Closing soon in Paris is the most recent rendezvous for the West’s occasional romance with the Islamic world. ‘Cartier and Islamic Art: In Search of Modernity’ at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs is a look back at the creative exchange of another era. If you miss the show in the City of Love, you can catch it in Dallas, City of … Texas.
For an examination of fine, rather than decorative art, there was the 2020 mini blockbuster at the British Museum, curated by me, ‘Looking East: How the Islamic world influenced Western art’. This was soon followed by a display of Tantric Buddhism and its more lascivious appeal.
For decorative art of the past few centuries the West has taken visual inspiration from China, Japan, ancient Egypt, pre-Colombian America and, of course, the Islamic world. These borrowings have often involved sacred works, usually without the knowledge of those Westerners who did the repurposing. Seldom have artists and designers delved into the splendours of Christian tradition. When it happened, they were usually seekers of the Medieval or Celtic spirit.
There were also collectors of Catholic art, even in the essentially Protestant eras of the Georgians and Victorians. Reworking old stuff into something new and saleable was much rarer. Was this prejudice, or simply that the grass – and perhaps the opium – was so much greener and more exotic in India, Syria or China?
Louis Cartier knew what people liked. He was a collector of Islamic art and recycled his personal inventory into jewellery designs. Not much of it has an overtly Muslim message, and Cartier avoided using Arabic script with all its sacred associations. The same cannot be said of his Russian counterpart, Carl Fabergé. The inspiration for those mainly imperial knickknacks came from many sources, including Thai Buddhism and Japanese folk art, and he did use Arabic calligraphy. Out of 200 objects on display at the V&A’s current exhibition ‘Fabergé in London’, I spotted only three with a strong Christian association – and that’s including some of the most secular Easter eggs from before the era of supermarket confections. The most religious of the three was commissioned not for the intertwined network of royals but for the 15th Duke of Norfolk.
Western artists of the 19th century were desperate for new muses. They had more clients than ever, cheaper paint and greater travel opportunities. The obvious course was to head East. When creative types couldn’t afford or face going to investigate the mysteries of Asia, they settled on the past glories of Greece and Rome. It was always the pagan that offered the greatest promise. If their travels didn’t take them to ancient ruins and their somewhat disappointing 19th-century inhabitants, there were always the wilder shores of Scotland and Ireland. Tough, unwashed Christianity and rugged crosses with few Catholic accretions and lots of geometrical abstraction were what designers wanted. The Celtic world was the Wild West of Europe, with a hint of Islamic aesthetics.
Modern museum curators seem to feel the same way. When they make an infrequent foray into Europe’s Christian heritage – Thomas Becket (without the ‘Saint’ title) at the British Museum, or English pre-Reformation needlework at the V&A – it’s not about influences and inspiration. It’s a cultural dead end, a rediscovery of something forgotten that they are boldly exhuming.
The most enthusiastic bringers up of old Christian cultural bodies have often been the most subversive. An innovative gift from Goering to Hitler involved engraving a swastika instead of a crucifix between St Hubert’s stage antlers. The shock-rock veteran Marilyn Manson uses a Cross of Lorraine as part of his branding. No doubt there will one day be a major exhibition of these works and it won’t be considered ‘degenerate art’.
So far, most museums are more apathetic than anti-Christ. Although Louis Cartier did create crosses, based on Corpus-less Byzantine examples, don’t expect to see an exhibition of this meagre output in the near future. The closest we are likely to get to avowed Catholic inspiration is a show that had a different ‘i’ word in the title. ‘Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination’ was a triumph for the Metropolitan Museum four years ago. Most of the attention was focused on the Met Ball, however. Much of this was on pop-singer Rihanna’s interpretation of a Papal outfit plus mitre.
The Met exhibition contents, which could have been a significant counter-Reformation moment, turned out to be a bit misleading. The most inspiring items were in many cases only marginally Catholic. Lucas Cranach the Elder, a staunch follower of Luther’s new faith, would have been furious if he had chanced upon his ‘Adam and Eve’ being enlisted as emissaries of Rome.
At least the majority of the fashion designers were Catholic, or had been brought up as such in Europe. The presence of American Catholicism was as limited as might be expected by the louche decadents of the Old World. It was a show so immersed in irony, one might have imagined Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell to be smirking away in its many darkened corners.
The supreme irony of the subject of Christian creative inspiration is the location of an exhibition that really conveyed the importance of Catholic faith in visual culture. Held in 2016 at Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum, ‘Christianity in Asia: Sacred Art and Visual Splendour’ was a reversal of the usual situation. When the curators specified Christianity, what they actually delivered was Catholicism. It’s a shame this show never moved on from its very small island venue.
The exhibition that will no doubt win the frequent-traveller award in any category is a collection of jewellery from Muslim India. ‘Treasury of the World’ should remain the definitive expression of Mughal art. During its many years of roaming the world, it was displayed at more than 20 museums, including the Met, the Louvre, the Hermitage and the British Museum.
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