Flattening out faith in Norfolk?
THE ART OF FAITH
Norwich Castle Museum
The exhibition continues until January 23 2011
This exhibition announces itself as having very impressive academic credentials, being curated by a team from Norwich Castle Museum in collaboration with the School of World Art Studies and Museology at the University of East Anglia. Its scope is ambitious, spanning 3.500 years of art and belief in Norfolk.
According to the catalogue introduction, this is a celebration of ‘works of art or other artefacts, made to serve, or give material form, to the different faiths of Norfolk’. Some of the earliest objects date from the time of the Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Later, in medieval times, Norwich became a very important centre, and the stained glass, illuminated manuscripts and paintings show the wealth of local patronage. There are also some visual surprises — such as the pre-Reformation sculpture of St. Christopher, from the West Norfolk church at Terrington St. Clement, which gives a clear picture of how impressive English figure sculpture must have been before the activities of 16th and 17th-century iconoclasts.
Medieval destruction
In this connection, John Goto’s contemporary work — ‘Loss of Face’ — is a telling comment on the destruction of medieval paintings. Goto has enlarged a series of photographs showing heads from defaced rood screens, where the eyes have been covered over and the mouths literally ‘stopped’. These extraordinary images use today’s visual language as a powerful commentary on views of idolatry.
Coming off badly
A Flemish medieval altarpiece, commissioned in the early 1500s by a merchant from Ashwellthorpe during his time in the Netherlands, makes an interesting contrast with a huge 17th-century presentation of the Ten Commandments, a re-interpretation of the altarpiece format, with the Creed and Lord’s Prayer on each ‘wing’. The commandments, closely lettered in bright gold on blue, are held up by two near-life-sized Byzantine-looking figures of Moses and Aaron.
However, objects do not always accurately reflect truth. Despite the effort to be balanced and objective, the strong tradition of independent nonconformism in Norwich comes off rather badly, having no need for images or ‘material artefacts’. Small engravings of historic chapels are easily swamped by the over-life-sized gloriously colourful, but Catholic, Rubens of the ‘Return of the Holy Family from Egypt’, part of the Holkham Hall collection, which is the centrepiece of the show. Nevertheless there are some rare exhibits such as an 1583 edition of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, open at the page which tells the story of Thomas Bilney of Norwich, who would rejoice to know that his memorial plaque is now outside a thriving gospel church, Surrey Chapel.
Evangelical Christianity tends to be represented as a fear of idolatry rather than the good news of the gospel. There is also no mention of the importance of seamen’s missions among the fishing communities and lifeboat men of the Norfolk coast, who were constantly aware of the reality of being ‘saved from the deep’.
One of the most impressive objects from other faiths is an 18th-century Torah scroll, rescued from Czechoslovakia during World War 11, preserved by a tiny Jewish community in Great Yarmouth, and now held by the Norwich Hebrew Congregation.
Warm and fuzzy
The different strands of contemporary worship are brought together in a specially commissioned film by Chris Newby — Something understood — which attempts to ‘engage with both interior and exterior spaces’. Acts of prayer by groups from all kinds of faiths are linked together with evocative shots of the wide Norfolk landscape. The result is very beautiful, but flattens out any real content. The film images and soundtrack create a seductive illusion, like a ‘warm/fuzzy’ television programme, that there is a unity and equality between the various faiths represented.
Nevertheless, this is a high quality and very thought-provoking exhibition — well worth a visit if you are in East Anglia, and very rewarding to study in detail.
