Stanley Spencer

Tate Britain through 24 June 2001

Here in London is further confirmation at Tate Britain that Stanley Spencer was a world-class painter, yet of a particularly English conformation. It is clear why we do not see him hung in Tate Modern — it would be so curatorially embarrassing, no doubt. And of course he charges up the atmosphere, at Tate Britain, and reminds us of the ‘Englishness’ of English art while demonstrating that such force of talent belies the neat historical categories proposed by curators. The present exhibition re-endorses that, and yet we are still denied the chance there to experience the Sandham Memorial Paintings in the chapel at Burghclere.

This specially erected building, completed in l927, contains the cycle of l9 major paintings as a war memorial to H W Sandham who lost his life following the Macedonian campaign in l919. Spencer himself had served there and in Kosovo in the Royal Army Medical Corps (where he had been placed on account of his diminutive size). Spencer has conveyed something of that region’s overbearing religious attitude, through personal experience, in these remarkable works. It was significant that the famous ‘Resurrection at Cookham’ (l920-21) preceded such paintings, yet purveys that intensity of religious experience, via Kosovo.

The central masterpiece at Burghclere, ‘The Resurrection of the Soldiers’ itself took Spencer over a year to complete, and is arguably still the highpoint of Spencer's oeuvre. In the Tate Britain exhibition the medium of film is used to convey the achievement at Burghclere, and yet can scarcely convey this. Possibly, improved technology in virtual reality will one day enable such problems caused by the immobility of the Burghclere works to be overcome.

There has been one Spencer retrospective every five years or so. Such is the dramatic force of Spencer's work that similar technicalities will doubtless be less of a problem, say, in ten years’ time, so that Spencer's prowess can only continue to be enhanced. Burghclere remains central; there one is reminded not only of the Piero della Francesco, but also of frescoes at San Francisco in Arezzo, of which Spencer was closely aware, as well as of Giotto's Arena Chapel frescoes, for totality of concept and execution.

Spencer had set about creating in large, squared canvas panels the full series. For the largest of these, Spencer was only able to locate suitably large looms in Belgium. Unfortunately the gluing of these to the walls was also fraught with problems, not least in retrospect being the use of asbestos as a basis for fixing. Into this great series Spencer had woven all his memories of wartime service, both in Salonika and in England. The works stand today as a major tribute, worthy of major recognition as against the apparent obscurity into which the Burghclere Chapel has recessed. The ultimate lesson, too, is that when Spencer's own simple religious faith was in play he conceived his greatest works. This is well evident at Tate Britain currently.

It is also important to offset the curatorial tendency in Tate Britain to require the cross-referencing employed, with European works, to bolster Spencer's importance. Such is the fundamental ‘Englishness’, and uniqueness of his work that these measures seem largely neurotic, or bureaucratic today. Nor is Spencer's powerful sexuality the decisive motivation for all his work, hence a means for postulating 'modernity'. (This interest can as readily take us to the example of William Blake.) The series of Spencer's self-portraits help us to understand more of this complex individual genius.

Stanley Spencer is at Tate Modern through 24 June.

The Burghclere Chapel, Wiltshire, can be visited by arrangement with the National Trust.