Abstract
A single detail in one of the most important works of Leo Theron (1926–2010), one of the greatest figures in South African glass art, is used to introduce a discussion of a complex dialogue between Roman Catholic and Reformed aesthetic traditions in modernist sacred art, with a focus on glass art. Art historical and theological sources are used to explain this interaction between two divergent traditions. Theron, who grew up in a Dutch Reformed Church parsonage, created windows for both the Dutch Reformed Church and the Roman Catholic Church. His ability to adapt his style, art and technique to the latter is discussed by comparing it with the work done by several French artists for the Roman Catholic Church that directly influenced him. Alfred Manessier, Max Ingrand, and Henri Matisse are discussed in this regard. Jackson Pollock’s failed project to create abstract paintings for a modernist Roman Catholic chapel is also briefly discussed. It is especially Matisse’s magisterial articulation of this complex aesthetic dialogue that offers a clarifying insight into the challenges that a modernist sacred artist had to address.
In 1964, Theron received a scholarship from the French government to study the new dale-de-verre technique, which uses thick glass in reinforced concrete (rather than thin stained glass in lead frames or cames). He visited the studios of several French masters of this technique and formed a lifelong friendship with one of them, Gabriel Loire (1904–1996). The latter played a decisive role in Theron’s decision to specialise in this technique. The dale-de-verre technique significantly influenced the development of Theron’s style – a matter that receives considerable attention in this article. Alongside this, the French influence that accompanied the learning of this technique was of great importance. Despite his Reformed background and the fact that he worked predominantly for the Afrikaans Protestant churches, Roman Catholic art, culture and symbolism played a central role in his life and art. Indeed, his aesthetics were largely shaped within the scope of Mediterranean culture. Due to this diverse background, Theron was well positioned to address the particularly complex relationship between Catholic and Reformed aesthetic traditions in modernist sacred art – the subject of this article.
An unusual detail in Theron’s glass wall for the Christ the King Catholic Church in Queenswood, Pretoria features two flying angels whose faces had been painted in with the stained-glass technique – on the thick dale-de-verre glass. The face of Christ, just to the right of them, is constructed from pieces of glass, with the concrete frames defining the facial features. But the angels’ faces are too small for this dale-de-verre technique, and Theron decided to paint the fine faces. Gabriel Loire, from whom Theron had learned a great deal, omits the facial features when the faces are too small for the dale-de-verre technique. This detail sheds light on the aesthetic choices that Theron had to make in order to overcome the limitations of the dale-de-verre medium. It also indicates the balance he had to find between a primitivist abstraction of the human figure, which is characteristic of his style, and a more sensuous and emotional tradition (notably within the Roman Catholic Church) predicated on a naturalistic representation of visual experience. Theron’s choice to paint the faces of the angels instead of simply omitting the facial features as Loire would have done reflects his sensitivity to this Roman Catholic aesthetic tradition and the needs of the Queenswood church community. The use of subtle facial expressions in a medium that typically does not allow for fine detail is an indication of his ability to tackle technical and stylistic challenges creatively and to adapt his work to the specific theological and aesthetic requirements of his clients.
A full-length statue of Christ made entirely in the Renaissance tradition, right in front of the Christ the King church, where this work by Theron is housed, and another of Saint Mary, in the same style, inside the church, indicates the ongoing viability of this tradition within the Roman Catholic Church. The degree of naturalism in the Christ statue allows the artist to fully portray the character and emotions of Christ – which are of cardinal importance in the Christian faith. These subtle and refined facial expressions are highly effective as physical manifestations of Christian spirituality, focusing on ideas of love, compassion and humanity. These characteristics are of great importance in Roman Catholic traditions of aesthetic contemplation of sacred art. The Incarnation of Christ, the Word made flesh, is logically depicted in such naturalistic or physical terms – in accordance with Church doctrine, as articulated by Thomas Aquinas, St Augustine, St Ignatius and others. The history of this aesthetic doctrine, starting with the Council of Chalcedon in 451, is briefly discussed, along with aesthetic influences from Classical Antiquity, with a focus on Jesuit image theory, in which the central issue of the naturalistic depiction of divine personages is brought out in sharp relief.
In this respect the primitivist approach of Theron’s work is at odds with this powerful visual tradition, especially when the idealisation of Christian emotion is lost. A comparison with original sculptures and paintings by Renaissance and Baroque artists further clarifies this point. It must be emphasised that the central argument of this article is made by focusing on a specific Roman Catholic aesthetic tradition that culminated in the work of Jesuit artists during the Baroque period, as part of the Counter-Reformation (or Catholic Reformation). The far-reaching influence of these artists in Roman Catholic culture makes it relevant to the argument – without promoting a simplistic binary opposition of Protestant and Catholic aesthetic traditions. Indeed, there is no uniform Catholic aesthetic tradition, but rather a rich variety of approaches.
It is then shown that leading figures in the Protestant Reformation, such as John Calvin, countered this aesthetic tradition with one in which the divine could be aesthetically expressed only in highly indirect terms, primarily through the aesthetic contemplation of nature as God’s “beautiful garment” – as Calvin put it. This played a significant role in the development of modernist abstract painting. Philosophers and other intellectuals in the Protestant tradition, such as Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Hegel, were able to address, with pre-eminent success, the rising threat of modernity to religious faith by predicating their thought on the Reformers’ absolute separation of the metaphysical and physical realms. The significant Protestant underpinnings of their thought, which became fundamental to modern Western civilisation, made modernist abstraction particularly amenable to Reformed Protestant sacred art. By the same token, modernist artists working for the Roman Catholic Church were initially at odds with this tradition, which went diametrically against the Roman Catholic aesthetic tradition referred to above. The Church, however, after heated debates, opened its doors to modernist abstraction. How several leading French artists, working for the Roman Catholic Church, addressed this complex aesthetic dialogue between Roman Catholic and Reformed traditions is discussed next, culminating in Matisse’s exemplary negotiation of these opposing traditions and the historic changes in aesthetic policy that were occurring at the time.
Keywords: abstraction; dale-de-verre; naturalism; Reformed Protestantism; sacred glass art