephen Walbrook on Monday 13 March from 6.30pm as part of the Crucifixions: Francis Bacon exhibition programme.

'Rupert Loydell has produced consistently interesting and multi-dimensional work for over 25 years now, combining heterodox strands of art, faith, postmodernism, criticism, love of music, wit and humour.’ Jay Ramsay

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Leonard Cohen - Amen.

St Martin-in-the-Fields Lent Programme 2017 – Abraham: A Journey Through Lent

This year at St Martin-in-the-Fields, using Dr Meg Warner as our guide, we will be journeying with Abraham, through his challenges, doubts, false turns and unbelievable promises. Our Lent Study will begin on Wednesday 8 March with an informal Eucharist in which Meg Warner will be joining us to introduce her book, Abraham: A Journey through Lent, followed by simple Lenten supper and study groups.
The cost of the course is £15 which includes a copy of the book and the study materials (or £8 if you already have the book). Join us for the 6 week programme: March 8, 15, 22, 29, April 5, 12.

Week one – An Introduction with Meg Warner
8 March: The Call: Genesis 12.1-18 (Chapter 1)

Week two
15 March: The Promise: Genesis 15 (Chapter 2)

Week three
22 March: The Visitors: Genesis 18.1-15 (Chapter 3)

Week four
29 March: The ‘Other': Genesis 21.1-21 (Chapter 4)

Week five
5 April: The Choice: Genesis 22.1-19 (Chapter 5)

Week six
12 April: The Legacy: Genesis 26 (Chapter 6)

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John Coltrane - Spiritual.

Discover & explore: George Croly

Yesterday's Discover & explore service at St Stephen Walbrook, explored poetry through the writings of George Croly. The service featured the Choral Scholars of St Martin-in-the-Fields singing Why fumeth in fight by Tallis, La blanche neige by Poulenc, My soul there is a country by Parry and My lovely one by Finzi. We also sang Spirit of God, who dwells within my heart and Lord, who hast sought us out, unsought, both written by Croly.

The next Discover & explore service is on Monday 27 February at 1.10pm when, together with the Choral Scholars, I will explore the theme of insurance through the life of George Griffin Stonestreet.

The Irish poet, novelist, historian and Anglican priest, George Croly, was rector of St Stephen Walbrook from 1835 until his death in 1860. Croly’s writing ranged across theatre, poetry, reviews, politics and theology. From 1810 he had a career in London as a reviewer and journalist with The Times and Blackwood's Magazine, among other. His best known works novels include Salathiel and Marston. His main contribution to theology was an exposition of the Apocalypse. His hymns included Spirit of God, descend upon my heart, written in 1854:

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart,
wean it from earth, through all its pulses move;
stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art,
and make me love thee as I ought to love.

Charlotte and Anne Brontë visited St Stephen's Walbrook, on their first visit to London, hoping to hear Croly preach, as he was by then a famous author and cleric. Unfortunately, he was absent that Sunday. Croly was buried at St Stephen Walbrook and memorials to him, his wife, daughter and eldest son can found here.

Our service included the reading of Croly's poem 'The Trumpet shall sound'

Be still, be still, impatient soul, rest, weary mourner, rest;
The trump shall sound, the thunder roll, and heaving earth’s cold breast
Call from their stern and silent bed, the millions of the ransomed dead.
The hour is coming, when the sun at once shall pass away:
Eclipsed before a mightier one, the light of Heaven’s pure day;
A splendour, high above all height, sun of a morn that knows no night.
Yet, ere that hour, Almighty King, thy vials shall be poured;
Famine the heart of nations wring, and death unsheathe the sword;
And thrones, to flee that hour of doom, call to the mountains and the tomb.
Lord, like thine angels make us here a spirit and a flame;
Teach us, in holy faith and fear, to triumph in thy name.
Cling to the cross, and plead thy love, and join thee with thy saints above.

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George Croly - Spirit Of God, Descend Upon My Heart.

Eric Newton - artist, art historian and critic

Eric Newton was an artist, art historian and critic. 'He became the full-time art critic for the Manchester Guardian, and after a spell at theSunday Times (1947-1951), he returned to the Guardian in 1956 and remained there until his death. He promoted the work of among others Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore, whom he counted a personal friend. His European Painting and Sculpture (1941) remained a standard text into the 60s, as did War through Artists' Eyes (1945). He was actively engaged in the renaissance in the arts that characterised the post-war years in Britain. He became a household name in Britain in the 1950s, largely through BBC radio talks and The Critics.' 

'He produced several books in addition to his newspaper and radio work and created mosaics for Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd, mostly on a religious theme.' These include: St John the Baptist, Rochdale; Sacred Heart Church, Hillsborough; Our Lady and St Edward, RC Church, Chiswick; Honan Chapel, Cork; Royal Hospital School Chapel, Holbrook; and Saint Colmcille's Church, East Belfast. 

'He was a man of profound religious convictions' whose 'last work before his sudden death in 1965' was The Christian Faith in Art, a history of religious art and its impact on the spiritual development of Western civilisation. In this book, co-written with William Neil, he explores the centuries-long interaction between Christianity and all forms of art: “For Christian faith, unlike a jug, has no visual existence…For the artist, in such a world, only symbolism will serve.” As a result, he viewed Expressionism - 'the art of discovering a visual equivalent for the emotions' -  as the necessary term for Christian art to exist at all. In the twentieth century, it was only through Expressionism that it became possible for the artist, if he or she wished to do so, 'to tackle the unseeen or the supernatural, to work by symbol instead of description, to return, in fact, to the point where Blake had closed his eyes to the world of phenomena and drawn on his imagination to fill the gap, or where the early Pre-Raphaelites had used their eyes in order to select from what they saw only what would intensify the picture's meaning.'   

Here is an excerpt from his Meaning of Beauty, in which he explores our struggle to capture the essence of beauty:

'Beauty, let us say, is a recognisable quality; yet each person would draw up a different list of beautiful objects and give them different æsthetic indices. All that can be agreed upon is the nature of each man's reaction to his own list. In each case the sensation is not merely pleasurable, but pleasurable in the same way, and the sensation produced by objects at the top of the list is an intense one. A's list may be headed by the Sistine Madonna, while B's starts with the Blue Danube waltz - objects so dissimilar that no scientific method could possibly isolate, still less describe, the common factor which A and B would agree to call 'beauty'. And yet the sensations inspired by them have at least the common factors of pleasure and intensity. What kind of pleasure? And why so intense? Reasonable questions surely, yet the philosopher who attempts to answer them is playing a game of chess against desperate odds. Let him screw up his courage to move a single pawn, and he finds himself committed to a battle from which no one has yet emerged victorious. He is engaged - poor soul - in a struggle with his Creator, and his only weapons are words.'

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Tribe of Judah - No One.