VISUAL ARTISTS' SEARCH TO EXPRESS SPIRITUAL TRUTH - IAIN MCKILLOP - ST MARY'S UNIVERSITY

VISUAL ARTISTS’ SEARCH TO EXPRESS SPIRITUAL TRUTH - Iain McKillop
[CAPITLAISED LETTERS relate to the images, which are detailed in the LIST at the end of the document.]

I want here to explore examples of how Christian artists have used visual arts to explore or represent spiritual truth. We
can only be selective; I’d like to have taken us through the whole spectrum of Christian art through the ages, but that
would take days. Instead I’ve selected a few accessible pieces to scamper through, all-too briefly, but I hope to draw
useful conclusions for contemporary art from them.

Most works of Christian Art interweave biblical story, imagination, iconography, tradition, doctrine, aspects of God,
contemplate spiritual meaning, try to create an atmosphere or a spiritual feeling or represent a truth. But as the theologian
Arthur Holmes wrote ‘All Truth is God’s Truth’ in whatever field we explore.

Visual artists and art-critics frequently talk about a work of art being ‘true’. Some artists even talk about ‘visual
theology’, or a work embodying theological truth. In visual art we are talking about something different from a verbal
statement of truth.

JOHN LINNELL LANDSCAPE – CONTEMPLATION
A painting might be true if it is ‘naturalistic’ i.e. closely resembles nature. The Victorian Non-Conformist painter John
Linnell, like Ruskin, believed that God composed nature for our delight and learning. The greatest way to glorify God,
he believed, was to closely imitate Creation.

SUBLIME LANDSCAPE – CASPAR DAVID FRIEDRICH / JOHN MARTIN / J.M.W.TURNER
A painting might be ‘true’ if it reflects power within or behind nature: The ‘Sublime’ in landscapes by Turner, Caspar
David Friedrich or John Martin aims to overawe us with the enormity and strength of God’s creation to confront us by
our smallness yet value and moral duty within the world.

WILLIAM BLAKE – BLIGHT INFECTING THE GRAIN
A painting might be ‘true’ if conveys the spiritual powers within nature. Blake represented the invisible Spirit world -
here blight, represents the spirit of physical & moral contagion moving through the world.

ANTOINE MAUVE SHEPHERDESS AND FLOCK / MILLET THE ANGELUS
Or art might be true if it conveys something real in the world and society. C19th Realist artists - Millet and the Barbizon
School in France, or Mauve and the Hague School in Holland sought spiritual truth by representing the hard realities of
ordinary daily life, where people lived close to God in nature.

VAN GOGH – THE POTATO EATERS / STARRY NIGHT/ WHEATFIELD WITH CYPRESSES
Mauve’s nephew, Van Gogh or the German Expressionists after him represented truth by painting everyday realist
subjects in expressive, visceral pain marks and enhanced colour to evoke emotional, sensuous, political or religious
responses to reality.

TANNER – ANNUNCIATION / HOLMAN HUNT THE SCAPEGOAT / TISSOT ‘FEED MY LAMBS
A work might be true if it conveys physical or spiritual truths about its subject. The Southern States Methodist negro
artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, like Holman Hunt and James Tissot travelled to the Holy Land to research and make their
religious paintings true to Christian historic and cultural origins in Palestine. They believed painting a biblical scene as
accurately as it might have been, would encourage more true spiritual responses to art than did idealized romantic
Western religious paintings.

STANLEY SPENCER 1920 CHRIST CARRYING THE CROSS
Stanley Spencer aimed for spiritual truth by transporting Christ’s life events to his home community in mid-20th Century
Berkshire. Cookham became his way of relating Christian truths to the life of the community around him. Sadly
transferring biblical stories into contemporary costume and setting, though relevant when created, can quickly become
dated as society changes, making one read some work for nostalgic rather than universal relevance.

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ROTHKO CHAPEL, HOUSTON
Less figuratively artists aimed to communicate true feelings by stirring sensuous responses in the viewer. Mark Rothko
sought universal ways of communicating spiritual feelings. He studied William James on comparative religious
experiences, the psychology of visual communication, Eastern ideas, the Theosophy of Madame Blavatsky & Rudolf
Steiner’s Anthroposophical ideas, which had influenced many Western artists including German Expressionists,
Kandinsky and Mondriaan. He believed that mark, colour and form could create psychological, emotional, even spiritual
responses in viewers, which might communicate across cultures.

CARL ANDRE, RICHARD SERRA, JOSEPH BEUYS
Secular Conceptual and Minimal artists in the later C20th developed the idea that a work of art is ‘true’ if you respond
directly to the materials of which it is made. Carl André and Richard Serra asked viewers to interact with and appreciate
inherent and physical qualities in materials, responding to their presence. You are encouraged to walk on and through the
sculptures, touch materials, feel their qualities and learn wisdom from psychologically and physically ‘empathising’ with
their nature, significance and power.

Joseph Beuys like an alchemist considered the symbolic & cultural meaning of materials: Felt and fat for him, being
neither solid nor ephemeral, suggested spiritual qualities. Their cultural connections with the tents, blankets, food and
security of itinerant tribes, he believed, connected us with ancient ancestors and our primal needs.

RICHARD LONG
Richard Long works with the physical and symbolic qualities of natural world by intervening in nature, making circles of
mud or natural stone, walking symbolic paths in the landscape or sculpting with ephemeral materials like mud or ice.

JAMES TURRELL
James Turrell makes us encounter natural or man-made light and consider its significance. Whether this is ‘spiritual’ or
‘sensuous’ may depend on the viewer’s interpretation of light.

So if we’re talking about ‘wisdom’ ‘Spiritual Truth’, or ‘Spiritual Potential’ within the arts, our field is almost as broad as
the numerous interpretations of spirituality in the world. George Herbert’s poem ‘Prayer [1]’ suggests that the mind
attuned to the presence of God in ordinary things will naturally encounter truths: “Heaven in Ordinary”… “something
understood”.

Our senses respond to colour, mark, form, subject and story, which often awaken inner feelings. But I believe that though
a spiritual response can be stirred through our senses, a true religious experience is different from a sensuous response to
art, The arts, like religious or biblical imagery, create visual or mental ‘metaphors’, through which we may apprehend
truths.
But no work of art is ‘The Spiritual Truth’; it is an image or idea reaching towards expressing an artist’s or a culture’s
understanding or interpretation of something they find significant. A good work of art is able to communicate something
of that truth to others.

CRUCIFIXION ICON vs REALISM IAIN McKILLOP GLOUCESTER ALTARPIECE
To some Orthodox Christians, realist paintings about faith, like those I paint would be considered blasphemous. To the
Orthodox, theological truth should rightly be presented in such a way as to prevent us mistaking the image for a spiritual
reality or making art into an idol. For a true religious response to a Christian work of art we always have to look beyond
or through the artwork to perceive the spiritual truth in for which it stands.

AIDAN HART - PANTOCRATOR ICON
During Iconoclastic Controversy from the C4th to C7th Church Councils struggled over whether Christian images
contravened the biblical ban on idolatry. John of Damascus (675-749) theologically defended images as St. Paul’s
defended Christian ‘Freedom from Law’ in the Epistle to the Romans. Eventually the Triumph of Orthodoxy, under the
Empress Theodora and the Synod of Constantinople in 843, allowed images as long as they conformed to visual rules &
could not be mistaken for real spiritual presences.

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GEOMETRY OF RUBLEV’S TRILITY ICON
So icons developed, the strict regulations about non-naturalistic imagery, colour, gesture, sacred geometry and prayerful
preparation that still govern their production today.

Each icon represents the theological truth behind its subject. It is not generally spoken of as painted but ‘written’. Like
sermons in paint or doors or windows into a spiritual subject, they aim to open us onto the spiritual reality beyond. Once
blessed, some believe that icons contain within themselves the spiritual reality they represent. That’s why they are
created with such a careful processes of prayer and preparation, to ensure that the spiritual truth or wisdom behind the
first prototype image can be transferred to the new icon. Perhaps that integrity of prayer and intention should be behind
all Christian artistic and theological activity.

MANDORLAS BEHIND CHRIST
Most art is a metaphor for reality, not the reality itself. Like Pseudo Dionysius, many mystics remind us that we cannot
know God; God is darkness to us. Any image we conceive of God, even biblical imagery may limit or narrow our
understanding of God. The Mandorla behind Christ in some icons represents his mystery by concentric bars of colour
gradually receding into darkness.

EMPTY DARK MANDORLA – APSE ST CATHERINE’S SINAI
Here the Mandorla is represented in various degrees of blackness. Thomas Merton warns us not to create any concept,
idea or image. Yet almost all that we apprehend about God IS through metaphors and imagery: Our Creator, Judge,
Lover, Ruler, Carer, Owner; Father, Nurturing Mother, Christ represents him most accurately, but in him we still see
qualities of the Eternal and Omnipresent God through the characteristics of a human being. The Bible uses nearly 1000
metaphors for God. Each may contain aspects of truth and we should keep all in balance for a holistic, true idea of God.
But our minds are too limited to keep that balance all the time, so individual metaphors or images help us contemplate
aspects of spiritual truth. Each small insight into truth may spiritually inspire us and open us to God.

The aim of the artist, like the spiritual teacher, is to select and create metaphors that communicate and open aspects of
God’s nature to our contemporaries.

REMBRANDT - PRODIGAL SON 1691-9
Sometimes we need God to be protective, providing, forgiving Father;

IAIN McKILLOP - ‘FATHER FORGIVE THEM THEY DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING’
Sometimes we need awe of God to keep us in right ways.

IAIN McKILLOP - RECONCILIATION OF PETER
Often we need to recognize God’s love for us, valuing, gifting, forgiving and strengthening us.

CATACOMBS – LOVE FEAST
Throughout Christian history artists have sought to find metaphors for truth that spoke to their generation and culture.
Early Christian images included the love-feast. This wasn’t always an illustration of the Last Supper or a representation
of the Eucharist. The image in the Catacombs is thought to be a Christian celebration that reflected the Roman pagan
practice of commemorating the anniversary of a family death with a feast at the tomb. For early Christians this would
have assured them of their belief that they would share future life with Christ and that he was already caring for their
persecuted martyrs in the banquet of heaven.

CATACOMBS – APOLLO AND JONAH
In the Catacomb of Pietro and Marcellinus, Christ the caring Good Shepherd in the vault rescues his sheep and holds
them secure. In the lunettes are four parts of the story of Jonah - rescued from the belly of a fish, a parallel for our rescue
from sin and death. Jonah’s security under the shelter of a gourd reflected our shelter in heaven. Like the teaching of
many of Early Church Fathers the frescoes’ imagery made parallels between Christ’s Gospel with Old Testament and
pagan legends.

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CATACOMB FRESCOS GOOD SHEPHERD / CHRIST AS APOLLO / CHRIST AS MITHRAS
Christ was stronger than pagan gods; so they weren’t superstitious about building churches on sites of pagan worship, or
baptising existing pagan iconography for conveying Christian meaning. Christ was painted with the attributes of Apollo
as both shepherd and musician playing Creation into being. He wore a halo as the god of light, like Mithras and some
divine Roman emperors. Christ brought light and dispelled darkness as Mithras was supposed to do.

MANDORLA
The lozenge shape around the enthroned Christ, a ‘Mandorla’ (named after the Italian for ‘almond’), originated in the
East, perhaps as a fertility symbol, but was used as a sign of the divine Roman Emperor, who was depicted as enthroned
at the intersection of the circles of heaven and earth. Christ IN THE Mandorla is represented as occupying that position,
the true representative of earth and heaven, ruling all.

As in art, as Christian doctrine developed pagan philosophy was often assimilated with Christian teaching. As Peter
Tyler has shown in his studies of the development of the Christian concept of the soul, more derives from Platonism and
other philosophy than Christian scripture. Yet as ALL truth belongs and pertains to God’s Truth, in philosophy or any
other field, all true philosophy was believed to point to Christ.

MEDIAEVAL BESTIARIES & HERBAL
We find this in the Bestiaries and Herbals of the Middle Ages, which derive from Eastern pagan sources. Following
Paul’s claim in Romans 1:20 that all nature directs us to God’s truth. The characteristics of all animals and plants were
thought to have spiritual or moral lessons to teach us.

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN (1098-1179) UNIVERSAL HUMAN – VISION 2 ‘BOOK OF DIVINE WORKS’
The breadth of Hildegard of Bingen’s writings shows how holistic the idea of finding God in the Cosmos and human
learning and advance was by the 12th Century. She found God’s truth in nature, cosmology, philosophy, visions, mystic
experiences, medicine, music, administration of her Benedictine abbey, guidance or criticism for clerics and princes.

We’ll probably never know whether Hildegard’s visions came from beyond or whether as some medics and psychologists
suggest, they were the result of migraines or other physical phenomena. What is more important is not her sources but
how she interpreted them. Her cosmology saw all God’s creation as a unity, involved in a cosmic plan. She interpreted
the world and her visions from literal, allegorical, moral, & spiritual perspectives. God, she believed, has ordered Time,
from Genesis to the Apocalypse, to bring us and the Cosmos to perfection. Humans are formed to recognise and fulfil
their place at the centre of Creation.

All Creation: stars. planets, the primordial elements- earth, air, fire, water, angels, spirits, animals, plants, minerals, are
made to support us in bringing fulfilment to the Cosmos. We are partly microcosms of the whole universe . Jesus, the
perfect man/God is at the heart of Creation. He made us in proportion to his image, and our goal is to work towards the
perfection he represents. We are in a process of being transformed from dust into precious stones in the heavenly New
Jerusalem, stars shining out to the Cosmos.

Hildegard’s vision of the “Universal Human” here in Vision 2 of her ‘Book of Divine Works’, expands Irenaeus of
Lyons’ 2nd century idea that “the glory of God is the human person fully alive, and the life of the human person is the
vision of God” (Gloria enim Dei vivens homo, vita autem hominis visio Dei). God, the head, oversees all. Beneath him
the entire cosmos lives within and is embraced by the figure of Christ, represented as the head and feet of all creation.

The human figure (us) stands encompassed by a series of concentric circles - the Creation, made and ordered by Christ.
These represent God’s cosmic order: usually the four elements are earth, air, fire & water, but in this vision: Luminous
Fire surrounds the cosmos, separating our dimension from God and warming the earth by God’s energy. Below that the
circle of Black Fire is God’s place of Judgement - purification that creation needs to go through before it can enjoy his
glory. Below that is a circle of Ether, full of stars - the spiritual element that influences and partly protects us by God’s
grace. Then, below, are various strata of Air (Watery Air [Clouds?] and ‘Clear Air’, the dimensions that naturally
influence, nourish and protect life, and in which we live.

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Within creation, surrounding the human figure angels manipulate the 5 known planets (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus
Mercury with the Sun and Moon), God’s fire (lightning) communicates from heaven, the four winds blow in triads,
creatures representing the months and other created powers influence the environment in which all are intended to
flourish. (‘Viriditas’/‘greening’, is how Hildegard describes our spiritual and physical flourishing).

The human form is perfect Vitruvian Man, which I’ll discuss later. But Hildegard’s Universal Human isn’t about classical,
scientific or geometric proportions. To her the perfect Universal Human is cosmologically aware, spiritually alive to all
powers around us. Hildegard imagined humans as the pinnacle of creation, microcosms of God’s supranatural cosmos,
inheritors of the truths which her visions disclosed to her, educated by God through his universe..

Hildegard didn’t create the painted illuminations of her visions;
some of which were sadly destroyed in the Second World War. Scribes visualised her descriptions, perhaps under her
guidance. We don’t know how much mediaeval astronomy or mathematics she knew or what monastic library volumes she
had available. We can only make suppositions about her sources. Her work may be thoughtful responses to general
knowledge of the time, as her music developed intuitively from common plainchant rather than being mathematically
innovative.
Hildegard’s cosmology, medicine, theology & music show her elaborating upon prevailing ideas of the period, feeling
called to perfect the church, advance understanding, create beauty & meditate on the holistic interconnectedness of God’s
Creation. Her greatest legacy is the holistic idea we recognise today that natural forces are interrelated: that all truth can
relate us to God.

ABBOT SUGER SAINT DENIS [c1081-1151]
Roughly contemporary with Hildegard’s visions, Abbot Suger of the Royal Abbey of Saint Denis, Paris was designing
his Abbey Church, the first Gothic Cathedral, as a holistic image of the Heavenly Jerusalem. If Cathedrals only arose
from the need of a monastic or urban community for a church building, they could be far simpler. Suger wanted his
whole church building to inspire the community with a visual encouragement to faith.

Suger was abbot from 1122 to his death in 1151. His account of his renovations survives, giving insight into his
influences, his vision for his church and its aims and symbolism. Scholasticism and the Age of Cathedrals developed
contemporaneously. Suger knew the work of Peter Abelard (1079-1142) and many other scholars. So the intellectual
atmosphere of mid-C12th theology influenced the symbolism of buildings.

Suger claimed that his main goal in rebuilding was to honour God and St. Denis, Patron Saint of France. Denis, possibly
martyred in Paris around 250CE, was incorrectly believed to be Paul’s Athenian convert Dionysius the Areopagite, [Acts
17:34] who was also wrongly identified as the late fifth or early sixth century Syrian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius,
author of spiritual treatises. Mediaeval imagination combined all three into a legend that Dionysius was converted by
Paul, became bishop of Athens, wrote the treatises on spirituality and brought Christ’s mission to France where he was
martyred.

INTERIOR ST DENIS
As Pseudo-Dionysius’ treatises emphasise the spiritual significance of light, enlightenment & darkness, Suger
encouraged his architect to increase the significance of light in the building: He widened arcades using pointed arches,
narrow pillars, enlarged windows by strengthening them with tracery and flying buttresses. In the Heavenly Jerusalem
the presence of God was its light [Rev.21:23]. In the Gothic cathedral coloured light, painting and reliquaries with
precious jewels imitated that glory.
The coloured windows represented the multi-coloured stones in the walls and doors of the Heavenly Jerusalem
[Rev.21:18-21]. Suger was an antiquarian, collector and hoarder, enriching, beautifying and increasing the symbolism of
his church, as his abbey was wealthy and important for promoting religion and politics.
Suger’s virtually ran the kingdom while King Louis VI was away on crusade and many of his church’s treasures were
spoils from those journeys. Crusaders and pilgrims ravaged the Middle East for relics. The saints bones beneath altars or
displayed in reliquaries and shrines assured worshippers that the saints in heaven were present for them and the riches of
the spiritual life awaited them.
.

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INTERIOR OF LA SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS
A century later many of St Denis’ relics, including the greatest: supposed to be Christ’s crown of thorns and the lance
that pierced his side were translated to the purpose-built La Sainte Chapelle (c1238-1248) by Louis IX whose obsession
with relics was even greater than his great-great grandfather’s: The whole chapel was designed as a reliquary of light to
hold the greatest spiritual treasures. The symbolism of the Church was at its zenith.

ANCIENT GEOMETRY - PARTHENON
The presence of the spiritual may be sensed in beauty as well as in overt or subconscious symbolism. Geometry had been
important in contributing to beauty and significance in architecture, sculpture and painting since the Egyptians and
Ancient Greeks. Geometry was a practical tool for laying out plans, relating proportions to one another, scaling up and
transferring designs, and marking out stone & panels, but it also contributed religious symbolism. Vitruvius (Marcus
Vitruvius Pollo) the C1st BCE Roman architect & engineer, regarded geometry & order as central to the art of design.
Influenced by Plato’s ideas of ‘ideal forms’ & ‘dynamic symmetry’, Vitruvius believed beauty was created by
‘appropriateness’ or ‘fittingness’, in how we arrange elements of design in proportion, symmetry, economy and propriety.
The artist or designer should aim to create ‘Eurythmy’, ‘the beauty of appropriateness’. This included spiritual
appropriateness in placing and orientation buildings to best utilize light & arrange them as the gods would want. (In this,
Eurythmy is similar to the Eastern concept of Feng Shui.) The term ‘symmetry’ was used differently to our meaning
today: it was ‘an appropriate and ordered relationship between parts of a work and their relationship to the whole’.

VITRUVIAN MAN
Vitruvius saw perfect symmetrical harmony in the form of an ideal human body. This demonstrated the gods’ concept of
cosmic ideal beauty: The interrelationships in our proportions, he believed, could be applied to all forms of design.

VILLARD DE HONNECOURT NOTEBOOKS
Mathematical and geometrical knowledge and symbolism was handed down over centuries, not just through scholars but
through the masonic craft, as we see in the notebooks of Villard de Honnecourt c1235. As geometry was the main
practical tool of architect masons, secrets of geometry were regarded as containing some ‘mysterious spiritual wisdom’.
This survives today in Freemasonry.

As everything in creation was created by God for our instruction & Platonic forms had spiritual significance, so the
geometric forms and proportions God used in designing creation - the square, circle, triangle tetrahedron, cube, pentagon
and Golden Ratio - were thought to be able to convey and enhance sacred meaning. Something designed according to
their principles would nourish the soul.

CHARTRES CATHEDRAL – PLANS RELATED TO HUMAN PROPORTIONS & GOLDEN RATIO
They designed using these proportions, believing that the sacred beauty created would elevate and draw people closer to
God. The architecture of Chartres Cathedral seems entirely based on the proportions God used to create the Cosmos.

In plan the length of the Nave, Choir, Transepts, chapels and the distance between pillars are all multiples of the Golden
Number (approximately 1.618 – a ratio constructed geometrically or by the Fibonacci sequence.). From the centre of the
Labyrinth on the Nave floor a circle and pentagram could be constructed that gave them the centre and width of the
transepts and the length of the nave. ‘Mirroring’ the pentagram and circle gave the dimensions of the Eastern half of the
building, the choir and ambulatory.

CHARTRES - ELEVATIONS
In elevation all proportions of the different elements: bays width and height, piers, arches, clerestory windows and
triforium all relate (within a slight margin of error) to the golden number. Some of the proportional relationships also
relate to intervals in the So-Fa scale that formed harmony in music, which were believed to reflect ‘the Music of the
Spheres’, singing the eternal worship of the universe. These aims for the building aren’t just intellectual cleverness by
the patrons, architects or masons nor just aiming to create surface beauty. They believed that to enhance worship and
elevate the soul every element of a building or work of art should have spiritual meaning, enlighten us and enhance
worship by linking us with the heavenly dimension. It was an artist’s and craftsperson’s moral and spiritual obligation to
create good, sacred design by reflecting God’s perfect patterns. God had looked at his creation and found it good

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[Gen.1:31]; ‘made in his image, we should glorify him in our creation of high quality, meaningful artefacts as part of our
worship.

CHARTRES ROYAL PORTAL
You were intended to move through a church from one spiritual experience to another.

CHARTRES TYMPANUM OF CHRIST IN MAJESTY
You entered the Cathedral under a tympanum of Christ enthroned in judgement & glory to remind you that you only
come to glory, through Christ, so you must enter worthily.

CHARTRES JAMBS
The portals’ jamb sculptures of Old Testament patriarchs and prophets paralleled with New Testament saints reminded
you of the company of heaven you are called into. You are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” [Heb.12:1],
who watch your actions, will help to judge you, intercede for you and worship alongside you..

LIBERAL ARTS SCULPTURES OF ROYAL PORTAL
Chartres’ Royal Portal includes signs of human wisdom that guides the human soul’s development. Among the saints
and angels of heaven and the life of Christ are practical labours, the liberal arts and virtues, which elevate the soul as God
intended. They surround Mary who modelled those virtues for you.

The Seven Liberal Arts - grammar, rhetoric,& logic (the trivium) & geometry, arithmetic, music, & astronomy (the
quadrivium) could expand, nurture and purify the soul. The Seven Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice,
Temperance, Courage (or Fortitude) [or after 590 CE, to balance Pope Gregory’s list of Deadly Sins] Chastity,
Temperance, Charity, Diligence, Patience, Kindness & Humility reflected the balanced, perfect soul.

CHARTRES INTERIOR
Inside the church the symbolism continued. Coloured windows and carvings often presented the stories of scripture.
Though they’re usually too small to read for instruction, the presence of biblical stories was meant to enlighten.

PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL NAVE ROOF (1230-1250)
The paintings on the wooden nave roof of Peterborough Cathedral represents: the saints and legendary world of creation
assessing our worship and integrity of life.

SOUTHWELL MINSTER – CHAPTER HOUSE LEAVES
Come carvings represented our relationship with the natural world, as in Southwell Minster’s detailed leaves of the
natural environment with occasional symbolic animals within them.

KLOSTER MICHAELSBURG NAVE-
Kloster Michaelsburg in Germany has an extensive herbal painted on the vault of its nave, perhaps related to the healing
work of the monastic infirmary. (Sadly this is now almost completely a restored work, after several fires.)

ST MARY’S DENNINGTON
The pew-ends of Dennington in Suffolk show a bestiary of figures that represent the characteristics of God, the meanings
in nature, the characteristics expected of the faithful, and the lessons available to us from nature’s symbolism..

HOLY TRINITY BLYTHBOROUGH
Blythburgh bench ends include the virtues & deadly sins we must avoid and the monthly labours of the faithful.

C17TH EMBLEM BOOKS – GEORGE WITHERS
This moral meaning in nature became even more intellectualised in the Renaissance & C17th in elaborate poetic & artistic
allegories & Emblem Books. Protestants & Catholics fused nature, scripture & fable to create elaborate allegories for
moral & religious instruction.

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LADY DRURY’S CHAMBER, CHRISTCHURCH MANSION, IPSWICH
Hawstead’s Chamber of allegorical panels, is an amazing survival now in Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich. It was
designed to encourage the intellectual patrons Lord and Lady Drury, patrons & friends of John Donne, to consider their
moral & spiritual priorities.

GEOMETRY OF RAPHAEL SCHOOL OF ATHENS, STANZE DELLA SEGNATURA, VATICAN
With the rise of the intellectual status of artists in the Renaissance, the symbolism, numerology and use of geometry in
planning and enhancing meaning in paintings advanced.

MASACCIO TRINITY & PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA BAPTISM
When Pope Eugenius IV (1383 - 1447) fled to Florence in 1434 he took with him his Platonist scholar Leon Battista
Alberti, a clerk and priest. Inspired by Florence, especially Brunelleschi, Masaccio and Donatello, he produced his
influential treatise ‘On Painting’ in 1435. More than a manual, he intended to teach how painting and design could have
a “truly divine” influence on people.

He believed that if you created correct space through perspective, as Masaccio and Piero della Francesca did you made
the subject’s spiritual reality more clear. The perspective of Masaccio’s Trinity fresco (which the architect Brunelleschi
probably helped to draw) and Piero’s Baptism, set in true natural environment of the hills around Sansepulchro
emphasised that this scene is spiritual reality: The Trinity are real and available for us to approach in our own dimension
and time… Christ was baptised to identify with us and show us the way.

PIERO FLAGELLATION
Piero della Francesca was a recipient of a humanist classical & mathematical education. The geometry and carefully
constructed perspective of Piero’s Flagellation emphasises that Christ’s identification with us and suffering for us
happened in reality and its effects reach forward into our own dimension. The three front figures probably relate to or are
discussing the present pains of Christendom, suffering like its Lord.

Piero’s perspective is so accurately constructed that we are able to construct the space exactly in plan and in three-
dimensions. Boethius translated Euclid’s Greek term ‘optics’ in C6th Latin as “perspectiva”,and the term ‘perspectiva”
became used broadly to mean “seeing”. So in Alberti & Piero’s treatises ‘perspective’, means ‘seeing things as they
really are - physically, mentally, metaphysically, spiritually by insight, as well as geometry. The lesson in this is that
Christ is suffering for all time and the benefits of his sufferings apply to today’s world as it is!

FRA ANGELICO – SAN MARCO FLORENCE, CELLS
On the surface Fra Angelico’s art seems simpler, designed for prolonged contemplation: A friar might live in a cell with
one picture for decades. But Fra Angelico’s learning was as intellectual as Piero’s. Eventually as Prior of Fiesole, he and
in the intellectual and spiritual powerhouse of Dominican Florence, he ministered and painted at the heart of Dominican
and theological advances in understanding.

FRA ANGELICO – SAN DOMENICO PREDELLA AND LAST JUDGEMENT (DETAIL OF HEAVEN)
From using traditional gold backgrounds, symbolic of heavenly light in accord with Thomas Aquinas, Fra Angelico moved
to setting his subjects in real natural space. The architectural settings of his paintings reflected the architecture of Florence
and of his monastery. The plants and gardens were those of the natural environment around. This naturalism was probably
influenced by Ambrogio Traversari, leader of the Camaldolese Order at Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence (next door to
the studio where Fra Angelico probably initially trained). Traversari’s translations of the Greek Church Fathers imagined
heaven as populated by purified natural life, rather than the eternal light described by Latin scholars,. He imagined heaven
as a place where nature was perfected and enjoyed by human beings, as shown in Fra Angelico and Filippo & Filipino
Lippi’s backgrounds. Traversari encouraged artists to ‘preach’ through their painting and Fra Angelico was an active
Dominican preacher as well as a painter.

FRA ANGELICO - SAN MARCO CELLS
Fra Angelico’s biggest influence was Antoninus (Antonio Pierozzi 1389-1459) (Dominican prior at Fiesole during Fra
Angelico’s formative time as a novice (1422-6), founder & prior of San Marco from 1439 then Archbishop of Florence

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between 1446 and 1459. He probably guided Fra Angelico over subjects for the San Marco frescoes. Antoninus’ treatise
Summa Theologica encouraged sacred art, claiming that the visual can inspire spirituality, encourage piety and devotion &
convey teaching & doctrine. The duty of artists, he wrote, is “to morally enlighten themselves and others”. Art can
promote Christian truth, support teaching and help contemplation. But he believed that contemporary art needed
reforming: Artists betrayed God’s gifts if they create “precocious images, for their forms or for their beauty” not their
spiritual meaning. Religious art should be simple, serious and devout, not ‘clever’ or ‘entertaining’. It should help people
focus on God not be attracted by artistry itself. Art should convey its message directly, realistically, without elaborate
symbolism, superfluous detail or over-decoration.

FRA ANGELICO - SAN MARCO CELL - ST DOMINIC EMBRACING THE CROSS
This may be why direct Fra Angelico’s pictures are direct, simple & naturalistic. Antoninus wrote: “Images are not
valuable in and for themselves, but because they move the worshipper beyond the representation to the object of worship.”
“Holy images partake of the sacred by stimulating contemplation of higher things…The priest himself is elevated to
greater devotion as he looks upon an image.”

The picture in each friar’s cell was a visible spiritual exercise to aid meditation.
It was painted near a cell window that looked onto the physical world, to which the friar must minister & for which he
prayed. The fresco was a window into the spiritual world, encouraging the friar to relate spiritual truth to his physical
world in prayer and ministry.

JOHN PIPER, ST JOHN’S HOSPITAL WINDOW, LICHFIELD
In trying to make spiritual art that is relevant to today we can learn wisdom from all these past aims. Art can carry
significant content. It communicates in very different ways to doctrine or preaching. There is too much naivety in some
Christian art or over-dogmatic proselytizing in other work. Art should make faith relevant to the minds of the world in
which we live without being propagandist.

Beauty is not a requirement of modern art, but when something is striking it may attract our attention and open us to
contemplate. Harmony of colours, proportion, forms, quality of materials and craftsmanship add to our appreciation of
some pieces. But equally, a raw and challenging work of art may encourage us to linger on it and think. John Piper
deliberately made challengingly modern artworks for churches to make congregations stop and think.

IAIN McKILLOP - RECONCILIATION OF PETER
When we recognise depth of meaning in a work, we are more likely to linger & contemplate. Some modern and
contemporary art doesn’t stand up to such scrutiny. When you look into some supposed ‘intellectualised artistic
profundities’ they sometimes prove to be shallow. That shouldn’t be the case with a Christian subject. We are dealing
with deep truths and with Hildegard we recognise interconnectedness among things.

IAIN McKILLOP GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL & BURY ST EDMUNDS PIETAS                                     Christian art should
engage us. The artist’s question should not be “What will promote me or seem clever?” Our question should be what
metaphors can we use to represent our contemporary understanding of truth and faith? Esoteric aspects of art still rightly
value symbols & symbolism. But today, many in society are unchurched, not educated in religious stories, symbols or
faith. If we use story & symbols we need to teach people how to read & engage with them. We also need to produce and
commission art that communicates.

The Enlightenment questioned many myths of faith onto which believers held. It didn’t just lead to secularisation; it also
encouraged believers to advance in our apologetics and the way we approach faith realistically. Thinkers were rightly
encouraged to search for reality. Contemporary faith and art needs to feel ‘true, to acknowledge the advance of scientific,
historical, cultural and psychological knowledge. Many are suspicious of religion or art that promotes principles and
ideals that seem outdated or naïve. Others suspect airy ideas, abstract idealism, exclusive or narrow faith and find
romantic beliefs and simplistic religious art too slick or escapist. Wise art and faith need to be rooted in reality, humble in
recognising that our spirituality doesn’t have all the answers, accepting the possibility of other truths, lifestyles and
cultures.

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IAIN McKILLOP – GLOUCESTER CATHEDRAL LADY CHAPEL ALTARPIECE
I personally paint with an ‘expressive realist. Style, as I believe (and have found) that it can bring religious subjects alive
& seems to communicate emotionally to others. But ALL forms of art can be valid forms of communication. The
wisdom we need is to find the right medium, subject, style and form that will communicate truths about faith most
effectively in each particular situation, to varied people and cultures.

IAIN McKILLOP –RESURRECTION ALTARPIECE – St JOHN’S, BURY ST EDMUNDS
There’s no one answer to how any work of religious art contains or communicates truth.

Art in a religious context encourages contemplation, prayer and worship in spirit & Truth [Jn.4:23]. But as with the icon,
religious art should be a window through which we focus beyond onto the true dimension of God. Ultimately truth in art
is not just the meaning of its subject or what the artist intended or put into their work. Truth is in what we truly receive
from the work and how it enhances our lives and faith.

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ART’S EXPRESSION OF SPIRITUAL TRUTH                                   ‘Eurythmy’ - ‘the beauty of appropriateness’. ‘Symmetry’ ‘an
Image List      Iain McKillop                                         appropriate and ordered relationship between parts of a work
                                                                      and their relationship to the whole’.
John Linnell – Contemplation 1864-5 [Tate]
                                                                      Villard de Honnecourt Notebooks c1235 [Bibliotheque
SUBLIME LANDSCAPE –                                                   Nationale Paris MS Fr 19093]
Caspar David Friedrich, Lunar Rainbow 1810 [Folkwang Mus.
Essen] Winter Landscape with Church 1811 [Dortmund Mus.]              Chartres Cathedral - ideal human proportions & golden ratio
John Martin _The Great Day of God’s Wrath 1825 [Tate]                 Chartres Royal Portal
J.M.W.Turner Valley of Aostia Snowstorm & Avalance [Tate].            Chartres Tympanum of Christ in Majesty in the Tetramorph
                                                                      Chartres Jambs of Saints, Prophets & Patriarchs
William Blake Blight Infesting the Fields                             Royal Portal - Natural Labours of Months & female
                                                                      personifications of Seven Liberal Arts - Arithmetic, Music,
REALISM
                                                                      Grammar, characterised by Pythagoras, Euclid & Ptolemy below
Anton Mauve 1870 Shepherdess with a Flock of Sheep
                                                                      Chartres Rose Window and Sculptures by Gislebertus of Autun
[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam]
Jean-Francois Millet 1855-7 The Angelus [Louvre, Paris]               Peterborough Cathedral Nave Roof (1230-1250)
POST-IMPRESSIONISM/EXPRESSIONISM                                      Southwell Minster, Notts. Chapter House Leaves c1300
 Van Gogh – The Potato Eaters 1885, Wheatfield and Cypresses
1889, Wheatfield with a Reaper 1889, The Sower 1889                   Kloster Michaelsburg, Germany Botanical Vault Paintings
[Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam]                                          St. Mary’s, Dennington, Suffolk C15th Bestiary bench ends
Henry OssawaTanner 1898 Annunciation [Philadelphia Museum]            Holy Trinity, Blythburgh, Suffolk bench ends - Labours of the
James Tissot 1886-94 ‘Feed My Lambs’ [Brooklyn Museum]                Months – Ploughing, Reaping, Gathering Flowers. Acts of
Wiliam Holman Hunt 1854-6 The Scapegoat [Lady Lever                   Mercy – Burying The Dead, Consoling the Prisoner. Severn
Gallery, Port Sunlight]                                               Deadly Sins Avarice, Sloth Gluttony, Pride Hypocrisy
Stanley Spencer 1920 Christ Carrying the Cross [Tate]                 Emblem books esp. George Withers’ Book of Emblems 1635
Mark Rothko 1964-70 Rothko Chapel [Houston]                           Lady Drury Emblem Chamber from Hawstead 1610
MINIMALISM. CONCEPTUAL ART                                            [Christchurch Mansion Museum, Ipswich]
Richard Serra, Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys                               Raphael School of Athens – 1509 – 11 geometry [Stanza della
Richard Long                                                          Segnatura,Vatican]
James Turrell
                                                                      Masaccio Trinity c1427-8 [Santa Maria Novella, Florence]
Crucifixion Icon
Iain McKillop 2004 2 panels from Lady Chapel Triptych,                Piero della Francesca 1448 Baptism of Christ [National Gallery,
Gloucester Cathedral                                                  London]
                                                                      Leon Battista Alberti, ‘On Painting’ 1435.
Aidan Hart Pantocrator Icon
                                                                      Piero della Francesca 1455 Flagellation [National Gallery
Andrei Rublev 1411/1425-27 Hospitality of Abraham / Trinity           Urbino]
Icon. [Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow]
                                                                      Fra Angelico San Marco Cell Frescoes, Florence 1439 -1444
Christ in a Mandorla                                                  Predella of San Domenico Altarpiece c1422-3 [National Gallery,
Transfiguration apse mosaic c565 St Catherine’s, Sinai                London]
Rembrandt van Rijn c1661-9 Prodigal Son [Hermitage Museum,            Last Judgement c1431 [San Marco Museum, Florence]
St Petersburg]                                                        Ambrogio Traversari, Camaldolese Order, Santa Maria Degli
                                                                      Angeli, Florence
Iain McKillop 2017 “Father Forgive Them, They Don’t Know              Antoninus (Antonio Pierozzi 1389-1459) (Dominican Prior,
What they Are Doing” (Through Passion Series)                         Fiesole, Founder & Prior of San Marco, Florence from 1439
                                                                      Archbishop of Florence 1446 - 1459.
Love Feasts - Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, early C3rd Catacomb        “Images are not valuable in and for themselves, but because they
of Domitilla, Rome, mid C4th                                          move the worshipper beyond the representation to the object of
Good Shepherd and Story of Jonah Frescoes - Catacomb of               worship.” “Holy images partake of the sacred by stimulating
Saints Pietro and Marcellinus, Rome C2nd                              contemplation of higher things… The priest himself is elevated to
                                                                      greater devotion as he looks upon an image.”
Christ as Orpheus & Apollo - Catacomb of Domitilla, Rome, C
3rd Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna c435-50                      John Piper 1982-4 – Christ in Majesty window, St. John’s
                                                                      Hospital Chapel, Lichfield
Mediaeval Bestiaries and Herbals
                                                                Rembrandt c1661-69 The Prodigal Son [Hermitage Museum, St.
Hildegard of Bingen [1098-1179] Book of Divine Works 1170-3
                                                                Petersburg]
Vision 2 On the Construction of the World: The Universal Human.
                                                                Iain McKillop 2001 Reconciliation of Peter
Abbot Suger [c1081-1151] Saint Denis rebuilt 1122-1155
                                                                Iain McKillop 2004 Gloucester Cathedral Lady Chapel Altarpiece
La Sainte Chapelle, Paris (c1238-1248)
                                                                Iain McKillop 2006-7 Stations of the Cross, St. John’s Bury St.
Ancient Geometry Golden Ratio - Parthenon
                                                                Edmunds
Vitruvius Pollo) the c1st BCE
                                                                Iain McKillop 2007 Resurrection Altarpiece, St. John’s, Bury St.
Vitruvian Ideal Universal Human Proportions
                                                                Edmunds

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