A Reflection on the Jean Cocteau Murals at the Church of Notre Dame de France

Jean Cocteau: detail from his Crucifxion scene mural
Notre Dame de France (London, 1960)

ndfchurch.org

 

I. 

 

I am not what you would call a Jean Cocteau specialist: I haven't read of any his poetry, fiction, or criticism; nor seen any of his works for stage and screen, with the exception of La Belle et la Bête (1946), which I watched as a child at school; nor am I familiar with his work as a visual artist, again with a single exception to this, namely, the murals he executed for the Church of Notre Dame de France ...

 

 

II. 

 

 

I'm not French, nor am I Catholic or a Christian of any description, but I do love to enter the church of Notre Dame de France, based in Soho, London - just off Leicester Square - which was consecrated in 1868 (although the original building prior to its redevelopment into a place of worship is somewhat older). 

 

Badly damaged by German bombs during the Blitz, the church had to have extensive structural repairs that were not completed until several years after the War ended.

 

The French Ambassador, Jean Chauval, promoted the idea of creating a sacred space with a uniquely French feel and so, during the 1950s, the French Cultural Attaché René Varin was tasked with commisioning eminent artists of the time to work on the decoration of the rebuilt church.

 

One of these artists was Jean Cocteau who, in November 1959 [1], completed three murals in the Lady Chapel depicting the Annunciation, Crucifixion, and Assumption ... 

 

 

III. 

 

In the first of these, located on the wall to the left of the altar, Cocteau shows the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary to inform her that she is to conceive the Son of God - with or without her consent [2]. 

 

The second mural, depicting the Crucifixion of Christ beneath a black sun and adorning the central wall, is arguably the most powerful, even though only Jesus's lower legs and feet - complete with bloody puncture wounds - are visible. Mary is shown alongside, united in grief with two other female figures; Marys Magdalene and Clopas [3]. 

 

There is also another small group of figures, amidst which Cocteau has placed himself and he turns to gaze at the viewer with a look upon his face of an unbeliever who nevertheless possesses a spirit that is deeply religious in nature (see image above).

 

Finally, we see the Assumption of Mary - regarded by Cocteau as the most beautiful of all God's creatures - as she is taken up into heaven, accompanied by an angelic fanfare; something which, to my way of thinking - as a Lawrentian - is literally a fate worse than death [4]. 

 

IV. 

 

Having been restored in 2012, these lovely works can still be freely viewed in the church today (although now placed behind glass for security reasons) and I would encourage readers who may find themselves passing through central London with time on their hands to go and do so.  

For even if you don't much like Cocteau or care for his art - and even if you are a passionate anti-theist - Notre Dame de France is a genuine place of sanctuary from the noise, ugliness, and vulgarity of the world outside its walls.   

Jean Cocteau looking dapper as he sets to work at the 

church of Notre Dame de France (London, 1959)

Photo by Gary Heiss

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Although painted between November 3rd and 11th, Cocteau signs and dates the work 1960.

 

[2] Some readers may recall that I have discussed the Annunciation and spectral rape of Mary in a post published on Torpedo the Ark back in March 2014: click here. 

      I still find the story of how a 13-year-old girl was selected by God as a broodmare (and doubtless groomed by him and his angelic servants throughout her childhood) somewhat shocking.

 

[3] The presence of a group of female disciples at the Crucifixion is confirmed in all four Gospels of the New Testament. However, parallel accounts have led to uncertainty as to their number and identity. I'm following the Gospel of John and sticking with the idea that the Three Marys are the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas.

 

[4] Regardless of what I might think, the Assumption of Mary is one of the four Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church - albeit one that leaves open the question of whether Mary died first, or whether she was raised to eternal life without bodily death (theologians refer to a mortalistic versus an immortalistic interpretation). The Feast of the Assumption is held on 15 August, though it's not something that all Protestants choose to celebrate.  

On the Art of Crucifixion

Horace Roye: Tomorrow's Crucifixion (1938)

Images of a crucified figure have a long history; one that it may surprise some readers to discover pre-dates the Christian era, although, of course, most such images are of Jesus hanging on the Cross and thus belong to a particular religious tradition of art.*   

Whilst crucifixion art had its heyday in the Middle Ages, when increasingly gruesome and realistic representations of suffering became de rigueur, modern artists have nevertheless continued to find inspiration in the subject matter.   

Dalí, for example, famously gave us his version in 1954: Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus); a surreal or, more accurately, nuclear mystical painting in which Christ is crucified not to a simple wooden cross, but to the unfolded net of what is termed within geometry a tesseract (i.e. the four-dimensional analogue of the cube). Some critics regard it as one of Dalí's most successful works, uniting science and religiosity in an ingenius manner.   

Francis Bacon was another 20th-century artist fascinated by all forms of physical torment and violent death in general. In 1965 he painted a triptych entitled Crucifixion that follows (in mood, colour and form) two earlier works: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) and Three Studies for a Crucifixion (1962).

What I love about these works is - in contrast to Dalí's picture - the fact that there's nothing spiritual about them; in fact, they are obscenely material and treat human flesh as if it were butcher's meat on display. As Bacon confessed to the critic and curator David Sylvester when discussing the above works:

"I've always been very moved by pictures about slaughterhouses [...] There've been extraordinary photographs which have been done of animals just being taken up before they were slaughtered; and the smell of death. We don't know, of course, but it appears by these photographs that they're so aware of what is going to happen to them, they do everything to attempt to escape. I think these pictures were very much based on that kind of thing, which to me is very, very near this whole thing of the Crucifixion. I know for religious people, for Christians, the Crucifixion has a totally different significance. But as a non-believer, it was just an act of man's behaviour to another."

Finally, mention must be made of an extraordinary photograph from 1938 by Horace Roye, who is perhaps most fondly remembered today for his thousands of female nude portraits (or Eves without leaves as he jokingly referred to them).** Entitled Tomorrow's Crucifixion, it depicts a naked woman wearing a gas mask whilst nailed to a crucifix. Unsurprisingly, it caused a huge amount of controversy at the time, but is now rightly regarded as one of the most striking images from the pre-War period, anticipating the horrors to come.   

Notes

* Interestingly, in the first three centuries of Christian iconography the crucifixion was rarely depicted. It's thought that any such images were viewed as heretical by early church leaders who regarded the subject as unfit for artistic representation and preferred to focus the attention of believers on the miracle of resurrection.

** A bit like D. H. Lawrence three decades earlier, Roye was prosecuted in the 1950s for obscenity after refusing to airbrush out pubic hair from photos of his models. Defending himself in court, Roye successfully challenged the absurd idea that nudes were only acceptable if made to look as smooth and lifeless as marble statues, or as impersonal as dead fish. 

See: David Sylvester, The Brutality of Fact: Interviews with Francis Bacon (Thames and Hudson, 1987).

On the Crucifixion of Sebastian Horsley

Naturally, at Easter, one's thoughts turn to the Cross and the crucifixion of Sebastian Horsley, the Soho Kristos ...

In 2000, Horsley flew to the Philippines, accompanied by fellow-artist Sarah Lucas and the photographer Dennis Morris. Having decided that he wished to paint scenes of the Crucifixion, but only ever really able to paint what he himself had experienced directly, Horsley was heading for the small village of San Pedro Cutud, outside of San Fernando, in the province of Pampagna.    

Here, during Holy Week, locals hold an annual orgy of self-flagellation and mortification of the flesh, culminating in several devotees being willingly lashed to crosses with nails driven through their hands and feet in imitation of Christ. Officially, the Church does not approve, but the local tourist industry has no qualms about promoting the event (retailers selling religious nick-knacks alongside cans of Coke).   

This re-enactment of the Passion, has been going on for many years. Pseudo-martyrs tend to be young Filipino men hoping to experience the divine and produce some sort miraculous effect. Foreign participants were banned after a Japanese man marketed footage of himself being crucified as a sadomasochistic porn video. However, after months of negotiation (and payment of a significant fee) it was agreed that Horsley would be able to stage his own private ceremony.    

The hope was to heighten his artistic sensibilities via extreme suffering. In the event, however, he passed out from the intense and overwhelming degree of pain. Worse, the small platform supporting his feet broke, as did the straps around his wrists and arms supporting some of his weight, and Horsley, dramatically - if also somewhat embarrassingly - fell from the cross! (The malicious act of a God in whom he didn't believe but was happy nevertheless to mock, as Horsley reasoned afterwards.)

Some of the villagers ran away screaming; Sarah Lucas fainted; and Dennis Morris continued to snap pictures as anxious officials attempted to resurrect the artist, lying pale and unconscious, but strangely serene, as if a figure in a painting by Caravaggio. Afterwards, Horsley by his own admission felt humiliated and full of a sense of failure. Soon, however, this was replaced with a sense of quiet pride.

An exhibition of new works based on the event opened in the summer of 2002 and film footage shot by Sarah Lucas, entitled Crucifixion, was screened at the ICA in June of that year. The British press, unsurprisingly, were less than impressed:  'Art Freak Crucifies Himself', screamed the front page of the News of the World. Perhaps more surprisingly - and certainly more disappointingly - the art world was also distinctly cool (and sometimes sneering) in its reception.

Horsley, as ever, puts a brave face on this in his disarming and often highly amusing memoir, Dandy in the Underworld (2007):  "Jesus was crucified to save humanity. I had been crucified to save my career. Neither of us had much success."


Note: For those interested, Crucifixion can be viewed (in two parts) on YouTube by clicking here and here.