13 Wednesday May 2015
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A visual essay on human experience of architectural sanctuaries throughout the United Kingdom (seen here: Aberfeldy, Coventry, Dunblane, Dunkeld, Glasgow, Iona, Manchester, Salisbury, Tudeley). Selected vertical reflections of light, water, movement, stillness, silence, perspectives, windows, glass, air, holiness, earthiness, ruins, reparation, limitations, and liminality.
All photos taken by Paige M. Medlock Johnson.
11 Tuesday Feb 2014
Posted in Critical Religion, University of Stirling
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In 2013 Richard Harries’ “The Image of Christ in Modern Art” was published. In his book he outlines four specific criteria for considering a piece of modern art as being ‘religious’. They are:
Harries exploration of modern art having to come to terms with and express a seismic rupture as well as contend with expressing faith in an increasingly secular society is laudable and the book is recommended on that basis (it would make an nice companion piece to Tarnas’ Passion of the Western Mind for undergraduates). However, there are a number of areas where issue has to be taken with the treatment provided within the text. For the purposes of this posting I am going to focus on the four criteria and relate them to the specific context of Northern Ireland.
The first criteria immediately rings alarm bells, what is genuine art? Can art exist that is not genuine but false? A quick read through the introduction and first chapter quickly reveals that what Harries means by good art is high art, there is an added layer of exclusivity to the art under consideration. Why then does high art have a spiritual dimension, and low art, by implication, not? The third criteria could have a blog posting on its own on the basis of why are those qualities associated with Christianity alone, when they exist in other contexts including secular ones? However Harries does make it clear he is only dealing with ‘Christian art’ and the Christian faith so I leave that for another time.
It is with the second and fourth criteria that I want to focus in on. Both assume that personal faith, religion to be a distinct and separate thing capable of motivating an individual by force or will. The fourth criteria further assumes a timeless quality and universalism to iconography and its images and symbols. Neither seem to realise, or acknowledge, as Nietzsche did that art is the highest form of expression of the human spirit (The Birth of Tragedy). As such an expression it carries a clear intent for the artist regardless of how well that translates to the viewer. What the viewer interprets comes from his own perspective. Finally, art and artistic expressions are not encapsulated forms of religious expression. In his posting Per-Erik Nilsson argued that:
religion and secularism are contingently articulated categories bound to power and ideology … these articulations have been used to legitimate Western politics and expansion (colonialism, neo-colonial politics and imperialist ambitions).
In Northern Ireland we have a long tradition, on both sides of the divide, of painting wall murals. These are often imbued with what Harries would consider elements of traditional Christian iconography or imagery. Below are two such, the first from Hopewell Crescent in the strongly loyalists Lower Shankill area of Belfast. It depicts Martin Luther nailing his treaties to the Wittenberg door and has a banner stating in German “Here I stand. I cannot help it. God help me. Amen” (Camera did not capture the Amen which is lower down).
Hopewell Crescent, Lower Shankhill Road, photo © Francis Stewart
The second is from the nearby Republican area of Divis Street. It depicts the Virgin Mary standing over a dying hunger striker who is saying his rosary and contains the script “Blessed are those who hunger for justice.”
Virgin Mary watches over a hunger striker
Are these forms of Christian art as Harries would perhaps argue (although given they are not high art he may well desist) or are they rather an example of Nilsson’s articulations of categories bound to power and ideology? I would argue for the latter, there are clear political messages in both – the giving of one’s life through starvation for a cause one believes in, and a defence of the very essence of Protestantism, which in this context means a defence of one’s community and right to remain British.
What I would argue about these murals is that they are a means of remembering the past and ensuring that one’s current struggles are not forgotten. Tom Shippey (writing of the works of Tolkien, but none the less pertinent) reminds us:
The very fragility of record in such societies makes memory all the more precious, its expressions both sadder and more triumphant. (Shippey, 97)
The religious imagery, if one can call it that, is used in these murals as a means to an end there is no distinct religious or spiritual impulse behind them. They serve the purpose of telling the past when those in authority or power will not listen. I do not agree that those in weaker positions are voiceless, they are perfectly capable of speaking; those in positions of power must learn to listen. Michael Marten reminds us:
What we need is a realistic exploration of ‘historically specific acts of resistance’ to avoid silencing the subaltern. (Marten, 231)
In creating these murals, the people of Northern Ireland are finding a way round the deaf ears of those in power. They are telling and retelling their history, speaking of their hopes for the future, speaking out against injustices done on them and in the process adding to the further division of the country and the re-entrenchment of their own communities. These are not forms of spiritual or religious art but an engagement with critical religion in that they demonstrate the entire interdependancy of religion, secular, political and power and the tangled web they weave.
——
Richard Harries, The Image of Christ in Modern Art, (Surrey: Ashgate, 2013).
Michael Marten, “On Knowing, Knowing Well and Knowing Differently: Historicising Scottish Missions in 19th and Early 20th Century Palestine” in Ellen Fleischmann, Sonya Grypma, Michael Marten and Inger Marie Okkenhaug, Transnational and Historical Perspectives on Global Health, Welfare and Humanitarianism, (Kristiansand: Portal Books, 2013) p210 – 238.
Tom Shippey, J.R.R.Tolkien Author of the Century, (London: HarperCollins, 2000).
13 Wednesday Nov 2013
Posted in Critical Religion, University of Stirling
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Robert Sowers (1923-1990) created some of the most remarkable stained glass windows in the US during the twentieth century, including the 30,000 panel American Airlines wall at what is now called JFK Airport. His work in 1960 was the largest stained glass window in the world at the time. Terminal 8 stood for 48 years then was demolished for remodeling in 2007, and along with it, the enormous window. One source reports people referred to the airport terminal as ‘The Cathedral’, when in fact, Sowers was a pioneer stained glass artists creating major commissions outside the church. It was demolished less than five decades after its commissioning with suggestions to turn pieces of its glass into key chains for airline employees.
Stained glass reached its height of glory in the medieval period when the average person would not have much exposure to vibrant colors and use of light outside the church. Their experience in the church would have made a physical and spiritual impact. The actual light translated in illuminated visual images was analogous to the scriptural light of God overcoming the evil or chaos of darkness.
The transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture is most evidenced in the Abbey of St. Denis from the late 12th century under Abbot Suger, who wrote on the theological significance of architectural decisions:
Thus, when – out of the delight in the beauty of the house of God – the loveliness of the many-coloured gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues: then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of Heaven; and that, by the grace of God, I can be transported from this inferior to that higher world in an anagogical manner. [Thiessen, 2005, p116]
Sainte-Chapelle, Paris (photo by P M Medlock Johnson)
Gothic architecture achieved verticality and light by developing certain structural elements (pointed arch, rib vaulting, flying buttresses); this skeletal structure vastly opened up wall space for windows. Stained glass windows were designed to vertical extremes that translated light in color, altering worship atmosphere and illustrating biblical theology. The makers of stained glass knew the limits and possibilities of the material with which they worked in such a way that they could facilitate the optimal brilliance of the finished piece by means of the media. These craftsman knew not only color theory, but that of glass that permits, prohibits, translates, and radiates light. What would a red piece do next to blue rather than clear when sunlight burns through it? What piece would dominate, or recede, or pierce the air? What combination would confuse or enhance the image and the visual experience? Or the worship experience? What would affect the communication and reception of the image, which was generally a biblical message for the common person unable to read the Word. Stained glass of Gothic architecture either illustrated the entire bible, as Sainte-Chapelle has for eight centuries, or a main theme of sinful humanity with hope of salvation through Christ. Alternately, some windows center Christ within purposefully arranged references to other parts of scripture demonstrating rich theological cross-referencing and skilled thoughtful design.
Two factors led to a major shift in the stained glass profession from its height of glory in the Middle Ages to becoming a ‘lost art’ in the Renaissance and Reformation. First, art making became less material-inspired and more imitative of easel painting. Second, iconoclasm (‘image breaking’) of the Protestant Reformation and Dissolution of Monasteries questioned visual imagery as a scriptural violation rather than theological hermeneutic, and effectively removed stained glass from Christian architecture.
But it did not disappear forever. Sir Herbert Read writes, “In our own time, as part of a general return to aesthetic integrity, the art of stained glass has been reconsidered and, indeed, rediscovered. The guiding principle of translucency has been re-established, and, as in the Middle Ages, the greatest artists of our time have experimented in this medium.” [Sowers, 1954, p8] He could rightly foresee glass as an important element of architecture: hiding unsightly views and coloring space, honoring the integrity of art forms, and turning public spaces into inspiring places. In addition to modern artists such as Matisse and Chagall turning from paint to glass, stained glass of the Craft Movement (especially Morris in England, Mackintosh in Scotland, and Wright in America) restored the art from its medieval glory to a contemporary aesthetic, and positioned it as a major element of modern architecture.
Robert Sowers writes, “When art is working it heightens both the materiality and the fantasy of the image; the two are fused in exaltation. But when the material is excited to no purpose, or the image rooted in no material there can be no deep-rooted art.” [Sowers, 1954, p28] His own record-breaking Terminal 8 stained glass window was contracted to Olde Good Glass in New York City to be dismantled and reclaimed into new objects for public sale. Was he wrong?
Stained glass has been installed and removed from religious and secular institutions for seemingly different reasons: sacrilege and outdatedness; it means too much and it means not enough. Perhaps there is an underlying threat worth questioning that only the material can shed light on: glass is an antithetical mediatory material. Isobel Armstrong says we need to work through the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in glass, saying,
They are perceived at a purely formal or aesthetic level unless they generate a “restlessness”, which both reorders a problem and the mind that works on it. This mediation is, in Heidegger’s words, “the form of the very thinking which thinks itself”. It is “the conceiving of oneself—as the grasping of the not-I”.[Armstrong, 2008, p12]
The stained glass process (photo by P M Medlock Johnson)
Humans do not like to grasp the not-I, and if stained glass positions the viewer in such tension, even when crafted in awe-inspiring otherworldly visual ways, it will be removed only to be reinstalled elsewhere. The stained glass profession has thrived and dwindled, but what it professes will not be extinguished. The artistic profession of stained glass making not only revived, but returned its focus to the inherent qualities of the glass. Where stained glass orders chaos by assembling broken pieces into a structured design that illuminates a space with intentionality, it continues to embody the relevance of a timeless yet cutting-edge visual hermeneutic.
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