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Interview Eamon Duffy interviews Gabriele Finaldi In its pursuit of the dialogue between art and Christianity, ACE invited Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge, to interview the Director of the , .The two met on 21 March 2017.

ED: How does your Catholic Christian of art. We’ve all agreed that they are here but in other galleries, and that ‘Seeing identity inform your professional identity important – that’s why they’re in the Salvation’ had emboldened curators to be as Director of the National Gallery? museum, so it’s for the museum to find more explicit about what these pictures the language and the interpretations mean and what their context was. Has this GF: There are several ways of answer - that will make these works of interest. met with resistance? ing this question, but the first is that it I’m slightly hesitant to use the word gives me a natural sympathy with relevant because that’s a much abused GF: I think it encountered a bit of resist - what’s in the National Gallery. About a word, but these objects and what they ance at the beginning because there third of the collection uses Christian signify can be made to have a purchase was awareness that it is worryingly iconography, that means that around on a modern audience. easy to slip from being a professional 700 of the 2500 pictures in the collection museum person, a professional art his - have Christian subject matter, with ED: As a Catholic, are you clear in your torian, to being in some way an apolo - which I have a ready understanding in own mind about the dividing line between gist. And that was something that we many cases. Obviously there are some enabling people who don’t come from a were concerned about. On the other rather abstruse stories of the saints that Christian background to get something out hand we felt that it was very impor - I’m not that familiar with. But the other of the pictures, and actually preaching the tant, when we did that exhibition, to thing which I think my Catholic identi - Gospel? focus on the subject matter and to try ty gives me – and I suppose this comes and understand what I’ve sometimes from childhood – is a sense of the sacra - GF: Well, I think there’s a role to simply called the ‘faith context’ in which these mental nature of imagery; imagery is explain, to put into context, to identify works were made. Now it’s part of the there but it’s about something else. I iconography, a way to help people discipline of art history that you try suppose that came to me naturally, understand what these works were and understand the context in which while growing up, that everything you made for, that is neutral. Inevitably, if works of art are made; but that context see has an additional meaning or fur - you’re speaking to people who have is not just, as it were, socio-economic; ther interpretation or is symbolic of particular sympathy for Christian sub - nor is it just where the work fits into a something else. That forma mentis , I ject matter then you can assume more sort of a sequence of aesthetic develop - think, prepares you well for dealing and focus on aspects you perhaps ments; it’s very much also about how with Christian imagery whether it’s in might not touch on with a more gener - the object was used, what it’s prime churches or museums. al audience. But I do think, that purpose was, how it was perceived because many of these works of art and utilized in the places for which ED: A very high percentage of your pun - were conceived in an evangelising con - these objects were made. So to put that ters, presumably, are not practising Chris - text, that they still can play that role. As at the fore, or to push that to the fore, I tians and don’t have the empathy and the a museum professional it’s for me to think was very useful because it back knowledge that you have, so how do talk about them in a historical context enriches the experience of the objects. I you deal with that? and to try and understand what they’re think it’s been taken up in other exhibi - about. Also to try and understand tions and in the language that is used to GF: Well, I think that one approaches those universal qualities that apply to talk about works of art in museums. great works of art in any museum from us today whatever our beliefs or tradi - It’s a very positive development, and I one’s own standpoint: there will be cer - tions may be. I suppose on a personal don’t notice much resistance to it tain things that are of immediate inter - level they can mean other things too, nowadays. est to you and other things where you certainly for me. need to work a bit harder. And the ED: I was very struck in the wake of ‘See - museum has a very important role as ED: When you were lecturing in Cam - ing Salvation’ with what I think were four mediator, helping to find ways that bridge last month you mentioned ‘Seeing television programmes that Neil MacGre - will give these works of art a purchase Salvation’, the National Gallery exhibition gor did. They seemed to me the best exercis - on an audience not familiar with Chris - mounted at the time of the Millennium, and es in communicating the Christian mes - tian imagery and perhaps with only a the huge impact that it had on you. I think sage I’d seen on television. And he was limited understanding of the historical you also mentioned that the exhibition unafraid really. context. So the museum certainly has a aroused negative remarks, some feeling that mediating role – we used to call it an the confessional undertone should have GF: One of the things that Neil did, and educating role. It’s very important that been more overt. But you also suggested it was very much part of the work the museum facilitates understanding that this exhibition had caused a shift in the around exhibitions, was to find the and appreciation of these great works way that religious art is presented, not just right kind of vocabulary. You know,

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Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the National Gallery © The National Gallery, London

this is a very rich and complex society very struck that they were clearly mes - GF : No, not at all. Ultimately we were and it’s certainly not the kind of com - merised by this picture. wanting to compile something that pact society of centuries ago where was representative of the Prado Muse - people did more or less the same things GF: Yes, I think one of the great contri - um. But it was surprising to discover and more or less believed the same butions of the Christian tradition in art that one of the most successful pictures things, so you have to find a language is the creation of a language of beauty was a rather grand seventeenth-centu - which is suitable for a very wide rang - that is universally understandable. ry flower painting by an artist called ing audience, for a very multi-ethnic There are certain images of the Virgin Andrea Belvedere, to which we didn’t audience. And I think the way to do Mary which speak very freely across attribute much importance but in Chi - that is to go for what are the universal cultures and across quite different con - na it was hugely admired. So it was themes that underlie the Christian cepts of beauty. I remember when I was quite surprising the way a Chinese imagery in the National Gallery. In working in Spain at the Prado we did audience reacted to Western imagery. some ways you could do it with other an exhibition of works from the Muse - faith images as well. But the question um which we took to China and one of ED: You mentioned your time in the Prado. remains - what are the fundamental, the works which was most admired – Did working there present you with differ - universal themes that underlie this and we knew that because of anecdotal ent kinds of problems of presentation and imagery? So it meant finding a lan - comments but also because it was the explanation from working here? guage that touched on love, forgive - postcard that sold the most – was ness, mercy, pain and redemption, and Murillo’s Immaculate Conception . And GF: Well, the situation was paradoxi - said – well look, these pictures are ulti - you may think – well, why? – because cal. At the Prado, it being the great mately dealing with the big subject of there’s so much culture to be under - Spanish art museum in a country that what it is to be human. stood in order to appreciate that paint - is Catholic or at least a country of ing or to appreciate it fully. But all that strong Catholic tradition, it would ED: On my way here, after passing baggage wasn’t necessary. Here’s an have been quite difficult to do an exhi - through the central hall, I went first to find extraordinarily beautiful representa - bition like ‘Seeing Salvation’. On the one of my favourite pictures in the collec - tion of a beautiful woman which had a other hand in a country like ours … tion, the Francesco Francia of The Virgin universal impact. It didn’t require the and Child with St Anne and Other Christian faith for the picture to be ED: Do you mean it would have been ‘dif - Saints . There was a Chinese couple stand - loved and admired. ficult’ to do this in Spain? ing in front of it. They took each other’s photographs and then they just stood and ED: When you were choosing the pictures GF: It would have been difficult gazed and gazed and gazed. They were to take to China, were there any types of because it would have been felt that obviously Chinese, not British people who pictures you excluded because you thought that was the job of the church, and of happened to be of Chinese origin, and I was that they might be alienating? course in Spain the church does do

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exhibitions and does act on the cultural This is one of the very significant things about the Catholic stage in a much more forceful manner that in other countries. Whereas here, faith – that it has always recognised the importance of in this more secular country, with a the emotions; and the way in which they can play an more limited Catholic presence, it was much easier to mount ‘Seeing Salva - important role in supporting or strengthening the experi - tion’. So that was very interesting. But ence of faith. the reason why I used the word para - doxical is because, on the other hand, the continuity between church or museum and life in is very evi - dent. For instance, you see religious works of art by in the Muse - of art has been taken out of the church However, it does give us a head start, it um, but then you’ll step outside and and put into the museum the link has does say, well ok, here’s somebody pre - take a short train ride to Toledo and been broken. pared to consider the spiritual qualities you’ll see works by him in the churches of the experience of a work of art, a in front of which Mass is celebrated ED: I wanted to ask you about that: I’ve piece of music or piece of literature or a and before which the faithful pray. noticed that here in the Sainsbury Wing painting. So this word establishes a Again I was struck by this, some years there is more attempt that there used to be common ground that you can explore ago, after giving a talk here at the to make the space in which the pictures together. I think that’s important, and National Gallery on the Immaculate hang look a bit more like a chapel. Is that the gallery can do that too in the way it Conception in the Spanish Room. I normal? selects and exhibits works of art, in the read up everything I could and way that they are displayed and in the explained to my audience that, in the GF: I said the link has been broken but way they are discussed. In that lecture 17th Century, it was quite common for of course one of the things that we’re that you mentioned earlier, I started by people to greet each other in the street constantly trying to do is in some way talking about how , by saying ‘Ave María Purísima’, (‘Hail re-establish the connection through the when he wrote about Piero della Mary Most Pure’), and the reply would way we present the pictures, through Francesca’s Baptism of Christ , spent be ‘Sin pecado concebido’ (‘Conceived the way we talk about them, through about three pages talking about its par - without sin’). Having given this as the way we write about them. And ticular aesthetic qualities before ever illustration of how, historically, faith very interestingly, when the Sainsbury discussing the subject matter or even was manifest in everyday life, I went Wing was being designed in the late going into any detail about where it on a visit to Seville with my wife, or as 1980s the intention, given that so much came from or what its purpose was. she was then my fiancée. We went to an of the art in that it was going to house When that picture was first hung in enclosed convent and knocked at the was religious art, was to somehow the Sainsbury Wing, there was a sort of door at the turnstile and the first words evoke those serene spaces of Tuscan arch into which the picture fitted. that we heard spoke were ‘Ave María Renaissance churches. And I think it Without being too overt, this setting Purísima’ and my wife immediately does so very subtly. The suggestion’s evoked the chapel context and allowed replied ‘Sin pecado concebido’. So that there, but at no point is there any exact you to think about that work in a way link between past and present in terms replica of specifically religious archi - which, let’s say, pushes forward its of the faith is very evident there; it’s tectural elements. It’s there also in the faith and religious qualities. And that’s much less evident here in our country. beautiful pietra serena arches and quite an important shift, I think. I also read about the Corpus Christi columns. Evocative and suggestive, processions in Spain and learnt that tap - the Sainsbury Wing gets it absolutely ED: Could you say something about the estries are taken out onto the streets and right, it’s a big, big success. pictures in the collection that mean most to hung along the walls of the Cathedral you? while the Sacrament passes by. Little did ED: One of the issues I wanted to raise with I think that when you actually witness you is the tendency, as society has become GF: Goodness! I suppose I can offer the Corpus Christi procession in Toledo, more secular, to see art as stepping into the you first of all something from the Pra - this is exactly what you see: the great place of religion. So there’s a blurring of do because it’s a picture that’s accom - tapestries of Rubens’s Triumph of the lines. You know, this picture may trigger panied me for many years, becoming Eucharist get taken out of the Cathedral transcendence but maybe not the Tran - ever deeper and significant for me, and and put out for the day, as the machina , scendant that it was intended to trigger. Do that’s the great Descent from the Cross by the great Corpus Christi machine goes you have any thoughts about that? Rogier van der Weyden. He was an by, and then they’re put back in the absolute master of his craft, with a pro - evening and they’re not taken out until GF: It’s a complicated one isn’t it? One found understanding of his profession, the following year when the Corpus of your questions is about the use of the a deep understanding of human emo - Christi procession comes round again. word spiritual which I think is a very tion and psychology and a very, very But it’s not historical; it’s now! So that interesting one. It’s very imprecise and deep understanding of the theology of link in history between the faith of the maybe intentionally so, and maybe what he’s representing. All those past and the faith of the present, which rightly so because we are no longer things come together to create a work obviously has also become a sort of very sure about what spiritual means. which is, for me anyway, one of the touristic event and something to attract It’s perhaps something to do with the most profoundly significant master visitors to the city, is very present. In a vague sense of the numinous, or possi - works ever produced. And one that sense, here, in Britain, whenever a work bly something to do with the emotions. does seem to me, from my experience

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of it, from listening to people talking who has fainted with grief, and her in the Anglican cathedrals. It’s somehow all about it and witnessing people seeing body takes up the same curve, and right to put a candle in front of an icon, but it in the room, to have the power to just echoes the geometry of the body of not to put it in front of a statue or represen - fly over the centuries and encounter Christ. It’s very satisfying aesthetically. tational paintings of religious subjects – I contemporary man and woman. It But of course it’s saying something do think we have a huge issue here. speaks about things which chime with very serious, which is that through the people’s experience of loss, pain, hope geometry of visual representation GF: Yes, the advantage we have, let’s and even redemption. The idea that comes the notion of passion and com - say, as Catholics, is that we can draw on here’s somebody suffering on your passion: when Christ suffers, the Vir - a huge range of things. But I think behalf, the idea that vicariously I can be gin suffers with Him and they effect in you’re right, I think it’s very difficult to released because somebody else is suf - some way this great act of salvation of find a language for today which is a fering on my behalf – in a sense you humanity. So geometry is a very language of, let’s say, consensus or one don’t need to be or have a Christian important language within religious that we can all feel comfortable with. formation to have a sympathy for what painting, and in the hands of the great is being said there. And it’s being said masters you hardly notice it, but it’s ED: Do you think there’s a particular artist with such extraordinary beauty that I there speaking to you. or a particular building or a particular art think everyone is overwhelmed, over - object that you think is successful – a mod - come, seduced by a work like that. ED: The National Gallery is not required to ern one – that you think successful and able Similarly, in the National Gallery is a buy modern pictures, but you, as a Catholic to stand alongside the sort of things that are late painting by Murillo, The Heavenly and as a curator, must reflect where reli - in this gallery? and Earthly Trinities , that transmits gious art is now. Do you think that, as we familial devotion at the same time that are no longer in a Christian culture and the GF: Well, some time ago I visited Cor - you are being presented with the very church is no longer the most important sin - busier’s pilgrimage chapel at Ron - core of the Christian faith. Here a paint - gle patron of fine arts, that we are coming champ for the first time. I was aston - ing is able to say quite complex, even to an end of great Christian art? ished how moving and beautiful it is, abstruse things about the nature of and how it seems to attach itself to an God or the relationship between God GF: I don’t think we have reached an age-old faith – the very fact that it’s and man which are made entirely con - end. I think significant Christian art is within viewing distance of the church vincing through the artifice of paint - being produced in our own time. Yet of Notre Dame down in the town – and ing. They are convincing because they there is significant difference with the at the same time, in its own context, have an impact on our emotions, and I past, in that Christian art of the past offers a space and a light which is really think this is one of the very significant was the fruit of a believing society. That purifying and enables one to reflect on things about the Catholic faith – that it is simply no longer the case. It’s true the mysteries of the faith. So, you has always recognised the importance that, in the main, the production of art know, we can find ways – it takes of the emotions; and the way in which in the 20th Century was not sympa - genius, sympathy and historical they can play an important role in sup - thetic to the Christian faith; Picasso, for understanding – to make many people porting or strengthening the experi - instance, was not especially interested. experience the same thing. ence of faith. As Picasso is a sort of touchstone for 20th-century concerns, the mainstream ED: I’m interested in that juxtaposition. In has veered away from the great sub - the Descent from the Cross , part of its jects of the Christian tradition. And this massive impact is the poignancy of the sub - has marginalised Christian artistic pro - ject matter, the slumped body of the dead duction, making it problematic for the Christ and the anguish of His mother, but contemporary religious artist, who will the extreme beauty of His body as well. The always, in some way, be seen as being, Murillo, which I also love, is a much more well, potentially not mainstream, let’s diagrammatic picture in that it needs put it that way. The other thing to say, decoding in a way that the immediacy of the of course, is that it’s very difficult to Descent from the Cross doesn’t. Now find a common artistic language. It’s that must make it more difficult – well at interesting to observe the return of the one level easier, to explain because you can tradition of Byzantium and the revival crack the code for people – but at another of the icon as an artistic language, as level it might need more intellectual assent suitable for our times because they Both participants in this interview have to actually get something out of the picture unite tradition with abstraction and recently featured in Michael Berkeley’s Pri - than the Descent from the Cross does. the search for the numinous. This may vate Passions radio programme broadcast on explain the particular interest that we Sundays at 1pm on Radio 3. A 2014 pro - GF: That’s true, but I wouldn’t neces - now have for them now. gramme featuring Eamon Duffy was sarily say that the two artists treat rebroadcast on 30 April 2017 and Gabriele geometry differently. Geometry is very ED: But this also represents a retreat from Finaldi’s on 7 May. Furthermore, Finaldi will much part of the language available to the whole of Western artistic tradition since be giving a lecture at the Courtauld Institute an artist. Both these deploy it spectacu - Giotto doesn’t it? Isn’t it, perhaps, some of Art on 17 May, 6.30pm and Eamon Duffy larly. In the Van der Weyden, for exam - kind of cop-out? It’s avoiding the issue of will be speaking at ‘Catholicism, Literature ple, the body of Christ falls diagonally how within in our own tradition we deal and the Arts: 1850 to the Present’ to be held through the centre of the picture and with these big questions. I’ve been very in Durham, UK, 5 –7 July 2017: www.centre - immediately beneath is the Virgin, interested in the revival of the cult of images forcatholicstudies.co.uk.

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