Wenhaston, Suffolk

 

Thank you, rain

It’s pouring with rain today and I’m sitting indoors thinking of another rainy day long ago. In 1892, workers reconstructing the east end of Wenhaston church in Suffolk removed a whitewashed wooden panel that blocked the upper part of the chancel arch. They took the panel apart into its constituent oak planks and moved them into the churchyard ready for recycling or a bonfire. That night it rained and the whitewash on the planks began to dissolve. By the morning, parts of several painted figures were revealed.¶ 

The boards were quickly moved indoors for safety and expert restorers cleaned away the remainder of the whitewash to reveal most of a late-medieval Doom painting – the image of the Last Judgement, when the dead rise up from their graves and are sent either to heaven or to hell. This was a poplar subject in church art in the Middle Ages, and numerous Doom paintings survive, in whole or in part, usually on the wall above and around the chancel arch.* Very few panel paintings designed to fill the upper part of the arch now exist, and the one discovered with the help of restoration, good fortune and the weather at Wenhaston is the most clear and complete of these. What’s more, the rebuilt chancel arch was no longer the correct size for the painting, so it has since been displayed elsewhere in the building. It’s now in the north aisle and this position makes it one of the most visible of all medieval Doom paintings.

At the top of the painting Christ, sitting on a rainbow, presides. Facing him are two kneeling figures, the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist, the two most prominent saints who were said to intercede with God on behalf of human souls. To the right and slightly lower down are two souls of the dead rising from their graves as the Last Trumpet sounds.

The lower level of the Wenhaston Doom contains four main groups of figures, separated by blank spaces in front of which statues of the Virgin Mary, Christ crucified, and John the Evangelist once stood. The left-hand group (the least well preserved) shows figures in front of the heavenly mansions. Next comes St Peter, key in hand, with a group of souls who bore high rank on earth – their headgear reveals them to be a king, bishop, cardinal and queen. Next comes St Michael weighing souls, his work disrupted by a large devil. Finally, on the far right, devils push the souls of the damned into the monstrous mouth of hell. Beneath the imagery run verses from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, chapter 13, beginning, ‘Let every soul submit to the authority of the higher powers for there is no power but of God’.† 

The low position of the painting on the aisle wall enables visitors to see details that would have been hard to make out when it was in its original elevated position – the faces of the devils with their bent noses and boggle-eyes, their chains and flesh-hooks, the teeth of hell’s mouth, the care with which St Peter’s robe and the hats of the souls meeting him are painted, the shroud of the rising figure on the far right, and so on. It’s astonishing to be able to see all this close-to. Even though the painting fails to show terror on the faces of the damned, as we’d perhaps expect, the power of the image is still palpable. For once, back in 1892, the rain was something to be pleased about. 

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¶ Please click on the photograph to enlarge it.

* I have previous blogged about such a painting in Salisbury.

† These words seem to have been painted over an earlier, now illegible, inscription.

Salisbury, Wiltshire

 

Doomsday, 2

The painting of the Last Judgement in the church of St Thomas, Salisbury, is the largest of medieval ‘doom’ paintings and one of the clearest. It is, one could say, the rich cousin of the faded doom at Oddington that featured in my previous post. Details of costume suggest that it dates to the last quarter of the 15th century. Like nearly every English medieval church wall painting it was covered with whitewash some time after the Reformation, rediscovered (when traces of colour were noticed during cleaning) in the Victorian period, and restored. It doesn’t seem to be known for sure how much of the rich detail in the painting survives from the 15th century and how much was added by the Victorian restorers, but the overall effect is impressive – indeed, overwhelming – and when a visit is possible, I’ll be able to see has changed since the most recent restoration a couple of years ago and whether the process of conservation has yielded any more information about what the Victorian restorers did or didn’t add.

Meanwhile, even in my photographs, it’s a feast for the eyes. Christ sits at the centre, on a rainbow, with his feet resting on another rainbow. Beside him stand angels holding the instruments of the Passion (cross, crown of thorns, pillar, spear, sponge), and nearby are the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. Beneath the lower rainbow stand the 12 apostles. To the left, angels blow their trumpets to waken the dead, who climb from their tombs, some naked, some in shrouds, one with a hat on, another with a bishop’s mitre. Angels guide these righteous souls towards Heaven, the architecture of which awaiting in the background. To the right, devils chain up a group of souls and drag them towards Hell. Hell, as is common in such paintings, has the fearsome mouth of a monster, in which flames are licking the souls who have already been pushed inside.

Even if some of the detail may be attributable to 19th century restorers, this doom painting takes one back to the 15th century with a jolt. It’s a colourful scene (medieval churches were colourful of course), it teems with figures, it’s at home with symbolism, both the symbols of the Passion and the symbolic headgear of some of the participants – mitres and royal crowns are visible among both Heaven-bound and Hell-destined souls. This painting lacks the faded atmosphere of Oddington, but repays lengthy scrutiny in its details – where both God and the devil reside.

St Thomas, Salisbury, Heaven

St Thomas, Salisbury, Hell

Oddington, Gloucestershire

Doomsday, 1

Medieval wall paintings are among the most fascinating and tantalizing works of art. The fascination comes often not from the quality of the drawing but from the fact that virtually every English example is damaged, faded, and fragmentary. This is a result of iconoclasm in the 16th and 17th centuries, when images in churches were destroyed, often by covering with whitewash. Nearly every English church wall painting has been recovered from beneath at least one coat of whitewash, and the art’s condition depends on the damage done by this overpainting and the skill of the restorer or conservator, as well as the effects of time, damp, and modifications to the building.

Even so, medieval wall paintings can be extremely powerful. Visiting St Nicholas’ church, Oddington – which entails a trip down a long lane to a spot far away from houses and wonderfully quiet – makes one unprepared for the surprise on opening the south door. The enormous 15th-century doom painting stretches over virtually the entire north wall of the church.

The doom or last judgement is the event that takes place when, at the end of time, the souls of the dead are allotted their final place in Heaven or Hell. The events are complex and doom paintings are crowded with figures. As the light in Oddington church isn’t ideal for photography, I’ll describe what I think is going on in this one.§ At the top sits the figure of Christ (slightly to the right of the centre in my picture), with his feet above a disc, symbolising the earth. On his left and right sides are disciples. On either side of the world-disc are angels, and they are probably blowing trumpets to waken the dead and announce that the last judgment will take place: it’s possible to discern a narrow pale line coming from the mouth of the right-hand angel: the tube of a trumpet, I think. Next to the left-hand trumpeting angel stands a figure with a crown: St Peter. Groups of the righteous and repentant are welcomed to heaven by more angels, clearly recognisable by their spread and feathery wings. Heaven itself is, of course, architectural – there’s a slender tower with crenellations on top, linked by a wall (with more crenellations) to what is probably another tower on the far left. The celestial city had a wall, naturally, as any medieval city would do. One of my favourite touches is the small angel on top of the tower, who seems to be helping a soul into Heaven (or is it a bad soul trying to get into the city without authorisation and being pushed away?). On the right is Hell.* Yellow flames are discernible towards the bottom right. A horned devil fans the fire with a bellows. Other devils, dressed in striped garb, round up sinners and get on with the business of torturing them. Further touches: a person hanging from a gallows and another figure kneeling as if begging for mercy. Gruesome stuff, but it would have looked even more dreadful when the paint was new.

The fact that the colour has faded and so much of it has gone is perhaps what makes these paintings so moving. We can only look at them at all thanks to the lucky accidents of discovery and conservation, and their distressed state seems to lengthen the distance between our time and the painter’s. If medieval worshippers trembled with awe at the fate of the lost souls, we are more likely to be awed by the connection this art helps us make with their distant world. We don’t travel back in time or indulge in some ‘virtual medieval experience’ when we look at these paintings. We’re forced to confront another harsh reality: the power of passing time.

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§ Clicking on the image to enlarge it may make it easier to see the details. 

* The whole lower part of the painting has two different background colours. The right-hand half has a red background: this is hell; the left-hand section has a grey-looking background which maybe was once blue: it’s the heavenly realm.