Religious Life

Southland Times, Issue 24598, 21 November 1941, Page 7

Religious Life

By

ICHTHUS

Mere Dull Stains On Rotting Fabric Not much in that to write about, you say. Yet somehow I think that there is. It is three weeks or more since I read the book. Most of it has gone ‘wholly or partially, but one passage has left a vivid picture in my mind. It sticks there like a bid-a-bid to a sheep’s wool. I have been carrying it about with me wherever I go, and it refuses to drop off. The book was “Self and Partners (Mostly Self)” by C. J. Holmes. C. J. Holmes is Sir Charles Holmes, himself a painter of real distinction, a genuine art critic, and for a good many years the distinguished director of that national home of British art, the National Gallery in London. It is an interesting enough book in its way, though it falls short of being a great book. It will not rank with the great biographies. Some books are like a high-spirited horse. The reader is scarcely in tire saddle before his steed bounds away and bolts with him. Off they go at break-neck speed, over hill and dale, and there is no control and no stopping till the course is run. Then you come to yourself with a jolt to find that the fire has gone out, the room is cold, and the hour is 2 a.m. There is nothing of that in this book. You will wander leisurely in many interesting places—particularly behind the scenes in the world of art of the last half-century—and you will be on familiar terms with some very interesting people, not a few of whom have since become famous. You will sit and chat with Mr Asquith, and Queen Mary herself will drop in one afternoon to tea. You will bid at famous auction sales in London, Paris, and Berlin against famous dealers and art connoisseurs for famous pictures; you will be in at the discovery of some art treasures; and you will see a skilful restorer at work saving an ancient master from destruction. I did all that very pleasantly and not unprofitably three weeks ago, and, as I have said already,, much of it has faded. But one passage sticks. I cannot put it out of my mind.

A TRAGIC STORY In the middle 90’s of last century a new star blazed suddenly in the artistic sky of London. It will be kinder, perhaps, not to deal in names. This brilliant young artist emerged from the ruck, and soon even the critics were at his feet. The„ artists (hemselves were “enchanted” and “charmed” with “his exquisite symphonies in colour.” He is “to me at least, the most attractive of all the juniors.” But we will let the director of the National Gallery tell his own story. “For nearly an hour on one occasion he held me with a talk on the technique of painting on leather, detailed with a dreamy charm which rendered every moment enchanting, although leather painting was none of my business. He laid particular stress on the need for probity in the art, for the use of the most permanent materials, _ speaking with such apparent conviction that I was completely hypnotized, and could not believe for years that he was utterly unscrupulous in his own methods. It is something to have seen the superb early products of that genius before the pigments had faded to mere dull stains and the material beneath them had rotted away. No succeeding generation will understand our admiration for the exquisite symphonies in colour which C produced during the middle 90’s . . . His subsequent work in more solid materials is but a tragic parody of their I enchanting, their audacious refinement.” I There is the tragic story. Genius, the I star in the ascendant, “exquisite symphonies in colour,” “the most attractive of all the juniors,” great talk about probity in the art, and the need to use only, the most permanent materials. Then eclipse. The star has set. The glory has departed. Those “exquisite symphonies,” with “their enchanting, their audacious refinement,” are “mere dull stains,” and “the material beneath them” has “rotted away.” The fine talk about probity did not go so deep as | personal practice and habit. And all (that is left of the fine promise is a few dull stains on rotting fabric. Moreover, the man had injured something in himself, and his later work was “only a tragic parody.” TH" BIBLE AND LIFE That is a story worthy of the great tragedians. It is life. There is a quality in it which makes one think at once of the Bible. One of the irrefutable facts about the Bible is the simple, undeniable, historical fact of its preservation. It has survived the decay and the onslaughts of time, and has endured throughout all generations. It survived the collapse of the Roman civilization —the matrix in which it came to birth —and conquered the pagan conquerors; it survived the long darkness of the Middle Ages, and the hammers and fire? of all the destroyers. It has survived the ordeal of repeated and innumerable translation, and today speaks the Word of Life in all the languages of humanity with a vividness, a vitality, and a power to which there is no parallel. What is the explanation of that? Well, there may be several answers. But, unquestionably, one is that its pigments are compounded, with utter probity and honour, of the basic facts and truths of life, and its underlying fabric is of permanent material. It has endured because it is itself permanent. It lives as nothing else does, because it is the soul of life as nothing else is.

But does not this poignant story recall also, some striking sayings of the Bible —of which, indeed, it is an arresting fulfilment? Our Master Himself had a saying, you remember, about “laying up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves breakthrough and steal.” The Bible may not use the exact figure of dull stains on rotting fabric. But it is saying this very thing continually. It warns us that we may lose the glory and loveliness that are the soul of life if we work only with pigments and on a fabric that have no permanence. A few years and all that is left of the “enchanting symphony of colour” that represents our life-work and our soul’s total output, is a few dull stains on rotting and all that comes after is “only a tragic parody.” Whereas, by mixing our pigments of life with scrupulous regard for the ultimate truth, and laying them on a canvas that is beyond the reach of decay, we may achieve a glory that fadeth not away. The words that spring in the mind are those of Peter: “All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away. But the Word of the Lord endureth forever. And this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.”