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The Stations of the Cross

In Westminster Cathedral

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2025

Extract

A good deal of misunderstanding appears to exist upon the subject of the Stations of the Cross in Westminster Cathedral, and there is danger that works which should be regarded simply as a necessary part of the furniture of the Cathedral Church—a via dolorosa by which the devout person retraces in spirit the holy procession to Calvary—should become not a means to devotion so much as an occasion for idle sightseeing. It would be deplorable if it became the custom in the Cathedral to “make” the Stations in a spirit similar to that in which a person from the country goes round Westminster Abbey ; and that such a possibility may be obviated I offer the following suggestions.

First, then, let us dispose of the vexed question of style. The Westminster Stations are not carved in imitation of a bygone style—Byzantine or any other. Let the would-be worshipper put any such idea resolutely away from him. A visitor in the house of a friend, being invited to sit down, does not approach the proffered chair in the state of mind of a connoisseur at a sale. Neither should a worshipper entering a church think it “up to him” to feel critical.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1920 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

* Most modern artists are not in fact artists at all, being merely purveyors of the lovable—an admirable service but not that of the artist.

* From this point of view the Madonna of Sassaferrato (Nat. Gallery) is pure journalism compared with the St. Catherine of Alexandria of Raphael (Nat. Gallery) and that again is journalism compared with the Madonna and Child of Cimabue (Nat. Gallery).