Although Sir Ninian Comper, during a seventy one year career (1889-1960), occasionally expounded in print on his detailed theories of beauty in relation to his work and his search for the numinous therein, not many others have presented commentary concerning these issues. This paper seeks to address this fact by exploring his divine, and to him, natural inspiration and the elements in his work which best express that inspiration. It will also point to the way in which Comper is able to help us to find our spiritual way today by trusting in God-given beauty allowing a church to “Pray of , Itself", it being a prayer.
The Search for the Light.
In most major Comper works there are three ingredients, the use of which make him stand out from other architect/designers: an unerring eye for space and liturgical shape; a masterly ability to decorate, including the mixing of a variety of styles and ecclesiologist's skill in producing painted (not stained) glass, which he made, to draw the eye to the image depicted in vibrant and warm colours by leaving the surrounding glass clear. It is this light which assists the viewer to see the most important part of the church-the altar. Comper had previously expounded his maxim for the altar at the presentation of his first paper of 1893 given at St Paul's Cathedral on 29th November:
"We want neither sideboard, nor mantelpiece, nor a box
bed, but the table and altar of sacrifice which should stand as much as possible in the open".
It is clear that his work did, and still does, just that. A superb example of lambency can be found in St Philip's Cosham, with its whitewashed walls and clear glass save part of the (still unfinished) East window. Here Comper has created a masterful design with five major components (font, west gallery, organ case, altar with ciborium
housing the Blessed Sacrament and the Lady Chapel) all radiant with natural light in abundance from the aforementioned windows. Alternatively in the convent chapel of the mother house of All Saints, London Colney, clear glass is used, but beyond the fantastic ciborium is a glorious Jesse Tree East window.
This combination of clear glass, gilded ciborium and colourful east light makes for a dazzling display which evokes awe in the viewer. Finally, John Betjemen's most frequently mentioned of Comper's churches, St Cyprians, Clarence Gate, has a rich screen stretching across the entire width of the Church. It has gleaming chapels, a wonderful high altar with decorated buckram frontal and dossal and a refulgent tester, all of which hardly need further light to achieve their purpose, and yet Comper installs clear glass in the nave windows to highlight his handiwork with that of God's own. A triumph.
The ultimate importance of and search for beauty.
In a paper presented in 1932, Comper spoke of the challenge of blending the earlier individual work of others into his own unique style. He summed up the problem by quoting Socrates in Plato's Banquet:
“A man should, from his youth seek forms which are beautiful. At first he should love but one of them; then recognise the beauty, which resides in one as the sister of that which dwells in the other. And if it is right to seek for beauty generally, a man must have little sense who does not look upon the beauty of all bodies as one and the same thing. At first, that is, he seeks in youth for unity in Beauty by exclusion and ends by finding it in inclusion".
Comper also left thoughts, even later in his career, on a definition of beauty by suggesting that God has given us a key to the definition of beauty in his creation, a revelation and image of himself. The Lord bids us to consider the lilies of the field, which he has created for no apparent purpose but their beauty. A measure of this is in the way that some find their faith encapsulated in a flower. It is possible to find a definition of beauty in God's work, i.e. in nature. Man's work can be beautiful only in so far as it conforms to this ethos. A more modern comment along these lines can be found in Alice Walker's The Colour Purple where Shug Avery talks of the nature of God as seen in the flowers which are the title of the book:
"God loves everything you love---and a mess of stuff you don't. But
more than anything else, God loves admiration".
Comper maintained that "The whole history of the altar through all its
periods reveals the high place given to beauty in the Christian Church. All the arts have been enlisted by her to do honour to he lord in the Eucharist". Even "the dance, so conspicuous in the Old Testament, and in Beato Angelico's pictures, is still to be found in Spain; and notably at Seville, on the feasts of the Corpus Christi and La Purissima and at the Carnival, when the Seises, or six boy-canons, whose school was founded in the Thirteenth century, dressed as pages of the time of Philip the Third, dance a minuet with castanets while the Canons are prostrate before the altar."
