On Saturday we went to a book launch: it's a new book about Pugin - a catalogue of his buildings. I go to these things not because I like Pugin (he had some good qualities of course) but in the hope that I will come to like or understand him better, and because various chums organise these events and are present.
The talk was being given by a guy called Gerrard Hyland; I realised as the talk progressed that he was a Catholic - no problem there - but I began to discern little "ideological" points here and there. Due to my frequently lamented intellectual laziness I have not investigated why Pugin was obsessed with what he called the True Principles of Christian Architecture - basically he believed the Gothic arch was a true, Christian invention - not based on pagan antecedents (i.e. Greek or Roman architecture). Er, well, perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I have misunderstood - but surely the pointed arch was brought to Europe from the Crusaders - who were unwillingly impressed by Islamic architecture - and of course it could also be seen in Sicily - which was under Norman rule from the 11th to 13thC - if we consider Frederick II Stupor Mundi as a Norman - which we should. So I feel that Pugin's claim that the pointed arch represented an indigenous Christian development is either ignorant or disingenuous.
The second point is that Pugin railed against the deceit of Neo-classical architecture against the robust hearty good nature of the flying buttress...this is because Baroque employed the buttress but concealed it - ars est celare artem - how wicked and immoral! What Pugin conveniently ignores, many of those sturdy, good-hearted pillars in Gothic churches were basically small pieces of stone fitted around a rubble centre - not solid stone, blazing with integrity!
There were a few slides of P's various early churches - some of which resembled no Gothic church ever built - and owed a good deal more to the Gothick style he so despised.
The point about Pugin is that he was, like many Victorians, a terrible solipsist - who had a theory, and ignored all uncomfortable evidence to push it forward. He published early, with an astonishing lack of self-criticism. I was interested to discover that he had worked as a theatrical set designer for a couple of years. Mark Negin (a retired theatrical designer) said afterwards that some of his work was "pure set design", and I was considering while we heard the talk, how very nightmarish some of Pugin's work was - the houses of Parliament for example: it's that combination of size and rather OTT decor - which owes little to its roots. The Palacio Real in Madrid has a similarly nightmarish quality.
Nice Priest
After the talk drinks, nibbles and chats with chums. I finally met the parish priest, who is very young and very nice. He knows Strat and we talked about him a little. I made him laugh - he doesn't have the slightly saintly quality of the old Benedictine monk I met a while back which seems to freeze one's uncharitable thoughts in one's throat. He was in Rome for 6 years at the English College - which sounds interesting - so obviously speaks Italian - etc. He's quite a Pugin fan - and we had a chat about various things. I told him that I'd been brought up in a very liberal Catholic church - and nowadays things seemed to be rather more conservative. He said he thought this was a response to the greater secularisation of the world... a need to be more sure about what you believed. I guess this is true - we weren't able to get onto another question, i.e. whether this closing ranks is the right response. Be not conformed to the world....
Spanish Catholics!
As in the EU, I get the impression that English Catholics obey the rules rather more seriously than some of the Euro-Catholics do. I later met a lady who was quite devout and Spanish - I told her I wasn't a Catholic any longer because I was divoced and re-married and she said very cheerfully "Oh - we all do that!" so I rather warmed to her. She told me that her priest had said to her, that Jesus did not withold his body from anyone, so what right had he to do so? I thought that was also very good - so I said "Don't you love Pope Francis?" At which point it became apparent that she did not. share this enthusiasm and she explained how horrified she was that he had canonised Pope John XXIII - "because he destroyed the church - he is the anti-christ in my book!". I see no particular sign of the destruction of the church (and if it is diminished you might perhaps blame the sexual and abusive antics of some religious rather than the introduction of Mass in the vernacular). I sadly concluded to myself that she was presumably delighted with JP2's canonisation, and thew canonisation by JP2 of her slightly repulsive countryman, the founder of Opus Dei, Mgr Escriva de Balaguer (spelling???).
In some ways she answered my unspoken question to Marcus: people widely dislike Opus Dei (those who know of it) and the man's closeness to Franco - canonising someone like that, whatever his spiritual virtues, is sending an odd message to the world. Frankly I am beginning to think that the whole canonisation thing should be stopped because it is so political. I doubt whether I'd get much support from Catholics for that. And they would point to the spiritual, and I would point to the evil some of these people had done, and they would say "Well nobody's perfect" and I would mutter something about "role models" and we would drift apart. Of course, I am actually the political one here... but some sins cry to heaven for vengeance and ought to be taken into consideration....I have just discovered that these 4 sins are murder, sodomy, oppression of the poor and depriving workers of their just wages. I am not sure about consensual acts of sodomy - perhaps the Church should review that one, but I'm happy that E d B was, in his support of the Franco government, clearly complicit in the other 3 and for this he gets canonised? Even the spiritual can be the political sometimes.
The talk was being given by a guy called Gerrard Hyland; I realised as the talk progressed that he was a Catholic - no problem there - but I began to discern little "ideological" points here and there. Due to my frequently lamented intellectual laziness I have not investigated why Pugin was obsessed with what he called the True Principles of Christian Architecture - basically he believed the Gothic arch was a true, Christian invention - not based on pagan antecedents (i.e. Greek or Roman architecture). Er, well, perhaps I am wrong, perhaps I have misunderstood - but surely the pointed arch was brought to Europe from the Crusaders - who were unwillingly impressed by Islamic architecture - and of course it could also be seen in Sicily - which was under Norman rule from the 11th to 13thC - if we consider Frederick II Stupor Mundi as a Norman - which we should. So I feel that Pugin's claim that the pointed arch represented an indigenous Christian development is either ignorant or disingenuous.
The second point is that Pugin railed against the deceit of Neo-classical architecture against the robust hearty good nature of the flying buttress...this is because Baroque employed the buttress but concealed it - ars est celare artem - how wicked and immoral! What Pugin conveniently ignores, many of those sturdy, good-hearted pillars in Gothic churches were basically small pieces of stone fitted around a rubble centre - not solid stone, blazing with integrity!
There were a few slides of P's various early churches - some of which resembled no Gothic church ever built - and owed a good deal more to the Gothick style he so despised.
The point about Pugin is that he was, like many Victorians, a terrible solipsist - who had a theory, and ignored all uncomfortable evidence to push it forward. He published early, with an astonishing lack of self-criticism. I was interested to discover that he had worked as a theatrical set designer for a couple of years. Mark Negin (a retired theatrical designer) said afterwards that some of his work was "pure set design", and I was considering while we heard the talk, how very nightmarish some of Pugin's work was - the houses of Parliament for example: it's that combination of size and rather OTT decor - which owes little to its roots. The Palacio Real in Madrid has a similarly nightmarish quality.
Nice Priest
After the talk drinks, nibbles and chats with chums. I finally met the parish priest, who is very young and very nice. He knows Strat and we talked about him a little. I made him laugh - he doesn't have the slightly saintly quality of the old Benedictine monk I met a while back which seems to freeze one's uncharitable thoughts in one's throat. He was in Rome for 6 years at the English College - which sounds interesting - so obviously speaks Italian - etc. He's quite a Pugin fan - and we had a chat about various things. I told him that I'd been brought up in a very liberal Catholic church - and nowadays things seemed to be rather more conservative. He said he thought this was a response to the greater secularisation of the world... a need to be more sure about what you believed. I guess this is true - we weren't able to get onto another question, i.e. whether this closing ranks is the right response. Be not conformed to the world....
Spanish Catholics!
As in the EU, I get the impression that English Catholics obey the rules rather more seriously than some of the Euro-Catholics do. I later met a lady who was quite devout and Spanish - I told her I wasn't a Catholic any longer because I was divoced and re-married and she said very cheerfully "Oh - we all do that!" so I rather warmed to her. She told me that her priest had said to her, that Jesus did not withold his body from anyone, so what right had he to do so? I thought that was also very good - so I said "Don't you love Pope Francis?" At which point it became apparent that she did not. share this enthusiasm and she explained how horrified she was that he had canonised Pope John XXIII - "because he destroyed the church - he is the anti-christ in my book!". I see no particular sign of the destruction of the church (and if it is diminished you might perhaps blame the sexual and abusive antics of some religious rather than the introduction of Mass in the vernacular). I sadly concluded to myself that she was presumably delighted with JP2's canonisation, and thew canonisation by JP2 of her slightly repulsive countryman, the founder of Opus Dei, Mgr Escriva de Balaguer (spelling???).
Mgr. Escriva di Balaguer - after his controversial (miraculous?) sex-change operation
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