Here is a recommendation for painters: if you want to get commissions, you need more than the ability to supply individual paintings in your chosen style. You need to be able to paint walls. My recommendation for style in contemporary churches is a new manifestation of the School of St Albans. Read more about why here.
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| Virgin and Child, by Matthew Paris, English, 13th century. The artist has included himself venerating the Mother of God and adoring Christ |
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| Fresco by Martin Earle, English, 21st century |
Artists can now learn how to do this by taking the Writing the Light wall painting program and icon drawing program under Master iconographer George Kordis. This is a two-year, part-time hybrid program (a combination of online and in-person workshops) – see a recent post about it here. The program focuses on the Greek style of iconography, but students who want to make the School of St Albans style their own should supplement it with personal study of past works by artists such as Matthew Paris. The key is to imitate that style until it becomes your natural artistic expression. This process of copying with understanding is how, for example, artists of the High Renaissance such as Michelangelo and Raphael made the ancient Greek ideal their own. They systematically copied Greek and Roman statues as part of their training, as well as drawing and painting from life. So artists who wish to make the Gothic style their own should learn the skills of their craft – Writing the Light will teach them this – as they study both from life and works of past Masters in the Gothic style. It will need students with ability and drive initially, but it is most certainly possible.
Patrons, another challenge for you: consider sponsoring a talented artist from your church to develop these skills through Writing the Light. You can read more at WritingtheLight.com.
What is the School of St Albans?
The School of St Albans is the style of English illumination in the late Romanesque and early Gothic period, particularly the work of the 13th-century monk Matthew Paris, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire, England. The style can be seen in manuscripts like the Westminster Psalter and in wall paintings that still survive in English churches.
This is a style that relies on the description of form with line, and is restrained in its use of tonal and color variation. These limitations help eliminate the sentimentality of naturalism, which is the blight of so many modern artists.
True to the Gothic spirit, by which classical sources were integrated into cultural expressions. Paris drew and painted not only sacred art for books like psalters and illustrations of the lives of saints, but also figures such as Plato and Socrates. He was also influenced by the renewed interest in the philosophy of Aristotle, and thus a keen observer of nature who drew many studies of plants and animals.
Why the School of St Albans?
When in discussing the reestablishment of beautiful sacred art in the Roman Catholic Church, part of what we have to think about is choosing a style from the past and using it as a starting point from which it is believed a characteristic style for today will emerge. Some look at the Baroque, some at iconography. My thought is that we look at this period. The suggestion for the name of the art of this period – the School of St Albans – originally came from a student in a class of mine over 10 years ago now.
My experience as a teacher is that Roman Catholics do seem to take to this style naturally and make it their own, even in a single class. You can see the work my students did in a past week-long workshop several years ago in this blog post.
When we studied images from this period, the students engaged with them much more readily – they liked them more than Eastern icons and seemed to understand them more instinctively. As a result, some quickly developed a feel for what they could change without straying outside the tradition they were working in. In contrast, most who had not seen it before found the style of Eastern icons slightly alien. In iconography classes, they had no instinctive sense of what they could change while remaining within the tradition. This meant we had to copy rigorously to avoid introducing errors. It was a bit like learning words in a language by rote, without understanding their meaning. This is not always such a bad thing – copying with understanding is an essential part of learning art – but at some point the student must apply his understanding in new ways. This latter point seemed to be reached more quickly by these Roman Catholic students when working in the Gothic style than in the iconographic style.
Can This Style Work on a Large Scale?
The style will be most familiar to readers as seen in illuminated manuscripts by Matthew Paris; generally, these are miniatures. Some have questioned whether this style would work on a large scale. I have always thought that it could be adapted to work on the walls of modern churches.
Original medieval wall paintings have been uncovered at St Albans Cathedral. I made a trip there to see them in 2018. The paintings are pale, but as we can see, they are done on a large scale and follow this same basic style – form described by line, with simple coloration. The photographs include St Amphibalus (a convert of St Alban) baptizing converts – note full immersion! – and Euclid and Herman the Dalmatian (a medieval philosopher), above.
Whether or not you are convinced that it is right to use this style today, we can certainly conclude that the artists of the period considered it appropriate for floor-to-ceiling frescoes (this church has a high ceiling). I would encourage patrons and artists to look at these and think about how they could reproduce this style in our churches. I think that it allows for large areas to be covered relatively easily and appropriately.
