Stanley Spencer

Question 1

Dates/Life

Answer 1

1891-1959, from Cookham, small village near Thames, ‘the village in Heaven’

Question 2

Style

Answer 2

seen as religious painter as usually religious subjects,
rejeaction/diversion from popular 20th c. aesthetic changes and trends.
Moving towards abstraction.
‘anti-modernity’ in his work, this led by his up-bringing and his distinctively unique personality

Question 3

Divinity

Answer 3

Spencer saw divinity in every day life, would paint altarpieces in a very different style. Spencer had great affinity with the transcendent and divine. He subverts religious iconography by replacing it or juxtaposing it with the mundane/every day. ‘The Dustmen or the Lovers’ is a good example of this, using dustmen in the context of divine elevation.
All the dustmen figures are mere figures although misshapen etc. This is his means of representing the divine through a medium/subject matter that is commonly seen as distant and irrelevant to the divinity of the saviour

Question 4

Use of personal life

Answer 4

‘John Donne arriving in heaven’ is a painting of Donne within the environment Spencer grew up in, using simplified figures to depict a sense of the heavenly/dream-like atmosphere that the environment carries, use of colour in a post-impressionistic style focuses on natural, chromatcic colours that point towards the divvinity of the organic.
Based on a mis-reading on one of Donne’s poems - Spencer’s isolated up-bringing created a abstract, unique view of the world. The isolation allowed his thoughts and theories to roam completely free of schooling and tutoring. ALthough widely read in the classics, often understood and interpreted in a different way from the rest of the world. Low-lying childhood in Cookham inspired a unique angle on all things, hence his depictions of religious themes/sexuality.
Using people he knows in paintings such as ’the resurrection‘ show his preoccupations with life and death

Question 5

Experience of War

Answer 5

Very contrasting with the popular German pessimism about War and depictions of war in art.
Using themes of redemption and resurrection in relation to war, suggesting a resurrection from the horror of war and a rebirth into a new ear.
‘Travoys arriving with wounded’ shows wounded soldiers, but depicted as a kind of resurrection, hope and fragility that war reveals showing us something fundamental about the religious story.

Question 6

Memorial Painting

Answer 6

created in memorial of deceased and wounded soldiers of WW1
many figures resurrecting from death and carrying their crrosses to a christ-like figure.
They are often aggressively and flippantly giving their cross to christ, representing the dissatisfaction and dismissal of christianity in the modern era/around war time.
A fugure seen with his back towards Christ, perhaps gesturing towards a personal and internal faith, a personal version of the divine and transcendent.
The figuration of the soldiers is not depicting the atrocities and destruction of the war but rather aligned with his aesthetic.
His own personal belief in a resurrection from a the Christian faith into a faith in the divine of everyday and the hope of human fragility etc.

Question 7

Representations of Hell/Negative subject matter

Answer 7

Relationship with Patricia Preece a subject of great importance to Spencer
Paintings of Patricia she is depicted animalistically, in uncomfortable, slightly distorted angles and using unusual light and colours.
A sense of emotional estrangement is capture in these paintings.
Female lover represnted in a disembodied, abstract way which suggests distance, perversion and a very unique view from Spencer himself.
Double Nude Portrait: the absence of any loving look or physical touch creates an uncomfortable, strange atmosphere to this painting, suggesting sexual alienation and the imbalance of the relationship. The presence of the mutton de-eroticises the two naked bodies, creating a likeness between the bodies and the piece of meat..
Feeling of tension and rigity in the rendering of the muscles on the figures creates an up-tight, confined atmosphere. This is only heightened by the claustrophobic use of space, with the lovers squished with the frame, as though they had no room to move or be free at all. This is symbolic of the emotional distance between them, getting this close physically is not having any impact of the distances between their inner thoughts.
Spencer’s version of hell in the inability to create comfort and happiness in a relationship. The angular treatment of the bodies aligns with Spencer’s ouvre to contort figures.