Art and Individuality

I think everyone responds to the glowing, liquid beauty of glass, with its essence of light playing through it in magical ways.  I have always felt that, for instance, one of the most amazingly rapturous places for stained glass in the world is Chartres Cathedral.

North Rose Window, The Glorification of the Virgin, Chartres Cathedral

South Rose Window, The Glorification of  Christ, Chartres Cathedral

My introduction to Chartres was walking into the Cathedral, cleared of all pews, as part of a student pilgrimage on foot from Paris.  The afternoon sun was streaming in, blue, scarlet, gold, but it was the overall impression of the blue that I remember.  It was the most magical serious introduction to stained glass, all the more amazing because most of it dates from the early 13th century.

Lower Window, Signs of the Zodiac, detail - Libra, Chartres Cathedral. c. 1235

Later, back in Paris, I learnt to love Sainte Chapelle's windows equally, but there, the slenderness of the stone structure adds to the extraordinary magic of the stained glass.  Despite its almost secular feel today, the stained glass takes one back to times when this was the chapel built by King Louis IX in the 1230-40s to house his scared relics, including Christ's Crown of Thorns.  Only the most wondrous of structures was worthy of such sacred objects.

Upper Chapel, Sainte-Chapelle, Paris

I was recently reminded of the magical sensations that these stained glass windows engendered in me while I was reading a truly beautiful book, Stained and Art Glass. A Unique History of Glass Design and Making, by Judith Neiswander and Caroline Swash.  The depth and breadth of the contents are impressive and of course fascinating, taking the reader from the earliest glass making up to 2004, (the book was published in 2005), in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

As the use of glass in architecture and in objets d'art increased in the last century, with new materials, techniques and a hugely increased interest in the beauty and properties of glass, so there has also been a divide that has grown up between individuality and more anonymous approaches to glass making.  This amazing medieval art form - stained glass - was a group creation, with very few windows ever signed.  Church windows told the illiterate faithful about the Scriptures through narrative or symbolism; there were just a few books written on the subject of glass manufacture itself.  By the last century, however, glass had become an art form where individuals can become like Dale Chilhuly, often described as the rock star of glass.

Dale Chilhuly, Collection at the Morean Arts Center, Florida

Dale Chihuly, Seaform Detail, Tacoma

In this Neiswander/Swash book, there is an interesting quote by Patrick Reyntiens, a noted British glass artist who translated John Piper's designs into stained glass for Coventry Cathedral, for example. In 1990, writing in The Beauty of Stained Glass, he remarked, "On the one hand, 'art' is the triumph of the individual, the prophetic side of man - the liberation of people's aspirations.  It is the guarantee of individuality and personal worth.  On the other, 'design' is the expression of the sinews of society, of those activities that hold the whole of the fabric of society together"

I think that this is a really perspicacious remark - it also pertains to every single creative discipline. Every artist endeavours to further his or her individuality, basically in order to survive and succeed in that creative field.  We all seek to have our own voice ring out, our own optic and means of expression.  Of course, every artist suffers serious pangs of self-doubt and angst, but also learns to follow doggedly that star, that small inner voice that one has to trust.  "Aspirations", the "prophetic side of man" - they are the pathways to artistic individuality.

Reyntiens is correct about design being "the sinews of society".  One only has to think of the astonishing architecture of our times, the urban planning and design of our burgeoning cities, even the intricacies of  software or Web design...  There may be individuals who stand out in the design world, but their creations tend more to the impersonal, the machine-made, the anonymous, made on a far larger scale than any artistic creation every could be. In essence, made for the underpinnings of our society.

Glass, stained, etched, blown, cast or shaped, is one of the most perfect media to demonstrate this dichotomy in the world of creativity. It allows artists to excel as individuals, while lending itself to wonderful old and new enhancements to societal life.

Threading art through life in hospital

As someone who became an artist later in life, it is always a surprise - and delight - when I discover that art is now so entwined with my DNA that it is omnipresent, even in somewhat trying circumstances.

I have just emerged from a sojourn in hospital and as I stay at a nearby hotel with my wonderful husband, I realise, when thinking back over the last three weeks, how art has been quietly sustaining me. As I lay on beds for a MRI or a CAT scan, for instance, I found it easy to lie there quietly and simply design, in my mind's eye, a silverpoint/watercolour piece I keep working on about the Circles of Life, the coincidences and circularities of events as life progresses. I found myself so absorbed in changing the design here and there, or adding new aspects, as I visualised the artwork, that I was always astonished at how fast the time went during the often lengthy tests.

Later, as I lay in bed, overly tethered to tubes and pumps and drips, I again turned to subject matter I want to try and explore in artwork, starting to think of how to depict the subjects and how to design the pieces. It helped greatly to pass the time. Then when I was finally "emancipated" enough to be able to walk a little along the hospital corridors, I studied the art along the walls with great interest.

Since this is the Mayo Clinic and their two-year-old hospital is very much state of the art (with exemplary care, I have to emphasise), I was curious to see what they had selected as artwork for the new facility. In the Clinic proper, there has always been artwork, but often large and more tending to the decorative and local – pleasant but not often such that it stands out. The Hospital is a little different. The entrance hall is graced with a small gallery, showing at present a diversity of works by local and regional artists connected with the Women's Center of Jacksonville. Beyond is a glory of Dale Chihuly's skills: a big and joyous glass chandelier celebrating colour and life. At the end of that entrance corridor, by the elevators, there is the most wonderful wall with a huge, sectioned piece of marble, beautifully striated and stippled in warm golds and browns - Nature at its most wonderful.

Dale Chihuly's chandelier in the hospital foyer at the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL

Up on the hospital room floors, there are large pieces of art, grouped in threes, some prints, some originals. Here, nature predominated, but in diffuse and almost stylised depictions, in uplifting colour ranges. They were cleverly chosen for they all allow one's own imagination to complement and supplement the images and let one wander and linger in those worlds. Ideal for stressed relatives and half-doped patients, I suspect!

Nonetheless, this presence of art allowed me to feel sustained and "still an artist" - something that I know helps me heal faster and in a more serene fashion. Hurray for art!