Quash Ben - Visualising a sacred city: London, art and religion

BEN QUASH is Professor of Christianity and the Arts and Director of the Centre for Arts and the Sacred at Kings College London. His many books include Theology and the Drama of History (2009) and Found Theology: History, Imagination and the Holy Spirit (2013).

AARON ROSEN is Professor of Religious Thought at Rocky Mountain College and Visiting Professor at Kings College London. His publications include Art and Religion in the 21st Century (2015), Religion and Art in the Heart of Modern Manhattan (2015) and Imagining Jewish Art: Encounters with the Masters in Chagall, Guston and Kitaj (2009).

CHLO REDDAWAY is Howard and Roberta Ahmanson Fellow in Art and Religion at the National Gallery, London, and author of Transformations in Persons and Paint: Visual Theology, Historical Images, and the Modern Viewer (2016).

A city with Londons antiquity, pivotal importance, and layer upon layer of material and artistic history richly deserves the scrutiny this book provides. Its chapters demonstrate, in a treatment that is as readable as it is learned and insightful, the central importance of religion and its material culture from Londons ancient past to the present day.

DAVID MORGAN, Professor of Religious Studies, Duke University, author of The Forge of Vision: A Visual History of Modern Christianity (2015)

This is that publishing rarity: a genuinely ground-breaking collection of cross-disciplinary contributions. Each one explores, in detail and depth, the long-standing, persistent and dynamic interconnections between art (including architecture), religion (embracing the major faith communities) and a London where political, social, class and ethnic identities have long generated both religious conflict and creativity. At a time when the Capitals immediate futures, like those of Art and Religion itself, remain increasingly difficult to discern with any real clarity, Visualising a Sacred City will surely provide a rich and unique template for further public and private discussion and reflection.

GRAHAM HOWES, Emeritus Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Trustee of the Art and Christianity Enquiry (ACE), London, and author of The Art of the Sacred: An Introduction to the Aesthetics of Art and Belief (2007)

VISUALISING
A SACRED CITY

London, Art and Religion

Edited by
BEN QUASH, AARON ROSEN AND
CHLO REDDAWAY

Published in 2017 by
I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd

London New York

www.ibtauris.com

Copyright Editorial Selection 2017 Ben Quash, Aaron Rosen and Chlo Reddaway

Copyright Individual Chapters Tahnia Ahmed, Peter Bance, Naomi Billingsley, Hugh Bowden, Rachel Dickson, Gnter Gassner, David Glasser, Robin Griffith-Jones, Emily Guerry, Christopher Hamilton, Catherine E. Hundley, Jonathan Koestl-Cate, Nancy Langham-Hooper, Michael Ledger-Lomas, Ayla Lepine, Alison Milbank, Mark Oakley, Rosalind Parker, John Pearce, Ben Quash, Shahed Saleem, James Walters and Samuel Wells

The right of Ben Quash, Aaron Rosen and Chlo? Reddaway to be identified as the editors of this work has been asserted by the editors in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions.

References to websites were correct at the time of writing.

Library of Modern Religion 52

ISBN: 978 1 78453 661 9

eISBN: 978 1 78672 085 6

ePDF: 978 1 78673 085 5

A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

To Rev. Tom Devonshire-Jones,
who embodied the best of London, art and religion

Contents

Samuel Wells

Ben Quash

Hugh Bowden and John Pearce

Robin Griffith-Jones

Catherine E. Hundley

Emily Guerry

Naomi Billingsley

Nancy Langham-Hooper

Alison Milbank

Christopher Hamilton

Ayla Lepine

Michael Ledger-Lomas

Gnter Gassner

Tahnia Ahmed

Shahed Saleem

James Walters

Peter Bance

Mark Oakley

Rosalind Parker

Rachel Dickson, with concluding remarks by David Glasser

Jonathan Koestl-Cate

List of Illustrations

Excavation of the deep room, Lullingstone villa, with the two busts (one in fragments) on the blocked-off stairs to the cellar and an offering vessel in a pit in the floor before them. Image source: Kent Archaeological Society from G. Meates, The Roman Villa at Lullingstone, Kent. Vol. 1, plate IVb (1979).

The hunter god from Southwark, with his Phrygian cap, quiver and sword and flanking animals. Image source: Cuming Museum, Southwark.

Front and rear elevations of the arch as reconstructed by Tom Blagg from fragments found in excavation of the riverside wall, with surviving relief sculpture indicated in its likely position. Image source: London and Middlesex Archaeological Society from C. Hill et al., The Roman Riverside Wall and Monumental Arch in London, Fig. 84 (1980).

The tauroctony of Ulpius Silvanus from the Walbrook Mithraeum. Image source: Museum of London.

The head of Mithras from the Walbrook Mithraeum. Image source: Museum of London.

Pit excavated in the Walbrook Mithraeum, with its contents in situ: right hand of Mithras, head of Serapis, small statue of Mercury. Image source: Museum of London.

Temple Church, London, exterior. Image source: Temple Church.

Temple Church, London, interior. Image source: Temple Church.

Temple Mount, Jerusalem, aerial view. Image source: Andrew Shiva.

Reconstruction map of London, c.1270. Clockwise from the top, the arrows indicate the sites of St Johns, Clerkenwell; St Sepulchre-without-Newgate; New Temple; and Old Temple. Adapted from a map first published in the British Historic Towns Atlas, Vol. III: The City of London: From Prehistoric Times to c.1520, ed. Mary D. Lobel and W.H. Johns. Image source: The Historic Towns Trust, 1989.

Temple Church from the north-west. Image source: Catherine E. Hundley.

Abraham Hondius, A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs, 1684. Oil on canvas. 66.9111.9 cm. The upper portion of the Temple Church rotunda is visible in the background, to the right. Image source: Museum of London.

St Johns, Clerkenwell. The outline of the Hospitallers round nave is marked in St Johns Square. Image source: Catherine E. Hundley.

King Henry III carrying the Holy Blood, Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 16 II, f.216v. Image source: the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi, Cambridge.

Red chalice, Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 16 II, f. 216v. Image source: the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi, Cambridge.

Last Judgment, tympanum sculpture of the south portal of Lincoln Cathedral. Image source: the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln Cathedral. Photograph by Michele Vescovi.

Doubting Thomas, wall painting in the south transept of Westminster Abbey,