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'Working for an Imaginary Temple': Stanley Spencer, Eric Gill, Jacques and Gwen Raverat

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Frances Spalding CBE

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Abstract

An article on a hitherto entirely unknown set of relationships and ambitions shared by these four artists in the wake of the Second Post-Impressionist exhibition in 1912 which set a precedent for Stanley Spencer’s later achievement at the Sandham Memorial Chapel at Burghclere. Almost entirely based on primary sources, the essay made considerable use of hitherto unpublished letters, from both public and private collections, and it reproduced for the first time three frescoes executed in Cambridge shortly before and during the First World War. It uncovers the intricate disagreements attendant on Gill’s fanaticism, owing to his recent conversion to Roman Catholicism. This troubled the shared intent to create an illustrated Gospels, as did the Raverats’ Darwinian scepticism and the scheme proved abortive, Jacques Raverat remarking to Spencer that Gill wanted ‘certainty more than he wants truth’.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Spalding F

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: The Burlington Magazine

Year: 2001

Volume: 143

Issue: 1178

Pages: 290-295

ISSN (print): 0007-6287

Publisher: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.

URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/889128

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