Beyond Belief
Luchia Lee-Howell
Introduction
Religion[1]
involves worship of an icon or invisible power, and its impulse is an essential
driver in classical decorum in art. To some extent, this has engendered
figurative art, presumes a positivistic audience and a rational mode of
beholding, and depiction of appropriate religious symbols.[2] [3] The parameters of a new conversation could be
fruitfully investigated. Regarding theologians in modern art, Thiessen pointed
out two who addressed its continuing religious relevance. Paul Tillich and
Horst Schwebel[4]
respectively explicitly championed expressionism and abstraction. Of course, other
styles of modern art should also be susceptible to their diagnoses. A different
question, however, is whether church patronage accepts modern artists who do
not adapt to religious connotation.[5] Irish modern art, has inevitably and intensively
interacted with international art trends, and has left the representational in
talking about the religious theme. In this paper, I examine the work of four
artists to illustrate this progressive shifting of religious treatment in Irish
art over the 20th century.
I select Aloysius O'Kelly (1853-1936), Mainie
Jellett (1897-1944), Francis Bacon (1909-1992) and Patrick Scott (1921-2014) – four
artists whose work together spans the late 19th to 20th
centuries. Each, in his or her own way, illustrates the theological principles
of modern thinkers about art. O’Kelly
chooses direct representation of traditional religious subjects, touching upon
the intersection of religion and politics. Jellett’s deep faith gives a cubist
treatment of religious themes, loosening the bonds with pictorial art. Bacon’s
raw, potent immediacy exemplifies Shwebel’s “visual ecstasy” beyond his
occasional use of religious subjects and titles; and much of Scott’s oeuvre
exemplifies modern Protestant church décor as well as a globalizing reflection
of Buddhist ideals.
Aloysius O’Kelly
(1853-1936)
Perhaps one motivation for situating Mass in a Connemara
Cabin (The Stations) in
Connemara is that O’Kelly was born there.
The painting depicts the social and
political effect of the Penal Laws.[6]
O’Sullivan points out that in this history painting the moment captured is not
the consecration of the Eucharist or religious apex, but ‘the pregnant moment’ – to wit, the final blessing.[7]
So the single image encapsulates the past and simultaneously implies the
future. The young priest’s top hat is symbolic of the involvement of political
power. Another exemplary painting is A Breton Pardon, (about 1905).
The Pardon was a popular artist subject due to its dramatic
religious ritual, and refers to the indulgence granted on the feast day of the
patron saint of a given chapel. The present work, perhaps painted in
Concarneau, shows a group of people reciting the rosary while waking to the
church on the eve of the Pardon. The torch-lit faces of the pilgrims present a
soft mystical appearance. O’Kelly skillfully incorporates the fine glazes he
used for the procession with the sombre tones employed in the drapery in the
lower part of the painting.
Mainie Jellett (Mary Harriet Jellett)
(1897-1944)
Jellett was a deeply committed Christian; her
paintings, though non-representational, often have religious titles and
resemble icons in tone and palate. She worked directly from mentor Albert
Gleizes’s two-step process of “translation” and “rotation.” The resultant displaced
forms and colour provide movement within the composition.[8] Jellett
defended her cubist images as even more spiritual or religious than traditional
art. These images are abstract, however the original figures are readily
distinguished, just as Christ's hidden divinity was only visible to the eye of
faith.[9] Here the artist relies upon line, shape and
colour to interpret religious painting. Homage to Fra Angelico is a reference to Coronation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico (c. 1432). This work
also demonstrates how she could combine representational images with cubist
forms and is a harbinger of the style in her later works. Jellett initiated her
religious painting in the late 1920s. In 1928 the Irish Times wrote of her ‘mystic fascination’[10]
with colour and subject in this painting - her first positive review after
introducing cubism into her art. Drawing
on early Italian Renaissance paintings for inspiration, and selecting the
Virgin and child as subject, linked modern art to the sensibilities of the
predominantly Roman Catholic population. In Religious
Composition and Madonna and Child, The pointillist background embellished the rotation shapes
with the brush of dots to create the illusion of three-dimensional forms;[11]
this reference to Irish illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Dimma or Book
of Durrow might be Jellett’s acknowledgment of her art’s national character. The
composition and the warm colors exude harmony. The Nativity attempts to establish the æsthetic essentials that
appeal to harmonious colours in order to signify a sense of joy and anticipate
the hope for salvation in the God incarnate. Similarly with The Ninth Hour in spite of a traditionalism, harking back to the
art of Perugino and Raphael and their tragic view
of Calvary, which might recoil at Jellett's pastels and dynamic
composition.
Francis Bacon (1909-1992)
In a very different way than Mainie Jellett,
Francis Bacon (1909-1992) uses abstraction tethered to reality. Frequently, religious
titles such as Crucifixion appeared in
his triptychs or diptychs. Three Studies
for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) stirred up the most comment. The act of
crucifixion focuses attention on the humiliating and slow execution of a person
through torture. Does this echo ancient Greek tragedy which built dramatic
tension to the peak in order to gain catharsis? Virtually all critics cite
Bacon’s visually direct inspiration by Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. But a less-noticed source is the
striking icy horror of the nurse’s scream in Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 film Battleship Potemkin - a haunting catastrophe
which Bacon transformed into the scream of the Pope. Theatricality also
appeared in Painting 1946, whose figure with
bloody face and bared teeth is contemptuously seated under an umbrella with meat
in the background as in a slaughterhouse. The hanging carcass recalls Rembrandt’s
Slaughtered Ox, 1655.[12] The original Rembrandt
painting is sometimes considered a memento mori; some commentators make
references to the killing of the fatted calf in the biblical story of the
Prodigal Son.[13]
What Bacon said about the subject of ‘meat’ revealed a spiritual awareness similar to the inclusion of mirrors in his
self-portraits. “The shadow of dead meat is cast as soon as we are born. I
can never look at a chop without thinking of death.” More, his comments in
an interview showed the evolution in attitudes towards religious
painting, admitting that Crucifixion masterpieces aroused his feelings.[14] Further
evidence of Bacon’s religious subjects is found in Study of a Bull (1991, the year before he died) which used
dust on canvas. In the documentary Francis Bacon: A Brush with Violence,
art historian John Richardson says that
“Bacon
seems to be perceived as a religious painter, like 16th century Italian artists
full of passion, martyrdom, and also torture, and that there is a sacred quality
to Bacon’s paintings.” [15]
Patrick Scott (1921-2014)
As with Bacon, Patrick Scott (1921-2014)
enjoyed life in different way, and had no belief in an afterlife. He was a homosexual
and an agnostic atheist, despite his Roman Catholic upbringing. His art works
are distinguished by spirituality, purity, and elevation. Interestingly,
although Scott refused to paint religious subjects, he received various Church
commissions,[16]
such as the chapel commission for a 457x274 cm reredos at St Paul’s School in
London,[17] [18] in
the Church of Reconciliation at Knock in West Ireland, and a screen for a Texan
church.[19] Yet
Scott found Zen Buddhism the most meditative religion, and was distressed by
the violence that other faiths cause. The
ultimate goal of religious cultivation is providing a way to spiritual
transcendence - or in terms of Buddhism, enlightenment. So while the artist may
have been inspired by the rays of the sun and the splendor of Asian temples,
his characteristic minimalist application of gold conveyed a universal authority
common to all ages and beliefs. For example, his Gold Square on Red Sun (circa 1968) resonated with Asian traditions
because of the circular and square forms[20], yet
had significance in relation to both international and Irish concerns. Scott’s
art had no overt links to organized religion, yet the essence of his art, such
as Cross (Polyptych), (n.d), is abstract
minimalism informed by contemplation, stillness, meditation, and transcendence.
Conclusion
While Tillich and Schwebel focused on abstraction
and expressionism, which figured in the artistic trend of that era, art has developed
as demonstrated by these four artists. O’Kelly, Jellett, Bacon, and Scott with strikingly
different backgrounds, found different homes along the spectrum of
abstraction. Yet all have evinced an
abiding concern and developing treatment of religious themes. As Ireland’s traditional Catholic
near-uniformity[21]
is supplemented by religious diversity, this trend is likely to continue in
ways that will be exciting to witness – if difficult to predict.
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[1] The Oxford
dictionary defines religion as “The belief in and worship of a superhuman
controlling power, especially a personal God or gods.” And “A particular system
of faith and worship.”
[2] “Decorum
he defines as ‘appropriateness of gesture, dress, and locality’ and urges the
painter to have due regard for the dignity or lowliness of thing … but also
specific conformity to what is decent and proper in taste, and even more in
morality and religion.” (Lee 1967) ,
34-40.
[3] Robert
W. Baldwin, “The Beholder and the Humble Style in Northern Renaissance and
Baroque Religious Art”, Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard University, May 1983. Digital
Edition, Jan 2010. (Baldwin 1983) , 13-16.
[4] Paul
Tillich identified ultimate reality as the common goal of religion and art, and
felt that its pursuit in the visual arts does not require the use of
traditional religious content. & Horst Schwebel characterized abstract art
as “visual ecstasy” and a “mystical emigration from experience.” (Thiessen 1999) , 16-27.
[5]
Fr. Damien McNeice, curator of the exhibition “The Light Within”
on Dublin Culture Night said, “The Church needs to commission artists to
beautify and ennoble our places of worship and to invite artists to open up for
us epiphanies of the endless dialogue of communion between God and humanity,
gifted to us in Christ Jesus.” Sarah MacDonald,
CatholicIreland.net, Exhibition of modern Irish religious art for Culture Night.
(MacDonald 2017)
[6]
Penal Laws (Irish: Na Péindlíthe) – They attempted to
force Irish Roman
Catholics and Protestant dissenters (such as Presbyterians)
to accept the reformed denomination as defined by the English state and
the established Anglican Church - namely the established Church
of Ireland. All remaining penal laws were finally repealed in 1920.
[7] Niamh O'Sullivan, “The Art of Concealment”, Aloysius O'Kelly: Art, Nation, Empire,
Field Day Publications (Dublin) pp.87, (O'Sullivan 2010) , 203-205.
[8] A
‘translation’ horizontally and vertically and then a ‘rotation’ to move these
forms or planes by tilting them repeatedly. P.121. (Arnold, Mainie Jellett and the Modern Movement in Ireland 1992)
[9] “Such
a rhetorical (and artistic) style drew on the anti-classical, irrational nature
of Christ, his Divinity incarnated into and obscured by the debased flesh. As
such, plain or lowly rhetoric (and art) was often said to appeal to our inner
eye and ear, just as Christ's hidden divinity was only visible to the eye of
faith, guided by the Word. With such an intimate link between a
rhetorical-Christological plainness and insight.” (Baldwin 1983)
[11] “A
related modern practice: the cropped rectangular picture without frame or
margin, helps us to see more clearly another role of the frame…” (Schapiro
1994), 7.
[12] Rembrandt
Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) Slaughtered Ox, 1655, oil on beech panel, 94 x
69 cm, Louvre Museum, Paris.
[13]
Bacon said of Painting 1946 “[It]
came to me as an accident. I was attempting to make a bird of prey alighting on
a field …but suddenly the lines that I had drawn suggested something totally
different, and out of this suggestion arose the picture. I had no intention to
do this picture; I never thought of it in that way.” (Bacon 1962)
[14] Bacon:
”Well, there have been so very many great pictures in European art of the
Crucifixion that it’s a magnificent armature on which you can hang all types of
feelings and sensations. You may think it’s a curious thing for a non-religious
person to take the Crucifixion, but I don’t think that has anything to do with
it. The great Crucifixions that one knows of – one doesn’t know whether they
were painted by men who had religious beliefs.” Francis Bacon Fragments Of A Portrait - interview by David Sylvester TV
documentary, broadcast on BBC1, 18 September 1966. (Francis Bacon Fragments
of a Portrait-interview by David Sylvester TV documentary 1966)
[15] A
film that interviewed various art historians, art critics, collectors, curators,
artists, biographers and art dealers. (Francis Bacon: A Brush with Violence 2017)
[16] “If
Scott does not believe in the Christian God, it is both ironic and hopeful that
he has had several church commissions, in fact, probably more than any of the
other artists examined in this book.” Thiessen, Gesa E., 1999, Theology and
Modern Irish Art. Blackrock: The Columbia Press. (Thiessen 1999) , 100.
[17]
Dorothy Walker singled out Scott’s commission for the chapel of St. Paul’s
School in London (Walker 1984)
[18] Scott answered in an interview with the
Sunday Tribune “I was doing work in the chapel of St Paul’s School in London and
had to buy myself fairly narrow masking tape. I only wanted a dozen rolls but
the smallest quantity I could get was 500 rolls. So I’ve been using it ever
since. That’s how the use of gold started too.”
[19] “Scott
had received a religious education but was not a believer. He nonetheless
received several commissions from the Church: a reredos for St Paul’s School in
London and for the Church of Reconciliation at Knock; and a screen for a church
in Texas.” (Morisson 2017) paragraph 26.
[20]
In Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist philosophy, the sky is round and the earth
square. Additionally, Chinese coins were
round with square holes in the center.
[21] In
2016, 78.3% of Irish were Roman Catholic and 2.65% were Church of Ireland, with
the remainder either professing other religions or none at all. Central
Statistics Office, Chapter 8, p. 72, consulted 13 November 2017
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/population/2017/Chapter_8_Religion.pdf
