MaritaIn, Green, Beckett and Anderson in conversation down through the ages I see in you, poring and praying over images, a charitable hermeneutic, art criticism as love of neighbour, that contemplation which alone reveals the true value of charity. Careful attention paid to the particular work made, reception on that work’s own terms, naming the ways important human concerns – longings, laments, joys, failures, discontent – are active in the work and bear on you and me – us – today. Giving yourself without reservation to all that demands your attention, believing in the dignity of every natural activity, with which one knows through experience, integral humanism. Throwing your heart into things like a dart or a rocket, seeing within the thing itself the flash of spiritual light where a glimpse of God shines out, a fleeting reality in which there flashes the slightest glimmer of love or beauty, the call of love to which love alone responds, the invisceration of supernatural, boundless charity in the very exercise of poetic gift. A genuflection of thought in the presence of God; reason having warmth, movement, and generosity, just like the heart, reasoning that touches and moves when it begins in charity, intellectual charity. (Based on: ‘Sister Wendy Beckett – A Reminiscence By Revd Jonathan Evens’, Artlyst, 2018; ‘Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism – Interview Revd Jonathan Evens’, Artlyst, 2018; and ‘The Story of Two Souls’, H. Bars & E. Jourdan ed, Fordham University Press, 1988)
Jonathan Evens is Associate Vicar for HeartEdge at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Through HeartEdge, a network of churches, he encourages congregations to engage with culture, compassion and commerce. He writes on the Arts for a range of publications including Artlyst, ArtWay and Church Times. He is co-author of ‘The Secret Chord,’ an impassioned study of the role of music in cultural life written through the prism of Christian belief. He blogs at Between: https://joninbetween.blogspot.com/
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