Ship of Fools: 'Secular' art in spiritual contexts

Thread: 'Secular' art in spiritual contexts Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I visited Salisbury Cathedral recently and whilst I admired Sophie Ryder's 'Relationships' exhibition with its giant hares, lady-hares and minotaurs, I must admit that I found those inside the cathedral itself rather distracting and 'out of place' somehow.

I'm no prude and don't believe that we should only admit art with a specifically Christian theme into our sacred places - but I dunno ... I did feel somewhat uncomfortable at times - which I suspect was part of the intention.

See: http://salisburycathedral.org.uk/news/monumental-sculpture-exhibition

What do Shipmates think?

Does anyone have any strong objections to 'secular' - or at least vaguely 'spiritual' art in church buildings? If so, why and can you give examples?

And yes, I am aware of the often surprising scenes on medieval misericords and ceiling bosses and so on, so yes, I know there are precedents ...

Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on :

Having read the link Gamaliel gave, I can see entirely what the artist is trying to do, together with the Cathedral, and I personally cannot see anything untoward there.

Maybe you felt the exhibits were distracting because you, as a Christian, were familiar with a Cathedral setting, and expected familiar "Christian art" Someone who did not claim to be a Christian, or indeed have any sort of faith, might feel that the sculpture there was more "them" than an explicitly Anglican Christian setting.

And, as you say, medieval art depicted many "takes" on human life, good bad and downright rude!

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Sure.

Thinking about it, what I found about the sculptures within the cathedral itself was that they felt somewhat obtrusive - rather distracting. Not all of them, but some of them ...

It'd be interesting to attend a service there and see whether I found them distracting in that context.

Posted by Helen-Eva (# 15025) on :

During the summer months cathedrals are major tourist magnets as well as being helpfully big indoor spaces so I can see the attraction to an artist of displaying his/her work in them.

For the cathedral it's a more mixed blessing as the art could be distracting to people worshipping (as you say). But I think cathedrals accept that they have a community/tourist role as well as a worship role. If the tourists also see the art, great, if the art-lovers also see the building, great, and if either of those groups is touched by some hint of Christianity in the process, even better. (And my cynical side suspects that if all of these groups put in some money for the upkeep of the building via entrance fee or donation, so much the better again.)

On weekdays it feels like 21st century cathedrals have readopted medieval habits in that the choir is the solemn worship space with evensong and hushed voices, and the nave is a space for all the world to wander into such as tourists, guided tours etc. So if the art is in the nave and not blocking the high altar in the choir, that probably fits.

My thoughts off the top of head having visited Winchester cathedral on Monday.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

When I went to St. Paul's I was impressed with how they were able to balance the building as a worship space (no chatter during Morning Prayer, no photos inside) with its tourist destination side.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

A few thoughts.

1. Does 'art' suffer from having become 'art'? I don't think anyone who carved medieval misericords thought of themselves as producing 'art'.

2. "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you". Yes, it's pretty, but in what way does a large stone hybrid between a rabbit and a human being draw someone nearer to God. It clearly didn't do that for Gamaliel. Nicomedia and anyone else who follows this thread, how does it do it for you.

3. What is 'religious art' for? Is the idea that self expression is important, not actually a particularly Christian idea anyway? A professional painter I knew (now late) who came/returned to faith late in life said she was quite challenged by this, and had difficulty working through it.

4. 'Art' is a very personal thing. What works for you, doesn't say anything to me, and vice versa.

5. Because of these, people are reluctant to challenge the possibility that the emperor may be in the altogether. This famous and notorious piece of art work, I'm prepared to say I think is pretentious rubbish and spiritually defective, but it could be that someone who knows better than me, will be able to explain to me that I only think that because I'm a prepostmodern philistine.

[ 01. June 2016, 13:13: Message edited by: Enoch ]

Posted by Helen-Eva (# 15025) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

5. Because of these, people are reluctant to challenge the possibility that the emperor may be in the altogether. This famous and notorious piece of art work, I'm prepared to say I think is pretentious rubbish and spiritually defective, but it could be that someone who knows better than me, will be able to explain to me that I only think that because I'm a prepostmodern philistine.

It looks like a tiny plastic model angel we used to put on the Christmas cake in the 1980s.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Salisbury has been hosting art even since it had a Barbara Hepworth in the late 1960s.

I don't regard any art as 'secular'.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes, I understand that art is Salisbury's 'thing' and has been for quite some time.

The hybrid hares (they're hares not bunny rabbits) are part of a series about relationships and they convey the various aspects of that very well. I didn't object to the sculptures in and of themselves. Some of them were slightly disquieting - such as the one with the Hare-Human Hybrid and the Minotaur sleeping with their litter of dogs ...

Would the union between a Hare-Human Hybrid and a Minotaur produce dogs?

That's part of the point, I suppose.

I like a lot of modern sculpture - Anthony Gormley and so on. I loved his 'A Field For The British Isles' and would say that it was a 'spiritual' work in some respects.

No, I'm not keen at all on the Ely Virgin Mary but can't put my finger on why that is.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

I'm not keen on it because it looks like a doll--it has no texture, no interesting position, no shading of color--it's as if someone set out to say "now how bland can I possibly make this" and did. The one thing that would excuse it in my own background would be if it was old Mrs. So-and-so's grandson who carved it, and (bless his heart) we all know he's no artist, but we all have our foibles, don't we, and it would break her heart if we didn't have it on display, so for the sake of love, we tolerate it. And attempt to restrain our snarkiness.

I like the rabbit things much better, except I find them irrelevant to the setting--house of God?--and wonder why they aren't outside in the garden. It seems a bit presumptuous to place an exhibit of irrelevant art in someone else's house, naïve as that may sound. Particularly if it distracts the normal goings-on in that house.

But then, who the hell am I to be listened to? I don't understand cathedrals.

[ 01. June 2016, 15:01: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I don't particularly like trying to divide between sacred and secular, especially not in art/creative pursuits.

I think the reason is that this implies that certain streams of thought and ideas are considered non-spiritual, unacceptable. It implies that there are areas in which God is not interested.

Having said that, there is good art and bad art. Good art makes you think, bad art tells you what to think (in broad terms). So not all art is appropriate to have in a context where we are claiming to worship the God of all. Bad art here diminishes God and us. If we are using art in a worship environment, it should be good art, it should be art that expands our minds and our thoughts.

And then we come to this particular art exhibition. Actually, I quite like it, as it stands. And yet I am not sure how I would see it in the context of a cathedral. I suspect, dare I say it, that I see the hares as good art, and the cathedral representing bad art? Representing an authoritarian approach to God.

Which is an interesting reaction, and not one I expected (despite my oft-reported disagreement with the CofE)

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

You can certainly argue that a lot of art is highly numinous, charged with transcendent power, or however you describe it. It takes us beyond this point in spacetime to an horizon.

I saw a small exhibition of Impressionists in Bath, and wow, talk about a religious impulse, or at least, a religious attitude to life, colour, paint, art, and so on.

So not just Rothko, who is always cited as the 'spiritual' painter.

Posted by georgiaboy (# 11294) on :

TVR Thom Blair, onetime Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, St Louis, USA, who was a noted supporter of all the arts in his Cathedral, stated 'The Incarnation has erased forever the distinction between sacred and secular.' (I may not be quoting exactly.)

Agree or not, it is a point worth pondering.

BTW, I rather like the hares, etc, but think the Ely Mary flunks -- it doesn't seem to me to be good art, but more like a computer generated image.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

I'm surprised Ely Mary didn't get more flack for portraying the BV as blonde, given how much criticism there has been over the past half-century or so of Europeanized images of religious figures in Christian art.

Then again, I actually don't KNOW what kind of criticism it got. Maybe there were some objections along those lines? I'm kinda guessing that any such complaints would have been overwhadowed by those against alleged oversexualization.

Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on :

Would anyone object to - as a piece of devotional and not primarily figurative art- a South Asian looking Madonna in India, or a black African one in Tanzania, or a Native American looking one in North Dakota? I'd hope not, nowadays. So why- and I know there is historical baggage- object to a Northern European looking one in, er, Northern Europe?

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

The bigger pieces are outside the cathedral and in ths cloisters. I quite like them but wasn't sure of their relevance inside the building.

I can understand people finding the cathedral itself 'oppressive'. William Golding's novel, The Spire, based on a Salisbury-ish cathedral, has it ad a somewhat hubristic construction. There is bad art in there - Victorian restoration for instance - but overall the effect is impressive.

It's not my favourite English cathedral - that accolade has to go to Durham but I'm a big fan of Wells, Lincoln and York Minster - although it's the hundreds of rural parish churches that 'send' me the most ... we've got some of the finest medieval architecture in Europe

I do 'get' cathedrals and if I lived in a cathedral city would be happy to attend one regularly. But I'd probably supplement it with something else as well.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
William Golding's novel, The Spire, based on a Salisbury-ish cathedral, has it ad a somewhat hubristic construction.

As an aside, Golding's novel leaves it unclear whether God will bring good out of the hubris and spiritual ignorance of the construction.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes, indeed, although there's often very little 'redemption' in Golding's novels.

But your point is well made.

Posted by Graven Image (# 8755) on :

I have found that a good piece of so called "secular art" has many times drawn me into contact with the Holy as opposed to some really bad so called religious art I have encountered.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The bigger pieces are outside the cathedral and in ths cloisters. I quite like them but wasn't sure of their relevance inside the building.

and presumably the latter is the issue really. Absent on whether art is ever secular or not, not every piece of art will be suitable for inclusion in a space used for worship.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes, which is the point I was making, but our views of what is or isn't acceptable will vary ... effigies of heavily armed medieval knights, military memorials - you can find them in most old cathedrals ...

Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on :

I think the important thing is that Cathedrals are all about performance, so in that sense it is consistent to include various different kinds of art interacting with the senses. If one is uncomfortable with performance, a Cathedral is probably not the place to attend a service or to look around.

As to what is or is not appropriate, this is surely down to taste. There are various ways to perceive and engage with many things which go on in a British Anglican Cathedral - and the response can range from holy anger through to a moment of the divine.

I remember very vividly hearing someone who was very critical of everything that is showy about Cathedrals talking about being spiritually overcome by the shape of an arch at an ornate Cath.

[ 02. June 2016, 07:17: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

I get bothered by the tombs that litter most cathedrals, nearly always of powerful men, often with symbolic effigies. Swords in a cathedral? Victorian stained glass that is really intended to honour the person who paid for it, and whose name is the only thing legible without binoculars. Changes in architectural style half way down the nave: 'we have a new master mason now and those rounded arches are terribly C11th'.

But a cathedral is more like a mountain than a house. I can look at our chapel and think of changes I'd like to make, just as I do at home. A cathedral, though, is so old and so entwined with land and history that I have no sense of ownership, so I don't get very bothered.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Graven Image:
I have found that a good piece of so called "secular art" has many times drawn me into contact with the Holy as opposed to some really bad so called religious art I have encountered.

Yes. The Rothko room in the Tate Modern is famous for its numinous atmosphere. A lot of art somehow aims for the beyond or the not-yet-formed.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I get bothered by the tombs that litter most cathedrals, nearly always of powerful men, often with symbolic effigies. Swords in a cathedral? Victorian stained glass that is really intended to honour the person who paid for it, and whose name is the only thing legible without binoculars. Changes in architectural style half way down the nave: 'we have a new master mason now and those rounded arches are terribly C11th'.

But a cathedral is more like a mountain than a house. I can look at our chapel and think of changes I'd like to make, just as I do at home. A cathedral, though, is so old and so entwined with land and history that I have no sense of ownership, so I don't get very bothered.

Yes, but isn't that part of the appeal? Mountains only reveal themselves gradually.

I vividly remember climbing a whopping big mountain in Spain. I was ill-equipped, on my own and only got as far as the snow line - although I did get a spectacular view of some magnificent horned mountain goats ...

The thing that struck me was how, once I'd got so far up, was how what I'd taken to the 'peak' of a mountain on the other side of the valley actually turned up to the 'shoulder' of an even higher mountain.

You can see most mountains in the UK 'at a glance', so this was a very impactful experience.

Anyhow, cathedrals aren't the only church buildings to have styles of architecture from various periods - plenty of English parish churches do too - and it's part of their charm and the sense of history. They have evolved over centuries.

Sure, there are also those that are unified and fine examples of their particular style and genre - and that's not restricted to Anglican places of worship either. You can find very good examples of Quaker Meeting Houses, non-conformist chapels, RC post-RC Emancipation churches and so on.

I can 'take' the swords and shields and what-have-you by putting them into an historical context ... which doesn't mean I approve of them necessarily.

Sure, a lot of Victorian stained glass is pretty crap, but we've got non-conformist iconoclastics to blame for the destruction of much of the originial medieval glass.

So it's all very well non-conformist ministers getting on their moral high-horse when their forebears were guilty of almost Talibanesque levels of aesthetic destruction ...

[Biased]

Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :

The point I wanted to make is that cathedrals are like mountains in that they are just there. They feel like natural phenomena. Though the tombs bother me, they don't bother me much, any more than the amount of loose stone on the Carneddau bothers me. There is no one hand or mind behind the stonework or design of a cathedral. I don't feel entitled to an opinion. Your choice of curtains, however ..

My Talibanesque forebears did make quite a mess, and in some places that mess has simply been left. One cathedral (which one?) has a chapter house or similar, largely glass, with scores of niches for statues, all destroyed. In four centuries, no one has repaired or even tidied up the damage much.

I don't think people often look at a cathedral as something to take charge of. And that's why I would have expected not to be bothered by art works. But I haven't seen the ones in question.

The thing I find a bit creepy about them is that they seem to mix sex and the nursery.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Sure. I found some of the sculptures creepy too, for similar reasons and I think that would have applied had I seen them in an art gallery, sculpture park or some other context.

On the cathedral thing and our response to them ... well, yes, I tend to treat them as part and parcel of the landscape, as it were - and I do like exploring them. I s'pose it helps that I used to know a bloke who lectured in medieval architecture who taught me - as an interested teenager - how to recognise the various styles - Romanesque, Early English, Perpendicular etc etc ...

Whenever I go into an old church building these days I like to look around before picking up any info sheet or guidebook/leaflet in order to 'test' whether I've dated things correctly. I'm a bit of a geek that way.

I don't know what heaven's like, but I do sometimes hope the Almighty has a 'theme-park' set aside in a corner of it with the interiors of English country parish churches to look at on into eternity ...

[Biased]

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

It occurs to me that some officially religious art, especially from the Renaissance, has a pretty tenous connection with the religious themes underlying the work.

I mean, does anyone looking at Michelangelo's David, for example, really come away with a seriously enhanced appreciation of 1 Samuel 17?

Granted, I gather that David was never actually displayed in a formally religious venue, but still, I'm sure you could find similar examples of works that ARE housed in churches, catherderals etc, where the main point is to go "Hmm, nice body!" or whatever, rather than to ponder some deep theological mystery.

[ 02. June 2016, 17:42: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Certainly. I don't think you'll get any disagreement on that.

Still, the closer it gets to dropping all pretense of any connection with the environment, the weirder it feels. Like statues of clowns in a graveyard, or posters of war movies in a nursery.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Sure, that's the kind of 'dissonance' I was getting at, Lamb Chopped.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I don't particularly like trying to divide between sacred and secular, especially not in art/creative pursuits.

I think the reason is that this implies that certain streams of thought and ideas are considered non-spiritual, unacceptable. It implies that there are areas in which God is not interested.

I don't agree with the equating of spiritual and acceptable. Unless you go around making everything spiritual -- trees, rocks, shit -- that you find acceptable. At which point you end up with a tautology.

I think if an artist doesn't claim spiritual-ness for their art, that's a fair enough indication that it's not meant to be spiritual, and a fair enough dividing line between spiritual and secular art. I'm sure there are plenty of atheist and materialist artists who would bristle at having their art called "spritual."

That doesn't mean that people can't draw spiritual inspiration or lessons from the art. But it's arrogant to claim spirituality for someone's work if they themselves don't claim it. Not quite as bad as Mormons baptising other people's dead loved ones. But of the same sort of offense.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Yes. I like that, Mousethief.

Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :

Are Cathedrals to be special places for Christians primarily to express themselves?

Or can cathedrals be public spaces and can hospitality be the driver as anyone can bring their gift to that public space?

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
Are Cathedrals to be special places for Christians primarily to express themselves?

Or can cathedrals be public spaces and can hospitality be the driver as anyone can bring their gift to that public space?

It is always worth asking 'what are we trying to do?' or in this case, 'what is this building really here for?'

Since a cathedral is the seat (cathedra) of a bishop and a place for a diocese, as distinct from a parish, to gather to worship God in Trinity, that is Salisbury Cathedral's primary purpose.

It may also be used for secondary purposes. If so, the relevant question is, 'does the secondary purpose contribute to, enhance, impede, distract from or even conflict with that primary purpose?' There can be, and probably is, disagreement about which of those a secondary activity is doing, but analysing it against an activity's primary purpose is the tool to use to get an effective handle on any of these sort of dilemmas.

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