Mark Lancelot Symons | oil on canvas | 1933 | Reading Museum
I spotted this painting on a trip to Reading where we had gone to see a 19th century replica of the Bayeux tapestry. After wandering along the seventy-metre history lesson, we visited the rest of the gallery. Having had no education in art appreciation or criticism, I felt curiously drawn to this modern-dress religious painting.
Symons was raised Roman Catholic and, after studying at the Slade, wanted to enter a monastery; however the dietary restrictions he used to prepare for asceticism caused cardiac damage, which both prevented him entering the monastery and saved him from being called up to serve in WWI. He devoted himself to other church activities and married and adopted three daughters before he resumed painting full-time.
The modern dress and furniture in this picture of the Last Supper set a familiar scene. It could be us sitting around a table with Jesus inviting us to “take, eat”. We are accustomed to the da Vinci fresco, which leaves one side of the table open; does this allow us to take part, or is it simply an artistic device to allow us to see the faces of the disciples? We invited our young granddaughter to set up a knitted Last Supper, and she seated everyone around the table, as Symons depicts.
Although the table is an adequate size for the gathering, curiously there are not enough matching chairs. Don’t think this is a business meeting – it was painted early in the 1930s when a man of a certain class invited for a meal would wear a collar and tie. Jesus is depicted wearing the chasuble of a priest and a shaft of light seems to bless the bread he is about to break. Apparently, Symons painted himself as Judas Iscariot, who seems in a desperate hurry to leave and be about his business, the pouch full of thirty coins dangling from his wrist. The chain emphasises the burden his betrayal had cost him. There are other people in the room. We realise there would have been others at the original Last Supper, women among them, serving the food at least. But the attendees in Symons’s Last Supper seem to be an audience, waiting for the next act, with a presaging cross to hand. I find the bottom of the painting difficult to understand. There appear to be a collection of Toby jugs and literally “the knives are out”.
The Royal Academy rejected this painting, among others of Symons religious paintings. Indeed he was considered one of the most controversial British artists of his time. His use of modern dress and ordinary people were called sensationalist and even blasphemous. But I feel part of this gathering in a way that da Vinci and others do not achieve. Symons died at the age of only 48. I suppose he swiftly learned what God thought of his artistic style!
Elaine Kinchin
Comments