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Letter from Alison and Hugh at Sandham Memorial Chapel

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Letter from Alison and Hugh at Sandham Memorial Chapel Letter from Alison and Hugh at Sandham Memorial Chapel Whilst Spencer’s dream to create a “Chapel of Me” in his beloved Cookham was never realised the realisation of his “HolyBox”, now known as Sandham Memorial Chapel in the village of Burghclere near Newbury was at least as great a project, certainly as it is judged today. More properly known as The Oratory of All Souls, Burghclere, for Spencer it had a cathartic effect following his service in the First World War as both medical orderly and infantryman possibly also softening the loss of his brother Sydney who fell in France, and reclaiming his lost years as an artist. “By this means”, it is believed he said in describing his work on the Chapel paintings “I redeemed my lost self”. He indeed wrote to Desmond Chute whilst he was out in Macedonia lamenting a lack of opportunity to paint; “You know Desmond, it is awful the way I am suffering, being kept from my work like this. It will not I think do me harm but it is exasperating. I can hardly look at pictures sometimes….. I wish you could send me a drawing block & some pencils. I can get nothing here.”[Letter Spencer to Desmond Chute Autumn 1916 - see details below] “ Oh how I long to paint”[Letter as above 28 October 1916] For times in which we face rather different challenges, this specially written letter from Sandham Memorial Chapel explores the collection at the Gallery and in particular looks at some of those pieces that have a direct link to Sandham and its creation. The “Holy Box” concept was building in Spencer’s mind from the earliest days of his service in 1915 at the Beaufort War Hospital in Bristol, indeed its genesis goes right back to his time at The Slade. In that his early days at the hospital were appallingly difficult for him (and no doubt others who were in the same position) his introduction to and subsequent adoption of teachings within the Confessions of St Augustine was without doubt his saviour; the everyday, the mundane tasks took on a spiritual significance in Spencer’s eyes that lifted them from menial to inspirational. In a letter to Chute from Tweseldown training camp in Farnham, received on July 24th 1916 Spencer wrote; “I have been rereading a lot of your old letters & I find that accidentally among the ones I have left at home I have left the one that had the wonderful quotations out of the confessions of St Augustine. ‘God worketh & his work is God’”. It could be argued that his depiction at Sandham of the everyday life of the Medical Orderly in particular was the very embodiment in paint of the Saint’s teachings. And the person who introduced Spencer to these teachings, Desmond Macready Chute must certainly be regarded as pivotal; Paul Gough1 says “this meeting and their subsequent friendship would exert a powerful influence on Spencer’s thinking about art, religion and the imagination, and have a profound impact on his development as a painter”. Chute, a native of Bristol, had sought Spencer out at the Beaufort Hospital following an article in the Times about an exhibition of Spencer’s work in London and from there a great friendship ensued that continued largely by correspondence in the following years. Spencer recorded in 19192 “The appearance of this young man was a godsend. he was terribly good and kind to me and appreciated the mental suffering I was going through”. 1 Your Loving Friend, Stanley - The Great War Correspondence between Stanley Spencer and Desmond Chute Edited and with essay by Paul Gough p20 2 Tate Archive 733.3.85 The Stanley Spencer Gallery archive has an extensive collection of this correspondence between 1916 and 1926 in addition to a portrait (unfinished) that Chute did of Spencer in 1916 on the eve of Spencer’s departure from Bristol. Stanley Spencer by Desmond Chute, 1916 Desmond Chute as a young man Spencer’s letters to Chute are presented in “Your Loving Friend, Stanley” [see footnote 1]. Readily accessible, sadly the book does not show much of the original written text, which when seen is in fact sometimes hard to decipher, nor the many sketches added in many of the letters illustrating the subject about which Spencer writes. However it provides not only the content of the letters but a highly readable introduction to Spencer and Chute and their relationship. In his letters as early as May 1916 Spencer is already thinking about a project; whether this was at this stage the “Holy Box” is not clear but Spencer acknowledges the limitations and frustration of not being able to exercise his art “ I feel I would like to draw the land & trees & tents here but I doubt if I should be allowed to, but I shall see about it. The camps & tents make me want to do a big fresco painting”. We know that Spencer had originally explored creating frescos possibly because of his exposure at the Slade to the 14th Century Italian artists and their works and in particular to Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel paintings in Padua all of which are frescos. In June 1916 he wrote “ I am going to do a composition, I believe. Somehow I feel I can here.” Later that summer Spencer writes “ I am looking back on the ‘Beaufort‘ days & now that I am away from the worry of it I must do some pictures of it - frescoes. I should love to do a fresco of an operation ….And have the incision in the belly in the middle of the picture & the forceps radiating from it like this [ a small sketch is included] It is wonderful how mysterious the hands look, wonderfully intense. There was something very classical about the whole operation. .. What is so wonderful also is the stillness the theatre & outside the swift silent steps of those ‘fetching & carrying’” Spencer produced many sketches during his service but few if any survived; it is thought these, and perhaps letters from Chute too had to be left behind in 1919 as Spencer’s regiment prepared to join the final offensive against the Bulgarians.2 There is however one dated 1918-19 that may conceivably been created in situ based on its date. “Pack Mules” shows a number of “mule” images and settings from which, and looking at the final Chapel paintings no doubt provided at least an aide memoir to otherwise entirely recollected scenes. Pack Mules,1918-19 SSG Collection The autograph book of a “well known Cookham lady”3 that The Gallery has depicting a minutely detailed watercolour of “ Travoys with Wounded arriving at a Dressing Station Smol, Macedonia” is not directly linked to Sandham Memorial Chapel but its importance is such that it should be mentioned. It portrays the scene at a dressing station in Macedonia where Spencer served during a nearby attack with the wounded men on stretchers drawn by mules. Of Sandham’s 19 paintings many include the characteristically hot dry Macedonian landscape, seen in the watercolour sketch and the final painting itself, with its unfamiliar personnel going about their daily activities. In the original sketch scheme for the Chapel (see below) Spencer had included a surgical scene but perhaps having been commissioned to create this one a few years earlier (1919) it was not included. It is also said that he left it out because it did not sit well with the overall aesthetic of the Chapel series. The true highlight of the Gallery collection for us here at Sandham are the detailed sketches (cartoons) that Spencer produced in 1923 and which by virtue of his then staying with his friend Henry Lamb were seen by John Louis and Mary Behrend. The Behrends, true art patrons of their day were already building an enviable collection that included some of Spencer’s work as well as that of Lamb. Stanley knew that without Sponsors his scheme would never see the light of day 2 See note 1 above p 65 3 Stanley Spencer Gallery description of the item’s provenance and so when they agreed to support his painting scheme it is said that Spencer exclaimed “What ho Giotto“ Working drawings for the Burghclere Chapel, 1923. SSG Collection The Gallery’s intricate sketches show not only the proposed paintings but their setting within the chapel. Such was the clarity of Spencer’s mind that with a few exceptions noted in the next paragraph all finally appeared as sketched and in the given locations. The sketches show both the grid lines Spencer drew and paint splashes, which makes them all the more interesting. There is an image of them reproduced in a 1924 book “Contemporary British Artists: Stanley Spencer “ edited by Albert Rutherston where they are noted as being “in the possession of the artist”. These are without the grid lines or of course the evidence of working drawings being clean of paint. The sketches show that the arched Chapel panels, or “Lunettes” along the left hand wall included that surgical scene referred to above where today we find “Kit Inspection”, which in 1923 appeared at the far right of the left hand wall. In the lower rectangular paintings, or “Predellas” “Bed Making” appears below “Kit Inspection” whereas now that is on the opposite wall. In the right hand Lunettes “Map Reading” appears in place of “Reveille”, far left, next to it an image which seems to be a detail from the painting we now see as “Firebelt”. “Filling water bottles” appears to the right of its current position next to “Reveille”.
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