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.
