English Gothic revival - More

Catholic's are familiar with purple or violet (+ Rose) as the colours for vestments, tabernacle veils and frontals for the lenten and passiontide seasons (see www./saintbedestudio.blogspot.com for a more exhaustive treatment of liturgical colours).

In England, at least before the reformation the colours of Ash (often unbleached linen) frequently ornamented with red and lenten Gray/blue where commonly in use. 
Certainly it was the pratice of the Sarum Use and indeed many of the other English Uses of the Roman Rite.

The English reformation whilst not being as extreme in it's initial phases as on the continent, ultimately saw the destruction of the "Catholic Mass" and all of it's associated decorations and trappings.  The Oxford movement within the Church of England in the 19th century (essentially a catholic movement) included members who wished to restore "Catholic" elements to their liturgy.  Whilst some where content to immitate Roman Catholic pratice as it existed at the time others where keen to restore the glories of the pre-reformation patrimony and tended toward the rite of Sarum or Salisbury sometimes as a means to assert their "Englishness" as opposed to the "Romans" particularly at a time when "Anti-Roman Catholic" sentiment was still very strong.

The Romantic period in which the Oxford Movement flourished coincided with the Gothic Revival Movement in art and architecture.  It was this happy union of movements which saw the restoration, rebuilding and re-ornamentation of all most every church in the British Empire.  The Roman Catholic Church in England was also heavily influenced by these events and benefited from the revival - Indeed through these events acquired arguabley the greatest of the Gothic Revivalists - Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.

A LENTEN ARRAY

Below are two photos of the Lenten Array of Westminster Abbey the other is the small Catholic Church of St Birinus (designed by William Wardell) in Oxforshire recently restored.

Todays Treat - More Cheadle (St Giles)

Comper's renovation of St Giles

Compare the Glory

"Cheadle my Cheadle" and "The Parsons Handbook"

Now this is the type of diversity I like - Pugin and Comper - two Rood Screens

Comper at Downside

These photos are beautiful but by no means do the work justice

The Benedictine Abbey Church at Downside

More Gladsome Pics

More of Comper's In-comparable decoration

SOME JOY FOR THE HEART

A study in photos collected form everywhere

Sir Ninian Comper (1864-1960) is an architect of the late Gothic Revival whose style is distinctive.


It has been claimed that Ninian Comper was the greatest church furnisher since Wren. However, if he was primarily a decorator rather than an architect, his decorative art was never simply for art's sake, but for the sake of the function for which he firmly believed a church exists, namely "as a roof over an altar".

Believing this, he built from the altar outwards, personally designing every detail of the furnishings, even down to the candle sticks, which had to fit in with his design. While bitterly opposed to 'modernism', he nevertheless anticipated by many years the changes that were to come: for example, his use of free-standing altars, of pure white interiors and strong clear colours, especially the typical Comper rose and green, and the combination of gilding, blue, and white. Sir John Betjeman said of him (in 1948): "His ecclesiastical tastes are rococo as well as his architectural ones; he is perfectly satisfied so long as gold leaf is heaped on everywhere."


His rather unusual signature of the strawberry is linked with his high regard for his father who demonstrated his great devotion to the poor in so many practical ways. Fr John Comper died suddenly in the Duthie Park in Aberdeen, on the banks of the River Dee, while giving strawberries to poor children.