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Memorizing the Great War: Stanley Spencer at Burghclere
Author(s) -
Malvern Sue
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8365.00205
Subject(s) - chapel , iconography , painting , spanish civil war , narrative , memoir , meaning (existential) , art , art history , history , literature , philosophy , archaeology , epistemology
The Chapel of All Saints, Burghclere, is decorated with a narrative series of war paintings (eight panels each with a matching predella, two panoramas and an end‐wall Resurrection scene), and was completed by the British artist Stanley Spencer between 1926 and 1932. This article analyses the Chapel within two intersecting frames of reference — as part of a tradition for war memoirs by veterans and as an example of war memorial iconography in Britain in the inter‐war years. Whereas the meaning of the Chapel is usually read as one which resolves the Great War into a matter of resurrection and redemption, I argue that the series is a paradoxical and indeterminate narrative intended for diverse audiences.