NATIONAL MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES ON MERSEYSIDE
WALKER ART GALLERY

THE ALTARPIECE OF ST CLARE'S CHURCH, ARUNDEL AVENUE, LIVERPOOL.

Description by Joseph Sharples

Please note the links to various illustrations or additional description of detail have been added by the author of this web site.

This altarpiece, like St Clare's church itself is an outstanding product of two related episodes in 19th century architecture and design : The Gothic Revival and the Arts and Crafts movement. Exponents of the Gothic Revival imitated and adapted medieval styles to modern uses. Followers of the Arts and Crafts movement used medieval sources too, but they also drew inspiration from the art of the Renaissance and later periods, their aim being to recapture the high standards of design and craftsmanship which they believed had been undermined by the Industrial Revolution. Both the Gothic Revival and the Arts and Crafts movement taught that every aspect of the building - furniture, metalwork, sculpture and painted decoration as well as architecture - should combine to make one work of art. The altarpiece would therefore have been conceived as an essential part of the interior of the church by the architect of St Clare's, Leonard Stokes (1858-1925), and indeed it is shown (though in somewhat different form) in the design for the building which he exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1889.

The altarpiece was the joint work of  two artists, George Frampton (1860-1928) and Robert Anning Bell (1863-1933) who shared a studio at this time. Bell, who shortly afterwards came to teach in Liverpool at the University's School of Architecture and Applied Arts (known as the Art Sheds), was chiefly a painter. Frampton became best known as a sculptor and went on to supply several commemorative statues for the centre of  Liverpool. The collaboration of a painter and a sculptor on a work which combined both arts was very much in tune with the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement. Both Bell and Frampton were members of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society and showed the altarpiece at the Society's 1890 exhibition.

With its rich colours, gilding and carving the altarpiece contrasts with the relatively plain interior of the church and is designed to focus attention on the altar and sanctuary. Its shape - several separate paintings arranged to form a wide central section with narrower folding wings - is modelled on 15th century examples, a composite altarpiece of this type being called a polyptych. Some of the individual figures are closely based on medieval and Renaissance sources, particularly the central panel which is adapted from a painting of the Holy Trinity by the 15th century Italian artist Pesellino(c.1422-1457), now in the National Gallery London. The panel showing the Virgin Mary and the infant Christ, with a violin-playing angel seated on the steps of their throne, recalls several 15th and 16th century Venetian paintings of similar subjects.The panels representing angel musicians at the outer edges show the influence of 15th century Italian sculptors such as Donatello (c-1385/6-1466), who pioneered this type of very shallow relief sculpture.

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Appropriately for its position directly over the altar and tabernacle, the main theme of the altarpiece is the Holy Eucharist. The latin inscription near the top "Ecce panis Angelorum..." is from the euchastic hymn written in the mid 13th century and traditionally ascribed to St Thomas Aquinas. It may be translated as follows: "Behold the bread of angels, made food for pilgrims: truly the bread of sons, not sent for dogs". Until the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council these words formed part of the Mass on the feast of Corpus Christi. The eucharistic theme is taken up by the central panel, a representation of the Holy Trinity in which the crucified Christ is most prominent. In the small panel above, two kneeling angels adore the chalice and Host, while in the panel below another pair of angels incense the sacred monogram 'ihc' (an abbreviation of the name 'Jesus' in Greek) and the nails and crown of thorns associated with the crucifixion. The theme also extends to the panels on either side of the central one. On the right, the Virgin Mary holds the infant Christ who raises his hand to bless, while on the left St. Clare holds up a monstrance in a gesture of benediction: the infant Christ and the monstrance containing the Host are evidently meant to echo one another, affirming the doctrine that the consecrated Host is the body of Christ.

The saints represented in the side panels are identified by Latin inscriptions below each figure, and also by traditional symbols. St. William, Bishop of York, wears a bishop's mitre and carries a crozier; St.James carries a staff bearing a cockle shell, the badge worn by medieval pilgrims to his shrine at Compostella in northern Spain; St.Francis wears the Franciscan habit and there is a bird at his feet, recalling his sermon to the birds; and above the shoulder of St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, is a heart pierced by arrows of God's love. At least three of these saints were included because they were the name saints of the joint founders of St Clare's, the brothers William James and Francis Ecksley Reynolds . Commemorating the donors of a work of religious art in this way was quite usual in the medieval and Renaissance periods.

Elaborate altarpieces of this kind were made for other Victorian and Edwardian churches. Robert Anning Bell himself worked on a comparable example for St Peter's at Lowestoft in Suffolk in 1904, and the architect of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral, Giles Gilbert Scott, made such altarpieces the focus of several of his designs for Catholic churches, a good example being Our Lady Star of the Sea at Ramsey on the Isle of Man. The altarpiece at St Clare's can therefore be seen as belonging to a broader trend in church furnishing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of course this does not lessen its individual importance: It is not only a beautiful work of art in itself, it is also a crucial element in the overall design of the interior of this exceptionally important Liverpool church.

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Joseph Sharples is the author of The Pevsner City Guide to Liverpool.