nave: 'I thought it would be nice for people to sit in
the cathedral and have a moment to contemplate
the feelings of love … It's something which we just
don't have enough time to think about.'
viii
Other cathedrals have offered artists the chance
to respond to their architecture such as Ely
Cathedral's 'Way of Life' by Jonathan Clarke of
2000. Or have offered residencies for artists
which allow them to develop work in counterpoint
to the architectural setting and context, such as at
Lincoln and Manchester
.ix
At Durham an artist in
residence programme was initiated by Canon Bill
Hall and ran from 1983 to 2011. And in 1996 Hall
invited Bill Viola to install 'The Messenger', a large-
scale video piece with vivid images of a naked man
underwater. Bill Hall believed that the church,
'must not circumscribe the integrity of artists, but
instead let creative people contribute their own
perceptions of the truth in a shared venture.'
x
An unusual commission was offered to Paula
Rego in 2000 to create an imaginative portrait
of Saint Margaret with her son, later King David I
of Scotland, for the 13th Century Chapel of Nine
Altars at Durham Cathedral. She holds a book;
he clutches an axe. Michael Sadgrove, Dean of
Durham, said: 'It is not altogether a comfortable
image, but it belongs so well in a building that
stands for a perspective on life lived not simply for
the day but in the light of eternity.'
xi
Paula Rego
herself remarked: 'She seems to have been a
very strong woman, intent on what she wanted to
achieve, although she lost many children and died
Paula Rego. Margaret and David, 2003. Pastel on paper.
© Paula Rego, courtesy Marlborough Fine Art. Reproduced by
kind permission of the Chapter of Durham Cathedral
vi
Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, first published 1911
vii
Henry Moore cited in Church of S. Matthew, Northampton, 1893–1943, Northampton 1943, reprinted in Alan Wilkinson (ed.),
Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Aldershot 2002, pp.267–8, and quoted in Henry Moore Biography by Alice Correia,
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/henry-moore/alice-correia-biography-r1171900. At the end of his life
Moore returned to the theme to carve the more abstract 'Mother and Child: Hood', 1983, for St Paul's Cathedral.
viii
'Message of Love to Liverpool from Tracey Emin', Catherine Jones, Liverpool Echo, 26 September 2008,
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/message-love-liverpool-tracey-emin-3473408
ix
There are many other examples. Art + Christianity is a membership organisation which offers advice to churches and
cathedrals and runs a newsletter with news and critical engagement about new works of art in religious settings,
https://www.artandchristianity.org/
x
Alan Suggate, Bill Hall obituary, The Guardian, 27 August 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/27/
canon-bill-hall-obituary
xi
'A life lived in the light of eternity', David Whetstone, The Journal, Newcastle, 30 November 2004,
http://www.thejournal.co.uk/culture/theatre/life-lived-light-eternity-4635068
xii
Ibid., The Journal, 30 November 2004
young. She was very devout although she suffered
terribly at a time when they didn't have anything,
not even Nurofen.'
xii
As exemplified by Rego's work, the third difference
between museums and cathedrals (and other
places of worship) is the specific challenge that
art can offer in a religious setting. The sensitive
and well-sighted intervention of an appropriate
piece of contemporary art can make a critical
difference to spiritual experience. But what is
appropriate? In November 1996 the St John's
Wood Liberal Synagogue in London unveiled a
