Visualising a Sacred City: London, Art and Religion

Description

William Blake famously imagined ‘Jerusalem builded here’ in London. But Blake was not the first or the last to visualise a shimmering new metropolis on the banks of the River Thames. For example, the Romans erected a temple to Mithras in their ancient city of Londinium; medieval Londoners created Temple Church in memory of the Holy Sepulchre in which Jesus was buried; and Christopher Wren reshaped the skyline of the entire city with his visionary dome and spires after the Great Fire of London in 1666. In the modern period, the fabric of London has been rewoven in the image of its many immigrants from the Caribbean, South Asia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. While previous books have examined literary depictions of the city, this is the first examination of the religious imaginary of the metropolis through the prism of the visual arts. Adopting a broad multicultural and multi-faith perspective, and making space for practitioners as well as scholars, its topics range from ancient archaeological remains and Victorian murals and cemeteries to contemporary documentaries and political cartoons. Cover Author Bio Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Illustrations List of Contributors Foreword Introduction PART I. FOUNDATIONS: ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL Chapter 1. Seeing the Gods in Roman London Chapter 2. Temple Church: History, Experience and Theology in the Round Chapter 3. A New Jerusalem in Four Parts: The Holy Sepulchres of Twelfth-Century London Chapter 4. Failure and Invention: King Henry III, the Holy Blood and Gothic Art at Westminster Abbey PART II. VISIONS OF A HOLY CITY Chapter 5. Citizens of ‘London’ as Members of Christ’s Divine Body in William Blake’s Biblical Illustrations Chapter 6. ‘You May See it or Not’: John Rogers Herbert, RA and the New Palace of Westminster Chapter 7. ‘A Crowd Flowed over London Bridge’: Visualising London through Dante Chapter 8. ‘This Melancholy London’: Redemptive Possibilities in Some Recent Documentary Films PART III. MATERIAL CULTURE Chapter 9. ‘There is No Wealth but Life’: London’s Gothic Revival and Urban Resurrection Chapter 10. The Campo Santo of the Dissenters: Bunhill Fields and Sacred Space in Victorian London Chapter 11. A Religious Office Tower? Virgin Mary’s Outspread Cloak in the City of London Chapter 12. Caricatures of Difference: The Changing Perception of Sikhs in London Political Cartoons PART IV. MODERN WORSHIP SPACES Chapter 13. Building and Becoming: The Shahporan Mosque and the Unfolding of Muslim Visual Identity in London Chapter 14. The Desert in the City: A Post-Secular Work of Art for the London School of Economics Chapter 15. From Punjab to Putney: Origins of the Sikh Gurdwara in London PART V. CONTEMPORARY ART AND EXHIBITIONS Chapter 16. Recent Commissions at St Paul’s Cathedral Chapter 17. The Museum Space as a Mediator of Religious Experience: Sacred Journeys at the British Museum Chapter 18. ‘A Real Temple of Jewish Art’?: A Century of Ben Uri in London 1915–2015 Chapter 19. Blind Faith in the City: Mark Wallinger and the Religious Imaginary Index Plates section Back Cover