“Our Lady of the Hills”, David Jones, 1921, Ditchling Museum.
In May 1921 David Jones spent three days walking the old pilgrim road from Orpington to Canterbury. On the way he made a sketch of the Kentish hills which he later finished as an oil painting entitled “North Downs”. He was working in the flat of Catholic art student, Dorothea de Halpert, with whom he had fallen in love. She had rejected his advances and would marry someone else, but they remained life long friends. In September of that same year Jones had become a Catholic. Towards the end of that same year Jones exhibited a study for “North Downs” alongside this painting: “Our Lady of the Hills”. This mother and child owes much to paintings by Bellini and Mantegna with which Jones would have been familiar. Their paintings were characterised by a harmony of colour and form and they often added details in the background landscape which symbolised aspects of the main subject. Here, the harmony of colour and form is evident. Given what is known of Jones’ life in the months during which he worked on this painting, it is clear that something of his inner world is revealed. In this young woman there must be something of his beloved Dorothea. After all, he was painting it in her flat. And as he had made his way on foot on through the Kentish hills, he would surely have prayed to Our Lady. As with the paintings of Bellini, Our Lady is shown gazing sadly beyond her child as if seeing already his future suffering and death. The lovely Kentish hills may symbolise the hill on which her child will suffer and die. We celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Tuesday.
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The Catholic Chaplaincy is also a parish of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh (the Parish of St Albert the Great) and all Catholic students and staff are automatically members of this parish.
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