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julian
Broadhurst Eight
Crucifixions
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral - 2OO3 |
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Cathedral Dean Mgr Peter Cookson & Curator of
Art Sister Anthony Wilson With Eight Crucifixions May 2OO3. Picture
© The Catholic Pictorial May 2OO3 |
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The
Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King Liverpool julian
Broadhurst ‘Eight Crucifixions’ A 1200 x 1700 mm Black print on a laminate panel, comprising eight ‘Geometric Constructions over montages of the Cathedral’s Groundplan’ - November 2OO2. Donated to the Fabric of the Cathedral in trust for the people of Liverpool April 24th 2OO3. I have not, nor did I intend to represent or depict the Crucifixion in this work. It is not a rendering of it in abstracted form. Rather the ‘Language’ of my work, its syntax, is one of pure shape. I have spent my life in Geometric Art, deriving a Visual language from pure shape, and those Geometric figures I call the Elements of pure shape, the Triangle, the Square, the Circle et al. These Elements are the ‘Given’ basis of the Art I call Elementalism; Eight Crucifixions is an Elementalist work. One analogy of this type of abstraction is Music, because it, like Pure Shape, is considerable in and of itself.
This is the last in a series of works based on the Ground plan Geometry of the Cathedral, called ‘Sacred Circles’, after the circles defining its groundplan. I promised the Cathedral Authorities one of these works but then, the title ‘Eight Crucifixions’, insisted itself upon me and I knew, that an entirely new work was called for. In November of 2OO2 I began by assembling the montage of groundplans I would use as a base. I then drew in each a Geometric Tracery, to a tight set of rules I devised for the purpose; giving a distinct family of patterns, but with each one differing in some measure. They are then Variations on this rule plan. The Work was completed though an industrial process of printing and mounting. The frame was built, by a Masterframer, from especially imported Spanish Wood, ready for Easter 2OO3. I
followed My Master Ceri Richards, in his Panel for the Chapel of
the Blessed Sacrament, by nominating mine as an Altarpiece. To my mind it
has a spirituality, principally in that a meditation on pure shape is always
a revealing, perhaps a spiritual act. However to be true to the title to
which, for which, it was composed,
the multi-layering of stars could be read as ‘Crowns of thorns’,
eight of them, but let these also be seen as echoes in an Adoration of the Cathedral. As an
Artist I merely invite people to contemplate, multiply. |
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8 Crux Liverpool 2OO3 - The Cathedral Set |
The Apse Provisional Hang |
‘Eight Crucifixions’ - A Visual Analysis |
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