“Lourdes” David Jones, 1928, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge.
In May of 1928, the Catholic artist, David Jones, stayed at the Monastery of Dominican Nuns in Lourdes. It is situated on high ground overlooking the Grotto from across the river and this painting might well be based on a view from the Nuns’ garden. during his stay, he painted several views of the shrine and the town of Lourdes. This version made it into Jim Ede’s collection at Kettle’s Yard. It shows the pilgrims before the Grotto, a place where in my experience at least, something of heaven seems to be enfolded in the very bowels of the earth. In Jones’ landscape, the mountains surrounding the town soar upwards and River Gave rushes past, as pilgrims stand in stillness to pray before the small white statue of the Virgin high up in the cave, their candles piercing darkness. To my eye the spire of the basilica reaches heavenward like a great bird standing on the water’s edge; the sacred like a precious egg in a nest on the earth beneath its legs. As any pilgrim knows it rains just about every other day in Lourdes and often cloud lingers on nearby mountain tops. In this painting it looks like the rain has just finished, but the clouds have remain. For David Jones, a landscape in paint could never simply be the representation of what the artist had seen before him. Jones sought to capture the essence of his subject; the universal in the particular. As one commentator put it, “In this and other paintings around Lourdes, Jones captured a sense of the numinous in the very lineaments of place.” Actually, the painting bears comparison with El Greco’s “View of Toledo” (1599/1600) showing the city during a thunderstorm (see below). Jones positioned buildings as he wanted them, seeking to capture the spirit of the place, which is similar to what El Greco did centuries before. As for Lourdes itself, Jones was disappointed. He wrote to Jim Ede, “The grotto of Our Lady here is alright & the people’s devotion is amazing but the town & the church buildings are a picture of concentrated horror … It is like finding a Woolworth store built the summit of the Mount of Olives.” Well, I don’t think it is as bad as all that, yet even this enthusiast must admit there is some truth in what he wrote to Ede. But did he spent time in prayer among those people, whose devotion amazed him and who in his image stand in stillness and silence before the Grotto? I think he did and I think it shows.
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