Blake BIllings, Ph.D.



Roundels in Stillman Dining Hall, Portsmouth Abbey (right side)
 

Our series on “The Artists of the Abbey” has thus far looked at members of our present community - Adam Paul Heller, Joe Soares, and Bob Trump, each with his distinctive specialty (stone carving, painting, liturgical art), yet all with diverse artistic skill and accomplishment. This week, we will turn to some of the oldest art on display at the Abbey. Its craftsmen lost in obscurity and anonymity, yet their work continues to illuminate our experience. The work we examine is, in fact, itself a shared labor, fabricated and entirely re-fabricated over years, reflecting both the aesthetic experience and the political turmoil of a community of generations. All of that has come to quietly reside in the recesses of the walls of our dining hall lobby. All walk past the ten roundels that softly enlighten that space, diffracting the southern sun that manages to make its way along the horizon, just above the ground that is built up against the Stillman Dining Hall’s south-facing wall. None know who it is that initially crafted the glass, nor those who pieced it together again after its displacement and destruction in the post-revolutionary period of northern Europe in the early 19^th-century. There is something seemingly post-modern in this reception of fragmented, shattered pieces of a former age, yet in the reception a transformation that becomes redemptive. And each of us who share in their battered faith can find lessons in these images that now remain from those earlier generations of craftsmen.

The Roundels “In Situ”

We may return to Dom Hilary Martin, traces of whose lingering influence on us we outlined last week, as well as Dom Peter Sidler with whom he often collaborated, to consider how these pieces found their way to their present location. The Stillman Dining Hall was part of the extensive Belluschi construction project that gave us the monastery and church, the Cortazzo Administration Building, the former science building recently christened the Kennedy Classroom Building – indeed, the entire “upper campus” that forms the center of life for the community here. The Stillman lobby serves as the entry into our collective “calefactory,” home to three meals a day, daily snacks throughout the year, and numerous special events. It is in many ways the signature space of our Benedictine hospitality.

Fr. Damian Kearney’s Explanatory Notes (Roundels Reflected)

In a previous article in The Current, we explored some of the history of the stained glass in the slype, with its four sixteenth century panels originating in the Cologne area. The panels were part of a collection that was given in the 1950’s to then Portsmouth Priory by John William Mackay, in memory of his father Clarence Hungerford Mackay. The works had been located since the 1920’s in his estate on Long Island, called Harbor Hill, demolished in the late 1940’s. Included in that bequest was a collection of the ten stained glass roundels. When donated, the edifices that were to house them had not yet even been constructed. Pietro Belluschi, in dialogue with Doms Hilary and Peter and the monastic community, would later put together the concept for the monastic complex. Hilary and Peter were deeply involved in assembling the collection of art and discerning how that art might best occupy the structures to be built, and they determined the dining hall entry would be well-suited to display these works.

Roundels, above shelving added in dining hall renovations
 

The roundels are composed of fragments of glass from varied venues and centuries, in their present configuration dating from the 19^th-century. The destruction of churches during the French Revolution and from subsequent policies targeting the Church led to the loss of much treasured artwork, as well as to the displacement of such pieces as stained glass to other locations. The roundels represent another effort in artistic triage, a gathering of fragments and a re-assemblage in a new form. Our documentation ascribes the roundels to an unknown artist of the “Paris Atelier.” The oldest fragments come to us from unknown artists and venues of the 13^th century, the century of Thomas Aquinas, of Dominic and Francis, of the king, Saint Louis IX of France. The most recent work done on the glass was in dining hall renovations occurring about ten years ago, with the addition of a protective exterior layer. The roundels, together with the panels of the slype, had been displayed at Tufts and Harvard in 1970, with some repair work done at that time. They had previously been on display in the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard in the 1950’s until they could be installed in the newly constructed buildings of the monastery and school at Portsmouth.

Abraham and Isaac at Mount Moriah
 

The monastery’s preserved notes tell us that the oldest stained glass on campus are the fragments incorporated the roundels: “a head of Christ believed to be from Bourges Cathedral, another head of Christ in the Sainte Chapelle style, and a few fragments of glass in the draperies.” The circular pastiches recreate from these fragments a collection of images representing the life of Christ and the saints. We see Saint George slaying the dragon, incorporating symbols associated with his life and legends. Another image captures the ascent of Mount Moriah before the sacrifice of Isaac. We find other Biblical scenes that are “quite colorful in the deep reds and blues associated with medieval glass.” (Kearney notes)

Saint George Slays the Dragon
 

It is thus appropriate, as we look at artists in service to our community, to remember this centuries old heritage, preserved and passed on to us, that remains visible in the heart of our community life.

Stillman Roundels, left side

NOTE:

Links with extensive and fascinating text, images, and video on the Harbor Hill Estate:

Roslynlandmarks | A Webinar