Because cathedrals have always striven to attract the highest standards of what human beings can offer to their faith, they have as a consequence been inextricably connected to art, in its many different forms. Churches and Cathedrals have provided the inspiration and springboard, as well as the financial resources, to encourage some of the Western world’s greatest music and visual art. Artists were often commissioned to produce work which would teach, inspire, challenge and even intimidate the faithful, illustrating to them the beliefs of the Church and the practices required of the people. Also at times of widespread illiteracy, visual art in churches was a powerful means of both communication and control.

Even though the emphases may have changed, this tradition continues today. In this article we will visit some of the most famous installations in Europe and we will learn more about this interesting aspect of art. Churches and Cathedrals might have been built to honour God, but in their conception and execution they reflect the creativity and industry of humankind. The following artists have seen the possibilities of such a setting and they brilliantly reminds us of our links to the mediaeval artists and crafts people who went before us.

Liverpool Cathedral

The late Venetian art historian David Rosand contributed an essay on a Veronese painting in the same June 2011 edition of the Burlington Magazine that featured Renata Segre’s discovery of the inventory of Giorgione’s estate. Segre’s archival find attracted much attention but Rosand’s essay provided much more insight into the work of Giorgione and other Venetian Renaissance artists.*

Paolo Veronese: The Conversion of Mary Magdalen, c. 1548 National Gallery, London, oil on canvas, 117.5 x `63.5

‘Jangarh Singh Shyam, A Conjuror’s Archive’, co-curated by Dr. Jyotindra Jain and Roobina Karode is on at The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) at KNMA, Saket, New Delhi.

The opening of the exhibition was accompanied by a book launch, ‘Jangarh Singh Shyam, A Conjuror’s Archive,’ authored by Dr. Jyotindra Jain, who has had an extensive engagement with the works of Jangarh, having known him personally and following his practice.

KNMA has expanded its curatorial and exhibition program in the last few years. Since 2017 a special exhibition category has been introduced, to open up discourses around preceding pre-modern, traditional and indigenous art practices, and critically examine their influence and appropriations in urban contemporary art. The first of this kind was ‘Amruta Kalasha, Thanjavur and Other South Indian Paintings’. This year the exhibition on Jangarh problematizes ‘the tribal’ and ‘the contemporary’. Jangarh was born into a Pardhan Gond family in the village of Patangarh in Mandla district, of Eastern Madhya Pradesh. He is much discussed for his creation of a new style, which is named after him as ‘Jangarh Kalam’. A unique style when compared with traditional tribal art practices. Its initiation happened early when Jangarh met J. Swaminathan (who was then Director at Bharat Bhavan) during a talent scout. Swaminathan convinced Jangarh to relocate to Bhopal and work as a professional artist. Jangarh’s primary subjects were sometimes Gond deities like Thakur Dev, Bada Deo and Kalsahin Devi and at other times were applique styled portraits of animals, trees, folklore imagery and landscapes of the place where he grew up, placed next to objects and entities from urban settings, like aeroplanes.