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NOTES ON SOME KEY FIGURES IN RELIGIOUS, AND MORAL, ASPECTS OF EUROPEAN ART
It is important for those Believers who have an interest in Art to be aware of certain information, and to think through its related aspects. Such discussion would have been of great help to me, certainly, when, as a young artist, I had just become a Christian.
From time to time, writers and preachers eulogize
about artists; even when Fine Art is not their specialisation. An eminent church magazine carried an
article which said that Rembrandt was a dedicated Christian of great
insight. A leading Anglican evangelist
illustrated a sermon with the point that Van Gogh was one of the finest street
preachers ever seen in London. Unless
Art Historians have recently discovered new and salient evidence, these
judgements can hardly be true.
Art History is always fallible human research and
opinion, of course!
The theologian would require that the following
points must form the basis on which our discussion proceeds:
1. All
humans are innately sinful.
2. At
some point in life they may become aware of the light of the Gospel in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
3. They
may respond, and be transformed into new people by His power.
4. They
embark on the struggle to serve Him.
5. Still
imperfect, they will fail, and may even betray Him.
6. God
may grant them repentance: receive them back into the full fellowship of His
people.
Many are indebted to the thinking of two friends:
Professor Hans Rookmaaker and Dr Francis Schaeffer. [1]
As artists constitute a fair cross-section of social
groups and psychological types, one expects religious awareness in similar
patterns to society at large - both contemporaneously and historically. Successful Fine Art is certainly not a field
from which The Faith of Christ is excluded.
Whereas in the past, patronage, always a key element
in artistic production, may have been heavily instituted in the Church that was
no guarantee of spirituality - in either the patrons or the artists themselves. In the Renaissance, the Medici family were
as corrupt as any, even though allied to the Church; and the artists, no doubt,
led far from blameless lives.
The first painter I wish to draw your attention to,
is surnamed Grünewald.
[2] He was a sixteenth century German painter; all his extant works are of
religious subjects and over a third of his output is related to the Death of
Christ. His Isenheim Altarpiece has
nine panels, and is in Colmar - in the Haut Rhine, just west of the French-German
border, and north of Mulhouse and Basel.
It was commissioned for the hospital chapel of the Antonites: an order
of monks dedicated to the care of sufferers dying from St Anthony's Fire, an
incurable skin disease or plague. The
central panel is The Crucifixion: in which Christ is seen bearing this particular illness himself - the patients would see Christ truly Human, like themselves,
and bearing their sickness as well as their sin. Of all the paintings of the Crucifixion, Grünewald's
is surely the most moving. It is
evocative of the passage in Isaiah 53: "He was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our
peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed." Even in a secular art college, I noticed it
to be held in high regard. Zeffirelli
used the painting as the basis for one of his scenes in the film "Jesus of
Nazareth".
Secondly, may I call to your attention: Albrecht
Dürer, one of the greatest of all German artists. He had personal links with Martin Lüther and Philip Melanchthon,
through Lazarus Spengler of Nürnberg.
Zwingli and Casper Nutzel were other Reformers known by Dürer. Amongst the artist's friends was Niklas
Kratzer: the Astronomer to the King of England and Professor at
Oxford, whom the artist had first met at the home of Erasmus. Dürer not only made a portrait of him in
Antwerp, but also enjoyed his discussions on Mathematics and Religion. A letter from Kratzer speaks of the
Evangelical Faith, and matters regarding scientific instruments and drawings -
of importance to his research. Here is
the letter in full [3]:
"To the honourable and accomplished Albrecht
Dürer, burgher of Nürnberg, my dear Master and Friend.
London, 24 October,
1524.
Honourable Dear Sir,
I am very glad to hear of your good health
and that of your wife. I have had Hans
Pomer staying with me in England. Now
that you are all evangelicals in Nürnberg I must write to you. God grant you grace to persevere; the
adversaries indeed are strong, but God is stronger and is wont to help the sick
who call upon him. I want you, dear
Herr Albrecht Dürer, to make a drawing for me of the instrument you saw at Herr
Pirkheimer's, wherewith they measure distances both far and wide.
You told me about it in Antwerp. Or perhaps Herr Pirkheimer would send me
the design of it - he would be doing me a favour. I also want to know how much a set of impressions of all your
prints costs, and whether anything new has come out at Nürnberg relating to my
art. I hear that our friend Hans, the
astronomer is dead. Would you write
and tell me what instruments and the like he has left and also where our Stabius'
prints and woodblocks are to be found?
Greet Herr Pirkheimer for me. I
hope to make a map of England, which is a great country and known to Ptolemy.
He would like to see it. All those who have written about England have seen no more than
a small part of it. You cannot write
me any longer through Hans P’mer.
Please send me the woodcut which represents Stabius as S. Koloman. I have nothing more to say that would
interest you, so God bless you. Given
at London, 24th October.
Your servant,
Niklas Kratzer.
Greet your wife heartily for me."
Dürer made a bookplate for Willibald Pirkheimer, and
engravings of him, and of Erasmus.
"Dürer's Apocalypse is the first considerable
work of art to strike a blow for the Reformation," wrote W. M. Conway. [4]
In it, "Babylon the Great" is Rome.
The Pope and all his ecclesiastical authorities are the victims of the
destroying angels. When Dürer visited
Venice in 1505 he found Giovanni Bellini an aged man; but still the centre of
the mature artistic life there.
Giorgione and Titian were quite young, and clearly much open to Dürer's
influence. He narrowly missed calling
on Andrea Mantegna, Bellini's brother-in-law, in Mantua, just before the
Italian master's death there. It is
the artist's letters to his friend Pirkheimer, from Venice, which give such a
detailed picture of life in the city.
The first mention of Dr Martin Lüther in Dürer's
papers is thought to be in 1520: when Dürer was 50, with eight years of life
left to him. This letter is to Georg
Spalatin, Chaplain to Duke Friedrich, Elector of Saxony, who had sent Lüther's
"little book" to the artist, via Spalatin:
"So I pray your worthiness (Spalatin) to convey
most emphatically my humble thanks to his Electoral Grace, and in all humility
to beseech his Electoral Grace to take the praiseworthy Dr Martin Lüther under
his protection for the sake of Christian truth. For that is of more importance to us than all the power and
riches of this world; because all things pass away with time, Truth alone
endures forever.
"God helping me, if ever I meet Dr Martin
Lüther, I intend to draw a careful portrait of him from life and to engrave it
on copper, for a lasting remembrance of a Christian man who helped me out of
great distress. And I beg your
worthiness to send me for my money anything new that Dr Martin may write. ...in my old age ... I am losing my sight
and freedom of hand ..." [5]
On one occasion, as Dürer was landing at Arnemuiden,
in Zeeland, a large ship collided with their boat, and a strong squall of wind
drove them out to sea. The crew had
already left; leaving only the captain and a few passengers on board. Dürer wrote: "The skipper tore his
hair and cried aloud, for all his men had landed and the ship was
unmanned. Then we were in fear and
danger, for the wind was strong and only six persons in the ship. So I spoke with the skipper that he should
take courage and have hope in God ..."
With hard work, they landed safely. [6]
It is most moving that "Christ the Man of
Sorrows", as he frequently figures in Dürer's works, brought such joy to
these men of Nürnberg.
Thirdly: Michelangelo, who was deeply influenced by
Savonarola, the great preacher of the day.
This Dominican friar was rather of the stamp of
today's Charismatics. According to
Vasari and Condivi, Savonarola was held in high regard by Michelangelo, who
even delighted to recall the exact tones of his voice; and in the great artist's
declining years - may I stress, we are looking at this late
period in his life - he venerated the Holy Scriptures and the writings of this
friar. [7]
Savonarola saw the simonical acts and corruption of
the Church in Rome, with the most critical gaze. He remained within its communion, unlike Luther; but followed
the path of its critics from within, as Petrarch before him. All three saw Rome as the Mystic, and evil Babylon, in the Book of
Revelation. To those who knew them,
Popes at this time were men, who showed no spirituality, quite the reverse: all
means were used to build private empires and follow the most carnal lives. [8]
Savonarola was born in 1452, of a noble Paduan
family, which intended him for the medical profession. At the age of twenty, he wrote the poem
"De Ruina Mundi", declaiming the evils of both the World and the
Church. He found as much evil inside
the monastic life as outside it: Aristotle was given more importance than the
Scriptures he longed to study. At
thirty-one, on the advice of his superiors, he attempted preaching: but with
total failure. For a year he worked to
improve his public speaking; and emerged a brilliant orator. With prophetic bravery he drew huge crowds
in Florence. He became Prior in
1491. Larger and larger buildings had
to be found for him to preach in; some people had to climb the outside walls to
hear. Tradesmen would show hospitality
to those arriving in the city of Florence for the preaching; trade waited for
the conclusion of his morning sermon.
Even in winter, queues of people formed to hear him. The city saw remarkable changes in
education and life-style: as a result of his addresses. The establishment sentenced him to
excommunication: he was hanged and burned.
George Eliot's "Romola" portrays him.
Schott's study on Michelangelo demonstrates the
importance of the preacher for the artist, by its eleven references to
him. He writes: "It was a period
contrasting with the usual run of events, full of sincere if gloomy enthusiasm,
and fearful of the wrath of God. ...
the so-called "piagnoni", weeping and howling penitents who predicted
the last judgement and the Second Coming, set the general tone ..." [9]
One of the artist's brothers joined Savonarola's Dominican Order. Botticelli was brought back to Christianity
by the preaching, became a follower of the great orator, and felt keenly
his demise - Vasari tells us. Fra
Bartolommeo's portrait, in the Museo San Marco of Florence, shows the preacher
in an austere profile: with an inner tranquillity, but a firm and unmitigated
doggedness. The Spanish Pope,
Alexander VI, suffered the brunt of his condemnation. In the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the figure to the right of
Jeremiah is seen as a reference to this great martyr Prior of Florence.
Another significant influence on Michelangelo's life
came when he was sixty-four, in the person of Vittoria Colonna, the Marchioness
of Pescara. His portrait sketch of her
in the British Museum is casual, unfinished, and probably dashed off in about
fifteen minutes, but it does give some useful information. Many would call it
"exploratory". There is a hint
of complicated decorative head adornment and clothing. Vittoria was aged forty-eight, when they
met. Her face will probably be
stylised, in the Mannerist sense, but it is strong and well proportioned. Her eyes are large and honest - hopefully
her left eye was not deformed, as this frequently adjusted drawing
suggests. We see a rich and noble
lady: full of, both earthly and heavenly, dignity and grace.
[10]
Vittoria Colonna is the subject of several sonnets
by the artist. In them he pays tribute
to the spiritual help she has given to him: he can now tread the path to
heaven, born anew, and a learner in the school of Christ. Justification by faith was one of the main
topics of discussion in her circles of intellectual friends - in both Naples
and Rome. [11]
Fourthly: Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto, must
be judged by his paintings, as there appear to be no written records. Eric Newton writes: "The miraculous
aspect of the Christian story had particular appeal to him. He was ... both a mystic and an optimist,
and St. Roch, the healer, was of all the saints the most congenial to
him." [12]
Saint Roch, or San Rocco, was a Thirteenth Century
Frenchman, and a local healer. In
1485, the Venetians stole his body from Montpellier, hoping that in their city
the founding of a church in his honour would stay the terrible plagues. In addition to the church, the Venetians
also established a scuola dedicated to the saint. The Venetian scuola is unique: it combined a civic charitable
institution, a club, self-help lodge, semi-religious society, guild, trade
union, insurance company, savings bank, semi-independent democracy, and cut
across keenly felt social structures.
There were six in the Grande of the city; all loyal to the Venetian
State, and wealthy through the giving of the rich and aristocratic. They had their part in the pageantry of the
city, and provided the most affluent patronage of architecture and art.
Tintoretto's production in Venice was huge: a
combination of many powerful influences, and resulting, at the time, in a
wonder of composition and colour, although the latter is now much
deteriorated. In the Scuola Grande di
San Rocco there was a sufficiently secular atmosphere to allow the artist, or
its
Committee, to be free of ecclesiastical tradition in
providing the users of the building - the sick and the poor - with a graphic
representation of the most complex, intellectual, and evangelical statement (in
the sense of stating the message of the Gospels). On walls and ceilings New Testament scenes were related to their
Old Testament counterparts in the most skilful manner.
Of "The Crucifixion", John Ruskin the
Victorian art essayist wrote, in "Stones of Venice": "... I must
leave this picture to work its will on the spectator for it is beyond all
analysis and above all praise." A
great commentary on the event; it contains about eighty figures.
The expert contributing to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica [13] writes of the building being a glorious centre to help the poor
and infirm during the threatening epidemics.
In Tintoretto's 'poem', of iconographic structure, there is the use of
religious texts in which he bears witness to his faith and produces a Bible for
the poor to read. We see his stress of
miraculous liberation from illness, hunger and thirst; of victory over evils,
such as temptation and death - through baptism, the Communion, and the victory
of Christ in the Atonement. El Greco
is his spiritual heir. "Portraits
of old men are unforgettable, with that inner spiritual force that conquers
physical decay."
We must return to the Scuola shortly.
Baron Clark writes in "Civilisation" [14],
a book based on an early television series: "Rembrandt, although in fact
he was a profound student of the classical tradition, wanted to look at each episode as if it had never been depicted before, and to try to find an
equivalent for it in his own experience.
His mind was steeped in the Bible - he knew all the stories by heart down to
the minutest detail, and, just as the early translators felt that they had to
learn Hebrew so that no fragment of the truth should escape them, so Rembrandt
made friends with the Jews in Amsterdam and frequented their synagogues in case
he should learn something that would shed more light on the early history of
the Jewish people.
" ... But it is an emotional response based on
a belief in the truth of revealed religion."
Baron Clark illustrates these words with: "The
Prodigal Son" and "Christ preaching the forgiveness of sins" (
both etchings, using ideas from Raphael compositions ), "Bathsheba",
and "The Jewish Bride".
Some art historians, and many Christians along with
them, find in Rembrandt a champion of the good; even of the Gospel. A group of Christian Art lecturers and
teachers, which I worked with in Holland, was much in agreement on
this. "The Jewish Bride",
for instance, was taken as a statement of sanctified nuptials. However, a lady of the synagogue, on seeing
this work, apparently said, "They're not Jewish!" Gary Schwartz, in his detailed study of the
artist [15], sees in this work one of the many links between the artists'
studios and the Amsterdam theatre. A
popular stage production of the day: "The royal shepherdess Aspasia, a
play with a happy ending", has Cyrus, the Persian King, falling genuinely
in love with Aspasia. He treats her
like one of the commoner women of his court, but is discreetly held at bay; and
promises to show his true love, by not fondling her until they are
married. Here we have a far more
convincing explanation of the painting.
As a protege of the Remonstrants, who had broken
away from the Calvinists, he was among the politically unacceptable. He appeared not to meet with any church
group; perhaps becoming the enemy of all.
Several of his pupils were more successful than he was, within his
lifetime. He was not totally original
- engravings, the reproductions of the time, made the paintings of Rubens and
others, available to the Dutch studios, which made good use of them.
From the vast amount of documentation available to
historians, the artist's character emerges as being hardly Christian. He was not averse to shady practices: in
the selling of works of art, but even worse, in the dismissal and incarceration
of Geertge Dircx - the second woman in his home. [16] Advice was not readily
taken, he was lazy, quarrelled constantly, and his signature, using only the
first name, was typical of his arrogance.
Past pupils were glad to leave him well alone; he was not asked to
witness important documents, give verdicts as an art expert, or be a godfather
at baptisms. His only moderate
marketing success is attributed to his innate lack of tact - something that may
have robbed us of an even greater flowering of his genius. He appears to have stolen from his daughter
Cornelia, and from the widow of his son Titus.
Gary Schwartz wrote, "To sum it up bluntly:
Rembrandt had a nasty disposition and an untrustworthy character. To compound the damage, those who were
inclined to overlook his faults out of respect for his great qualities as an
artist were as likely as not to be treated to insults and lawsuits for their
trouble. He himself sabotaged his own
career." One of his students,
Hoogstraten, later wrote of him being cursed with what the Dutch call
"onnoozel verstand" - a lack of sophistication, or perhaps a perverse
simplicity. [17] He was dismissive of
accuracy in his paintings - in favour of his own grand designs - and suffered
the consequence. In his defence, one
must point out: it is the broadness of his work which appeals to the art world
of today.
If some find his works - either in their mitigating
interpretation of subjects compared with other artists, or in their balance of
subject choice and implied insights - to be Christian, one should remember: it
is well accepted, apropos the seventeenth century, that the choice of subject
did not necessarily reflect the personal beliefs of the painter. Gary Schwartz observes that, "Some of
the vast differences between the iconographical and even stylistic approaches
in those paintings are unquestionably due to the character and interests of
those for whom they were made." [18]
We see the demands of a religious ethos: at a time when Amsterdam stood
at the confluence of the Protestant religious factions, and National and
European Politics; when all took sides, and the artists were ever finding
patronage and fortune changing.
Of Hogarth: many have noted that his paintings, and
their engravings, give a more accurate record of daily life in Eighteenth
Century London than the eminent writers of the time. He was apparently an abrasive and slightly eccentric member of
the altruistic group supporting the Foundlings Hospital. [19] His great religious statement is found in "Credulity,
Superstition, and Fanaticism" - a scene set in a contemporary church building,
with a tall pulpit ascending at the right, above the pews. The writers, close to the time of Hogarth,
subtitled the chapter devoted to this picture, "A Medley", and
offered the text: "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether
they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."
(1 John 4v1)
Such a literary style is open to misinterpretation, and includes many
allusions significant to the artist's immediate circle. By symbolism, Hogarth is expressing his
invective against: witchcraft, Judaism, Roman Catholicism and the revival
movement of the Wesleys and Whitfield; this suggests that his sympathies were
with the central strand of Anglicanism.
The pipe-smoking Muslim, who looks on with perplexity, is indicative of
the stranger's objective criticism - Hogarth can hardly have been aware of the
even more heretical beliefs, and sinister practices of Islam. It is sad that he did not, apparently,
recognise the work of the Holy Spirit in the great spiritual awakening of the
time.
One should certainly not be misled about Blake, and
I quote from Professor H. R. Rookmaaker, who in turn gives the similar opinion
of Anthony Blunt: "He also reacted strongly against the rigid sexual
morality ... and preached free love....
His own answer to (the problems of his day, as he saw them) ... was a
kind of mysticism, based on Swedenborg, neo-platonist and gnostic ideas, that
had as its basic teaching the importance of the spiritual - that there are
other spiritual beings, and that the world is greater than is acknowledged by
the rationalistic or scientific view of reality."
Which spiritual beings? we might ask.
"Deeply inbuilt into all his work is the
'hatred of reason and restraint ... Man, he says, can only attain salvation by
the full development of his impulses, and all restraint on them whether by law,
religion or moral code is wrong'." [20]
Francis Schaeffer suggested - in one of his L'Abri lectures - that
William Blake finally escaped from Swedenborgianism; and that the Book of Job
illustrations should be looked at in this light.
Of the romantic artists, John Martin took biblical
scenes to an ultimate and impressive concept; who can fail to be impressed by
his colossal perspectives - so influential in his day. He was a friend of Constable, who said he
preferred the "still small voice" to this kind of vast revelation.
[21]
Constable's own famous religious comment:
"Every step that I take and on whatever object I turn my eyes, that
sublime expression of the Scriptures, 'I am the Resurrection and the life,'
seems as if uttered near me."
Although Turner travelled to the Holy Land, he is
remembered as the man who declined Morning Prayers at his host's church in
order to follow his own desire for morning sketching. Stephen Rigaud writes about him in the manuscript memoirs of his
father: "The next day being Sunday, I accompanied our mutual friend (Rev Robert Nixon, of the Parsonage, Foots Cray, Kent) to
the parish church close by ... as for Turner ... he worshipped nature with all
her beauties; but forgot God his Creator, and disregarded all the gracious
invitations of the Gospel. On our
return from church we were grieved and hurt to find him shut up in the little
study, absorbed in his favourite pursuit, diligently painting a
water-colour."
J. M. W. Turner toured through Lancashire and Yorkshire, preparing for watercolours to be made into engraved illustrations. About the
engraving entitled “Wycliffe near Rokeby”, Turner had introduced a strong shaft of
light, and a fleeing flock of geese.
The symbolism was: “This is the place where Wycliffe was born (John
Wycliffe 1324-1384), and there is the light of the glorious reformation.” And the geese: “Oh, those – those are the
old superstitions which the genius of the Reformation is driving away.”
(Taken from the
Catalogue (p 46) for the “Turner and Dr Whitaker” exhibition at Towneley Hall,
1982)
William Holman Hunt deserves a fair
representation. Both his view of life,
and of painting, reset their course after reading, "The feelings of Mary
in Tintoretto's Annunciation", in "Modern Painters", Volume 2,
by "The Oxford Graduate" - alias John Ruskin. Hunt had been nurtured on Shelley, Lord
Byron and Keats, and saw life in the light of sensual materialism. It was a Roman Catholic student who, trying
to convert him, lent the copy of Ruskin's publication. In a letter to Ruskin, many years later, he
told how it was a voice from God; giving him a sense of shame. It seems to me that the accusations of some
writers regarding Hunt's pursuing of striking or suitable women, both as a
young man, and as an older person desiring marriage, constitute a subject
beyond our reach today. [22] Quentin
Bell, who a century later followed Ruskin as Slade Professor of Fine Art at
Oxford, feels the young Pre-Raphaelites were quite chased towards each other,
but he is far from convinced of Hunt's purity towards ladies. [23] Evelyn Waugh, who belonged to the family of
Hunt's in-laws, wrote: "We know very little of their private lives ... his
character will presumably remain enigmatic." [24]
The insights of Ruskin in the area of typological
symbolism "came as a revelation to Hunt, since it solved the artistic
problems which had been troubling him.
This symbolic mode, first of all strikes the informed spectator as a
natural language that adheres in the visual details themselves - and not as
something laid upon the objects in some artificial manner ... Typology, in other words, allows Hunt to
reconcile his love of detailed realism with his need to make painting depict
the unseen truths of the spirit".
It could "unite realism and iconography, form and content, matter
and spirit".
The above quotations are from a lecture by Dr
G.P.Landow, published in The Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library
Manchester. [25] Some of the letters
of Holman Hunt and Ruskin, are kept at the same library. Among them is the note written by Ruskin to
Hunt, arranging their crucial meeting in Venice:
"Dear
Hunt, Instead of coming to the Hotel - I will send my boat to bring you to the
Scuola di san Rocco - just knock at the door ... The boat will be at The
Albeign ... "
They entered the building; and stood before the
significant painting, reading aloud the words of the old article. Ruskin had not realised his earlier
influence on the artist; indeed, he had himself benefited from the painter's understanding. To his amazement, Hunt found that Ruskin
had lost his faith, and a long discussion followed; ten years afterwards, he
had the satisfaction of learning of its success.
Here is the key quotation from the "Modern
Painters", Volume 2: 4.264-5, which they read:
If the viewer examines the "... composition of
the picture, he will find the whole symmetry of it depending on a narrow line
of light, the edge of the carpenter's square, which connects these unused tools
with an object on top of the brickwork, a white stone, four square, the
corner-stone of the old edifice, the base of its supporting column. This, I think, sufficiently explains the
typical [typological] character of the whole.
The ruined house is the Jewish dispensation; that obscurely rising in
the dawning of the sky is the Christian; but the corner stone of the old
building remains, though the builders' tools lie idle beside it, and the stone
which the builders refused is become the Headstone of the Corner."
The biblical thinking starts with Psalm 118:22 and
23:
"The stone, which the builders refused
Is
become the head stone of the corner
This is
the LORD'S doing;
It is
marvellous in our eyes."
The importance of this Messianic prophecy is seen in
the New Testament references: firstly in Jesus's words in Matthew 21:42, Mark
12:10-11, and Luke 20:17; and secondly in the apostles' comments in Acts 4:11,
and 1 Peter 2:7.
Hunt had pointed out to his friend Millais, that all
this made one see Venetian painting "with your inner sight, and you feel
that the men who did them had been appointed by God, like old prophets, to bear
the sacred message". Hunt and
Ruskin were to feel that they carried the responsibility of the same prophetic
calling, through Art, in their own time.
In the Tintoretto painting, the tumbled-down house
represents Judaism - the Messiah, as the carpenter's son, is the new
builder. W. Holman Hunt, was himself,
to make use of the corner-stone symbol observed in Tintoretto's work, in his
painting: "Finding the Saviour in the Temple", 1860. These thoughts are expressed in Hunt's own
two volumes: "Pre-Raphaelitism and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood".
*Ruskin was the defender of W. Holman Hunt and
Turner, but was harshly critical of Victorian Art: with its
"sentimentality, excessive domesticity, shallowness, eccentricity and a
fatal ... desire of dramatic excitement". A typical example is Landseer's "The Stray Shot",
which can be seen in Bury Art Gallery: the random shot of a hunter has killed a
young doe - its fawn suckles against it, unable to realise that the mother is
dead. The Prince Regent found the
picture too disturbing, and soon parted with it. A further example would be the art of Millais: contrasted with
the best of his fellows in the famous Pre-Raphaelite collection - Manchester
City Art Gallery. Here one can view
Hunt's small version of "The Scapegoat", "The
Hireling Shepherd", "The Shadow of
Death" (another version is in the City of Leeds Art Gallery ), and his
sketch for "The Light of the World". [26]
The Lady Lever Collection, at Port Sunlight,
Birkenhead, contains:
"May Morning on Magdalen Tower". The importance to Hunt of the explanatory
texts on the frames and mounts is clearly observable in this gallery - see
"The Scapegoat".
When Ruskin wrote about "The Scapegoat",
in the "1856 Academy Notes", he quoted a sermon by the Dean of St
Paul's, the Rev Henry Melvill, a notable evangelical preacher of the time. Ruskin found much to fault in this
painting: poor composition, the inaccurate perspective and colours in the
reflection of the Moon, the distant cliffs and storm - could Hunt really paint
goats at all? But recognised the
spiritual qualities of the provocative thoughts, which saw the prefiguring of
Christ's atonement. These were days
when public opinion was still against the colours in
Constable landscapes - he was only recently
deceased. Wordsworth's observation of
1815 was apt: that original talent must create the taste by which it is to be
enjoyed.
To make his work truly authentic, Hunt had spent
several long periods painting in Palestine.
He rejected Mediaeval Symbolism for something new, and born in the
Nineteenth Century. There was
considerable antagonism to his portrayal of Christ as a working-class man - the
miners and machine operators, who were expected to be several inches shorter,
on average, than the middle classes, appreciated his work - in "The Shadow
of Death". Here were the
influences of Durer's Christ, with patched clothing. On the other hand, "The Light of the World" drew the
criticism of Carlyle; who misunderstood the portrayal of the risen and
glorified Christ, knocking to gain entrance to our lives. Hunt's approach was more in keeping with
that of the Bishop of Liverpool, at the time, Dr J. C. Ryle.
Van Gogh's life must certainly be one of the most
tragic ever to be recorded in Art History.
David Sweetman's biography of Vincent leads me to note: It is a good
thing God has forbidden us to judge each other, and has retained the right for
Himself alone. Most people know that
Vincent was, at times, deeply religious. [27]
Vincent's father was a Dutch Reformed Church Pastor:
dignified in appearance, but unimpressive in preaching. He was following in grandfather's more
successful footsteps. Among the
paternal uncles there was a Rear Admiral, and three art dealers - one a
director of the largest international gallery in Europe. There was a history of mental illness on
both sides of the family. In his late
teenage and early twenties, whilst working in the art dealing business, Vincent
experienced a conversion to zealous Christianity; rather to his father's
distress. He had long discussions of
the Biblical text with those close to him, he attended private classes, spent
many hours reading the Bible, and quoted it in his letters to Theo. He visited different kinds of fellowships,
wherever he happened to be working, and he bought a copy of Charles Haddon
Spurgeon's tract, "Little Jewels", to which he often turned for help,
over the years. When bored at work, he
would translate the New Testament into the three foreign languages he
knew. On the whole, he received help
and encouragement, throughout his life, from his friends among the clergy.
He became devoted to the poor and often showed great
kindness - even heroism. His
preaching, often heard in mission halls, is thought to have been moderate like
his father's, even confusing - certainly to his biographers (David Sweetman
does not understand the incident of the Man Born Blind, identifying it as a
parable, even with the help of a friend who is a clergyman). He had an esoteric way of linking texts
from various parts of the Bible. Like
many eminent missionaries of the time, he dressed as his flock, and took on
their living standards. We might think
here of Geraldine and Lucy Gratton Guiness trying to work in a match factory in
Bermondsey, C. T. Studd, one of the Cambridge Seven, dressing like the Chinese,
as did other members of the China Inland Mission.
Although fluent in Dutch, German, French and
English, he was unable to grapple with Latin, Greek and Mathematics, in order
to gain admission to university for theological training. Even the grass-roots missionary society to
the impoverished coal miners of the Borinage in Belgium, decided, after a time
of unpaid work, he was unsuitable.
Perhaps this event was pivotal: so that at this time (1880) he fell
completely to the spirit of bitterness: against God and the Church, warned
about in the Scriptures (Deuteronomy chapter 29, verse 18, and Hebrews chapter
12, verse 15), and opened his life to a legion of evils.
"I can do very well without God in my life and
my painting," he wrote to Theo from Arles, in 1888. His resorting to prostitutes brought
syphilis; and the drinking of absinthe, with its dangerous ingredients and
additives (the "drug problem" of his day, later outlawed by the
French government), further reduced his health. Years of drinking vast amounts of strong black coffee, eating
little or poor food, and working incessantly, compounded his suffering.
Eventually, he found the artistic community in Paris
a disturbing cockpit: "I will take myself off somewhere down south, to get
away from the sight of so many painters that disgust me as men"
(1886). Among the numerous artists
whose work and ideas influenced him, were: Jean-François Millet in particular,
Rubens, Rembrandt, Delacroix, Daumier, Doré, Van der Maaten, Meissonier, John
Everett Millais, Breton, Israëls, Jacob Maris, Madiol, Monticelli, Gauguin,
Mauve, Camille and Lucien Pissarro, Guillaumin, Seurat, Signac,
Toulouse-Lautrec (who was a particularly evil influence, and misled him about
the southern climate), Japanese print makers, the artists of the
"Graphic" and "Illustrated London News", and latterly Puvis
de Chavannes. Another crucial source
of influence in his life came through reading: he had a great love of novels,
and French poetry. His authors
included: Thomas à Kempis, John Bunyan, Dickens, George Eliot, Christina
Rossetti, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo and
Zola. The Holy Spirit warns in the New
Testament, "Bad company is the ruin of good character!" even the
company we keep through reading.
His appearance ever drew the public ridicule of the
unperceptive, and he generally failed to look after himself, for long periods,
and for various reasons. In the south
he may have found the climate depressing: in particular the mistral. The violent outbursts and mental
breakdowns, which had punctuated his life, increased in severity - latterly he
made several attempts on his life, before the tragedy of July 27th, 1890. All his artistic development and
production, took place in his last eleven years.
The final seventy days, in Auvers, saw the same
number of new paintings. Towards the
end, his grip on composition appears to have weakened.
It is remarkable: that out of horrendous suffering,
a huge, meaningful and beautiful, creative response was given to the world.
Vincent was a compulsive letter writer, mainly to
his supportive younger brother Theo.
Let him speak for himself: "I think that everything which is really
good and beautiful - of inner moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and
their works - comes from God, and all which is bad and wrong in men and their
works is not of God, and God does not approve of it."
"Nobody has understood me. They think I'm a madman because I wanted to
be a true Christian. They turned me
out like a dog, saying that I was causing a scandal, because I tried to relieve
the misery of the wretched. I don't
know what I'm going to do."
(1880, about the time of his rejection by the missionary
society.)
"Oh Millet! how he painted humanity and that
Something on High which is familiar yet solemn. And then to think in our time that that man wept when he started
painting, that Giotto and Angelico painted on their knees - Delacroix so full
of grief and feeling ... What are we impressionists to be acting like them
already?
Soiled in the struggle for life .... Who will give
back to the soul what the breath of revolutions has taken away - this is the
cry of the poet of another generation, who seemed to have a presentiment of our
weaknesses, diseases, wanderings." (1890, the last half year of his life)
At a point like this, we do well to remember that
people continually change throughout their lives. Joseph Roulin visited him in the hospital at Arles, after the
ear-severing incident, and found him praying.
In his last year, he painted and wrote about,the village church at
Auvers-sur-Oise. There might have been
some form of brain damage, or congenital illness; certainly his
"backslidden" life-style made everything far worse; some will feel
that, today, some form of exorcism, counselling or healing would have been
offered by the Church.
Georges Rouault's painting of the Crucifixion
reaches vertically from Heaven to Earth, and horizontally from East to West:
offering salvation to all.
Dali's "Crucifixion" is viewed
irreverently from above, and is named after an heretical mystic of the
sixteenth century, it does not touch the earth, and is not a Christian
approach, in any sense. Why are so
many fooled by this picture? questions Professor Rookmaaker.
Mondrian's art shows the importance of the
philosophical and religious elements, even though he was motivated by
Theosophy: a Western and individualistic form of Oriental religion, mainly
Hinduism, with an unfulfilled search for God.
He came into contact with Rudolf Steiner and the
theosophists. At a critical point met
M. H. J. Schoenmaekers - a Catholic
priest turned theosophist - whose expounding of a neo-Platonic system defined
in terms of vertical and horizontal lines of cosmic forces, and the reality of
only the three primary colours of pigment (yellow, red and blue), started
Mondrian on a course to pure abstraction: the end of the line for the Artist.
"The symbolic meaning that prevents abstract
art from being no more than aimless pattern-making is inherent in the work
itself," wrote Alan Bowness. [28] Here again is a way of investing art
with a spiritual symbolism - but of which camp?
Kandinsky had started out as a Russian Orthodox
Christian, but came, like Mondrian and Brancusi, to feel that Hinduism and
Buddhism contained the only way to spirituality.
Among the artists who were attempting to detach
their work from formal objects, the Russian - Malevich, is spoken of as a
"devout Christian" (ibid).
Apparently his last painting was called "White Cross on a White
Ground", 1918. He had reached the
end of the aesthetic road.
A story along these lines circulates about Picasso:
a lady had paid £55,000 for a work.
When she met the artist, she asked, “ What did this painting mean to you?” With little thought he replied, “£55,000.”
As we approach the present day, two artists draw our
attention to morality as an issue in Art: the first, because he produced work
for the Church; the second because within his art there is a mission, or
moralising statement. Both are important
because their work is of the highest aesthetic level and greatly admired.
We should never make a superficial assessment that a
person is deeply religious. Eric Gill
was close to the Roman Church. His art
- in particular his lettering designs, low reliefs and sculptures - is
beautiful, but his life was terrifyingly evil. Had his behaviour come to light at the time, he would have been
permanently kept from society - according to biographical articles based on his
diaries and papers in the Los Angeles Campus of the University of California.
[29]
It is not usually mentioned in biographies that
David Hockney occasionally attended the Christian Union at the Regional College
of Art Bradford, and "went forward" as a convert during a Dr Billy
Graham Crusade - relayed from Kelvin Hall Glasgow to the St Georges Hall, and
Churches, in Bradford. He looked in at open air preaching by the Christian Brethren and
Cathedral Clergy. Along with
Salvationist and Methodist influences in his home (his father had been converted through Gypsy Smith), and there were later religious contacts
in America - he heard Mahalia Jackson give a Gospel Concert at Madison Square
Garden - there were links with religion, but also, apparently, eventual rejection. His aquatint "Madison Square Garden" does not advisedly mention Mahalia, but obviously draws on this experience. The Gospel Singer shouts "Hallelujah", and is given an halo; the three men in the backing group wear ties with the words "God Is Love", and the words "Good people" are added.
It is perhaps significant that he speaks
disparagingly of the "static perspective" of the Renaissance, being
developed to portray Christ on the Cross.
I would have thought that the secular subjects, such as: Piero della
Francesca's, "Ideal Town", and Raphael's "School of
Athens", rely more on vanishing points and eye-levels, than the
out-of-town locations of "Crucifixions".
Whilst at the Bradford College, he modelled himself on
Stanley Spencer, a painter of both religious and secular subjects, as was a
later exemplar, Hogarth. Like Spencer,
Hockney carried a battered umbrella, wore a long maroon scarf, and had his
naturally black hair, cut in a fringe.
His scarf was once flown from the college flag mast by students. He arrived late at the Christian Union and
sat ostentatiously at the side of the speaker, a curate from Guiseley, and
unpacked his jam sandwiches. The
curate wanted to illustrate the great change Jesus makes in a person's life: a
man will change even his hairstyle to please a girlfriend. Hockney had done just that, only a short
while before; the blushes on his face resembled the strawberry jam. The Art College in Bradford
was housed in an ex-Methodist Chapel of some distinction; it is now the Library
of the University.
Tragically he became known as the Artist of the
Homosexual West Coast of America. The
company he kept encouraged an homosexual mission in life - expressed through
what is both implicit and explicit in his compositions. His sympathy for William Blake's views, and
Walt Whitman's poetry, is significant.
The painting he donated to his old grammar school is an extremely vulgar insult - to
those who can "read" it. The
painting appears to be on permanent loan to the Cartwright Memorial Hall,
Bradford City Art Gallery.
Many Church people may find, on reading such
summations as Peter Webb's biography [30], David Hockney's life sordid, a
potentially contaminating experience, and feel particularly angry apropos its
influence for evil; that no responsible parent would allow illustrated books of
his works in the house, and the knowledgeable Art Teacher would exercise
similar constraints in school.
It is also tragic that at least four of his friends
have died of AIDS (c. 1988); seeing them suffering must have made him pause to
consider. In a television interview
(c. 1995) he told how many of his friends had died of AIDS - something that
they had never expected to happen; they would go mad, now, if they thought
about it seriously. The sad story is not even one of loyalty in perversion; it shows, all
too well, the heartbreaks of this lifestyle.
Some of his works are obscene and contain partially hidden lavatory
graffiti; innocent people have suffered his public infatuation. What a tragedy to see such aesthetic talent
misused on a mission of this kind. Romans Chapter One has much advice on this subject.
The designs for the stained glass in Her Majesty's Royal Chapel at Windsor, brought him physically into a church building. The designs are, to me, embarrassing. Paintings of landscapes near his sister's home in East Yorkshire (UK), are quite brilliant, and in keeping with the talent he showed in student days. Like many Artists, Hockney has helped us to see special qualities in the Natural World.
The designs for the stained glass in Her Majesty's Royal Chapel at Windsor, brought him physically into a church building. The designs are, to me, embarrassing. Paintings of landscapes near his sister's home in East Yorkshire (UK), are quite brilliant, and in keeping with the talent he showed in student days. Like many Artists, Hockney has helped us to see special qualities in the Natural World.
In 2020, one of his paintings
(The Splash) was sold by its owner for £23 million.
As I suggest, his care for a
terminally ill friend in York is exemplary, and the attraction to the subtle
beauty of the Wolds’ landscapes, which were captivating for me when I was based
in Driffield, also his study of Sunflowers, indicate a respect for God’s
Creation.
Additional thoughts
The Christian Faith is much
concerned with forgiveness. I can see that God is speaking to him still,
calling him back to the truth of the Good News in Christ: following on from his
Father’s conversion under Gypsy Smith, the Methodist and Salvation Army
influences, hearing Billy Graham and Mahalia Jackson; there was the thinking about Eternity in
Malibu, and by his sister, caring for a dying friend in York, admiring the East
Yorkshire landscapes, and producing the St George’s Chapel stained glass window designs, which I find rather poor.
I apologise for the absence of discussion on the
following: the Illustrated Gospels - such as the Lindisfarne and the Book of
Kells, linear Anglo-Saxon illustrations, Giotto, the sculpture and glass of
Chartres Cathedral, Jan and Hubert van Eyck, Piero della Francesca, Fra
Angelico, El Greco, the sculptor Bernini, Gustave Doré, the fascinating
"Historiarum Veteris Testamenti Icones" by Hans Holbein the Younger, the Crucifixion and Genesis 22 depictions of Marc Chagall, recent embellishers of religious buildings - such as by Henry Moore, Graham
Sutherland, John Piper, Sir Jacob Epstein, and Stanley Spencer - and the great
expanse of Biblical Illustration by scores of other artists.
FINAL COMMENTS.
Aesthetic insight, use of media, composition and
skill, are key factors in Art; but religion, philosophy and morality cannot be
dissociated from any form of human expression.
I do not think that artistic ability is a gift of
the Holy Spirit. It may assist in the
use of a gift - as in the service of Ezekiel and Isaiah, prophets of apostolic
status. The Holy Spirit will no doubt
guide the artistic Believer in answer to prayer.
An artist may be a good practitioner or a poor one;
but this has nothing to do, necessarily, with one being a good or a bad
Christian.
Some will openly state their belief through their
art: others will powerfully show, without words, and alongside skill, that the
kingdom of God is present. Just as
much as with a Christian street cleaner, their very presence can demonstrate
the nearness of the Kingdom. Their
attainment may well give them a platform from which to witness - as in other
fields.
We are made in the likeness of GOD the Creator; it
is therefore to be expected that the greatest satisfaction will come from acts
of creativity, whether artistic or spiritual, but especially spiritual.
D. B. Wilkinson, NDD.
Revised: 04 April 2017
Copyright.
ENDNOTES.
1. Hans R.
Rookmaaker, "Modern Art and the Death of a Culture", IVP, 1970, etc.
Francis A. Schaeffer, "Art and the Bible",
etc
2. Anthony
Bertram, "Grünewald", The World Masters - New Series,
The Studio Publications, 1950
3. The
manuscript belongs to H. Lempertz of Coln,
"Literary Remains of Albrecht Dürer", by
Lord William Martin
Conway, C.U.P., London, 1889
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Rolf
Schott, "Michelangelo", translated from the German,
Thames and Hudson, 3rd impression, 1971. Girolamo Savonarola is referred to on
pages, 12, 15, 23, and 79-80
8. Cf
"Inside the Council, The Story of Vatican II," by Robert Kaiser, Rome
Correspondent of "Time" Magazine, Burns and Oates, London, 1962, for
a similar "sympathetic" critique
9. Rolf
Schott, "Michelangelo", p.23
10. Ibid.
Vittoria Colonna is referred to on pages: 10, 138, 166,
181, 192-7, 211, 227-8 and 236
The sketch is reproduced in monochrome on page 193.
11. John
S.Harford, "The Life of Michael Angelo Buonarroti ... Poems and Letters
etc." Longman, London, 1857, 2 volumes "The Sonnets of
Michelangelo", translated by Elizabeth Jennings, Allison and Busby, 1969
12. Eric
Newton, "Tintoretto", Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1952
Hans Tietze, "Tintoretto", Phaidon,
London, 1948
13.
"Encyclopaedia Britannica, Macropaedia", 15th edition, 1977
14. Kenneth
Clark,"Civilisation", BBC and John Murray, London, 7th paperback
impression 1974, p 203
15. Gary
Schwartz, "Rembrandt, his life, his paintings", Guild Publishing
London, 1985
16. Ibid, pp
194, 245ff
17. Ibid, p
363
18. Ibid, pp
358ff
19. M.
Dorothy George, "London Life in the Eighteenth Century", Penguin
Books, (1925) Reprint 1966, pp 18,54 etc
John Ireland and John Nichols, "Hogarth's
Works: with life and anecdotal descriptions of his pictures", Three
Volumes, Chatto and Windus, c 1875
20. H. R.
Rookmaaker, "Modern Art and the Death of a Culture", IVP, 1970, pp
63ff the quotation is from an article on Blake, by A. Blunt in the
"Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes", VI, 1943, and has
its own significance apropos its writer.
21. Geoffrey
Grigson writing about Francis Danby in "Modern Painters", Volume 2,
Number 1, Spring 1989, pp 88ff
22. Diana
Holman-Hunt, "My Grandfather, His Wives and Loves", Hamish Hamilton,
1969
23. Quentin
Bell, "A New and Noble School - the Pre-Raphaelites", MacDonald, 1982
24. Evelyn
Waugh, "The Only Pre-Raphaelite", Essay in "The Spectator",
quoted by Diana Holman-Hunt
25. George
P. Landow, PhD, "'Your good influence on me': the correspondence of John
Ruskin and Holman Hunt", Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library
(John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Special Collections Division,
Deansgate), Volume 59, 1976-1977, pp 100 and 104
26. Ibid.
pp95ff.
Cf George P. Landow, PhD, "William Holman
Hunt's 'The Shadow ofDeath'", Bulletin of the John Rylands
University Library, (John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Special
Collections Division, Deansgate), Volume 55, 1972, pp 197ff
27. David
Sweetman, "The Love of Many Things", A life of Vincent Van Gogh,
Septre ( Hodder and Stoughton ), 1990
28. Alan
Bowness, "Modern European Art", Thames and Hudson, 1972
29. Paul
Johnson, "Saint or Sinner" ( a review of "Eric Gill", by
Fiona MacCarthy, Faber and Faber ), "Modern Painters", Volume 2,
Number 1, Spring 1989
30. Peter
Webb, "Portrait of David Hockney", Chatto and Windus, 1988
www.jewsforjesus.org/blog/the-christ-of-marc-chagall/
www.jewsforjesus.org/blog/the-christ-of-marc-chagall/
Cf. Bobby Beswick
Cf. Graham Carver
Cf. David Hockney
Translations of the Bible: Holy Bible, Authorized
Version (KJV), Editor, John Stirling, Drawings by Horace Knowles, BFBS, 1954
and 1959; Holy Bible Uncovered, New
International Version, Bible Society, 1993
Revised 04 April 2017
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