This is the final blog in our July 2024 series on the theme of art and theology.
In his introduction to the series, Professor Graeme Smith programme leader for the MA in Theology, Imagination and Culture wrote:
Thinking about the interaction of culture and theology is central to our work in the College. Art, together with literature, poetry and music, expresses something of our concerns, values and beliefs as a society. It also gives us opportunity to employ our imaginations as we seek to explore our identity, our avenues for personal growth and flourishing, and the ways in which we can shape society for the better.
29 July 2024
Art that touches the pulse
By James Woodward
I first came across the work of Barbara Hepworth in 1980 during a visit to Aldeburgh. I had gone on a weekend party to a friend’s house on Crag Path, the sea front road that offers an uninterrupted view of the North Sea.
The town became famous because of its connection with the composer Benjamin Britten, founder of the Aldeburgh Festival. Pastel-coloured houses line the seafront to the east, the (hard to walk on) pebble beach has huts belonging to fishermen who, on a good day, sell their catch.
I escaped the noise of the party to visit Snape Maltings. In this space I noticed a rather strange looking set of blocks standing on the edge of the estuary. At first glance they seemed both odd and inviting, solid yet so out of place in their strangeness.
Sometimes it helps to know the title of a piece of art or sculpture. Do we go straight for the commentary for clarity and explanation, or do we wander, touch and allow the work to speak to us?
I remember how powerful these solid bronze blocks were. Shaped and coloured by time and weather they were seemingly immovable. They stood alone and distanced from one another but there was connection in and between them. In the moment they conveyed both connection one with another but also with the natural world of that bleak and beautiful coastline.
I picked up a leaflet to learn that they were part of nine distinct figures sculpted by Barbara Hepworth between 1970 and 1972. A total of nine figures offers a window into the different stages of life. These three sculptures were named: Parent I, Ancestor I and Ancestor II. Installed in 1976, Hepworth’s work has almost melded into the bank of the River Alde.
And so began a lifelong fascination with that cluster of artists belonging to the St Ives School. The work of Terry Frost, Ben Nicholson and Alfred Wallis have journeyed with me in an encounter with art that is perplexing, life-changing, horizon-expanding and nurturing of the human spirit in ways often too deep to articulate.
A visit to the Hepworth Wakefield just after lockdown set some of the Hepworth work into a broader historical context but above all opened the way in which Hepworth draws us into noticing, connecting, and with a deepening spiritual perception. Her art has great agency and capacity filter both emotion and spirituality. In a field that was dominated by men I think there is a feminine intuition and creativity that is uniquely expressed in her vision of movement and landscape. Her hand and mind and eye offer us a different way of seeing both the world around us and within us.
Closer to home one of the sheer delights of working in Salisbury was the discovery of the New Art Centre and its extensive collection of the Hepworth’s work. There is something deeply evocative, and nurturing and challenging in her work. We can find glimpses of her strength but understanding the nature of her struggles in life makes one admire even more the timeless elegance of what she is attempting to represent.
In my study here at Sarum College I have a lithograph called “Sun setting” (pictured, right) signed by Hepworth, which is part of a Aegean Suite series. Its texture, colour, symmetry and stability are comforting and encouraging reminders of the steady passing of time and the opportunity that we have to use time well.
It is a reminder and testimony to these words of Hepworth: “A sculpture should be an act of praise, an enduring expression of the divine spirit.”
It is also an invitation for us to be open to change and surprise that is present in art as we seek to find our spiritual pulse.
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The Revd Canon James Woodward is Principal of Sarum College.
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