27th November 2025 - John Piper

There is something about John Piper  artist's artwork that I find  alluring.  I don't know why, I hate red and colours used violently. also I am no fan of what I can only describe as sloppy use of the paintbrush, or its expansive use across the canvas.  But I am not the painter and heaven forbid I should become the critic of someone else's work.  In fact in the video, down below, you can see someone comparing him to Turner and when I look at his dramatic Welsh landscapes I can see why.

The Baptistry window - Coventry Cathedral

What draws me to him is the window of Coventry Cathedral.  The newly built cathedral after it's destruction during WW2 is modern, totally so.  I have never visited it but it must have been a terrible sight in its bombed wreckage.  Piper captures the jagged edges of broken stone and wood in his sketches.  It is a testament to war.  The great window after its reconstruction though is a modern masterpiece, the great shining sun in the centre? or the moment the bomb landed and exploded the building into a million bits?

What I love about the video, is apart from the glimpses of times past, is the darling old men reminiscing furiously away about how Piper worked.  You learn how the glass was made and Piper's close friend John Betjeman is there as well.  They started the 'Shell' series together, I remember buying Paul one of their gazettes, it must have been about Wiltshire.

Frances Spalding book is a doorstopper of a book, but has almost all  his work covered, a very long read.  You will see that Myfanwy his wife is mentioned, clever men always need hand maidens;)  But Spalding is also part of the video she fills in the detail.  

Seeing John Betjeman in the film reminded me that Betjeman had lived with his daughter outside Calne in the village of Blackland.  Betjeman is a favourite of mine his lovely class poems paint an irresistible picture of old England.  It was a 'lost' England of course.  The wars saw to that. 

But I do get a bit grumpy when we are still seen like that.  The nostalgia that now pervades the flag waving Englanders is a foolishness, let the youngsters have their say.

Extra bonus:  Tate's collection of the vast numbers of photographs that Piper took from all over the country.  Neatly put under counties seen, they are just as bad or good as so many of ours are.  He could have definitely done with a digital camera but then those old photos are a reminder of the past.