Description
Book SynopsisStanley Spencer was one of Britain's greatest twentieth-century artists. He became famous for two things: his celebration and immortalisation of his home town of Cookham in Berkshire - his 'heaven on earth' as he lovingly called it - and the fusion in his paintings of sex and religion, the heavenly and the ordinary. In 1915, Spencer left home to serve as a medical orderly in the Beaufort Military Hospital in Bristol. Aged 24, he had rarely stayed away overnight from home. For ten months, he scrubbed floors, bandaged convalescent soldiers and carried supplies around the vast, former lunatic asylum. In 1916, he signed up for overseas duty in Macedonia, where he saw violent action up to the eve of the Armistice. Five years after the war, Spencer started making large drawings of a possible memorial scheme based on his wartime experiences. So extraordinary were his sketches, and so committed was he to realising them in paint, that the Behrend family became his patrons, funding a purpose-built memorial chapel at Burghclere, near Newbury. For five years, he toiled, often on top of a giant scaffold, to produce the painted chapel now regarded as his masterpiece - one of the unsung artistic glories of Europe. Drawing on Spencer's own letters, illustrations and paintings, Paul Gough tells the story of the artist's journey from cosseted family life, through the drudgery of a war hospital and the malarial battlefields of a forgotten front, to his unique vision of peace and resurrection in Burghclere. The book locates Spencer's work alongside other soldier-artists of the time.
Table of ContentsContents Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction 'The elsewheres of my mind' Part One The Beaufort, Bristol Cookham - 'my paradise' The outbreak of war The Hellish Underworld of the Beaufort Through the gates of hell A blessed state of servility' 'This vile place' 'Christ visiting Hell' Stanley's progress as an artist at Beaufort 'A rejoicing criminal' - leaving Bristol End notes Part Two The Balkans A spiritual world 100066 Private Spencer, Stanley, orderly RAMC Drawn back to the front 41812 Private Spencer, C Coy, Berkshire Regt Transfiguration: Stanley as official war artist End notes Part Three Burghclere The Holy Box End notes Descent into Hell - 'imagining Beaufort' The underworld of the lower register Washing and cleaning: objects and distortion Sorting and carrying: the logic of the narrative Beds and butter: the later predellas End notes Khaki and camping Endnotes Resurrection: 'God in the real bare things' 'All the Sydneys who died' 'Everyone suddenly burst out singing' Christ in No-Man's-Land A habit of threes Composite, but unified End notes Conclusion: 'Slicing bread and talking to God'
