DURAND'S MYSTIC MARRIAGE

 

On July 29 1981 six hundred thousand people filled the streets of London to catch a glimpse of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer on their wedding day. The couple were married at St Paul's Cathedral before an invited congregation of more than three thousand and an estimated global TV audience of eight hundred million - making it the most popular programme ever broadcast.

André Durand was among that global audience watching the Royal wedding on a television set up on Nazare beach, Portugal, so that the fishermen could catch glimpses of the fairy-tale wedding as they launched their boats. Durand, making much of the sumptuous train of the princess’s Emmanuel ivory taffeta and antique lace gown that flowed behind her, linked the royal couple and the fishermen in what was to be his first allegorical picture inspired by the Princess of Wales, MYSTIC MARRIAGE.

 

THE MYSTIC MARRIAGE OF SAINT CATHERINE

The first account of Saint Catherine of Alexandria’s mystic marriage is in a story known to exist in 1337 which recounts that it was a statue of the Virgin and Child given to Saint Catherine by her hermit mentor, that the child Christ turned towards the young virgin to place a ring on her finger. There was three hundred years between the death of Christ and when Saint Catherine lived, but the Christ child is usually portrayed in art to further emphasise that it is a spiritual marriage and not a carnal one. Further, the iconology draws on the medieval conception of the bride of Christ representing the soul, i.e. the mystic marriage represents the marriage of the soul to Christ.

 

DURAND'S VOTIVE OFFERING

THEN THE SAINTS CAME MARCHING IN

Aids sufferers this year had blessings conferred upon them by Royalty and the Church. And in the absence of any miracle cure we started to come to terms with the reality of the virus.

This was the year that Aids stopped being a shocking party conversation subject and became a part of our lives. Through the government’s £20 million campaign and an onslaught of coverage in the media, initial hysteria gave way to some understanding. 'I call on all Christians,' said Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 'to pray for Aids sufferers, and those seeking a remedy for the illness.'

In April the Princess of Wales visited first Aids ward, at the Middlesex Hospital in London. She spoke to all nine patients and shook them by the hand. The incident helped to inspire this 6ft by 12ft oil painting VOTIVE OFFERING, by the Canadian artist André Durand. It invokes Good through the intercession of the Saints St George, St Sebastian and St Catherine of Genoa. The princess is depicted touching Sunnye Sherman, a 25-year-old American legal secretary with AIDS whom the artist knew and who has since died.

Also in the picture is George Cant with the nurse far left [Rose Eliot, vegetarian cook], who was anointed at a ceremony for the blessing the picture at St James's Church, Piccadilly, on November 1, All Saints' Day. By the end of the year official figures for those who had contracted the AIDS virus in the UK had risen to 1170. Of these 665, with an average age of 38, have died.

The prediction is that 4000 will have died by the end of the decade. The cost of medical care in that time may reach £80 million, as other hospitals, follow Middlesex's example and set up new treatment and research centres.

Posters (£5), postcards (30p) and greetings cards (60p) of the central panel of VOTIVE OFFERING are available from Crusaid, 83 Clerkenwell Road, London ECIR 5AR.

 

 

 

DURAND'S BONZER SHEILA

 

BOLD AUSSIES DRESS TO THRILL THE ROYALS
Daily Mail, February 1 1988

First, a blushing Princess Diana, lined up with six strapping lifeguards dressed in tiny trunks admitted, ‘you’ve made my day.’ ... Her sophisticated look was a world away from the shy princess who was put on the spot by the six bronzed and beefy beach-boys earlier in the day. She didn’t know which way to look as they lined up for a photograph of her. Princess Diana overcame her shyness and admitted to the winning team, ‘I enjoyed being photographed with you. I have been waiting to do this all day.’ The boys were equally enthusiastic. Skipper James Newman, 25, declared later, ‘She’s a lovely Sheila.’
Diana admired their muscles and asked, ‘how do you keep so fit?’ Then the 5’10” princess looked round and added with a smile, ‘I am taller than the lot of you.’

 

 

 

DURAND'S DIANA, A POSTHUMOUS PORTRAIT

'It was seven days when we let down our guard, together and under blue skies. It didn't change the world, but nor was it meaningless. We can look back on it now with nostalgia or indifference, but one thing is clear: we have nothing to be ashamed of.'

Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, August 13, 2007

 

 

 

God our Father, we remember before you Diana, Princess of Wales, and offer you our gratitude for all the memories of her that we treasure still.
Her vulnerability and her willingness to reach out to the excluded and forgotten touched us all; her generosity gave hope and joy to many.
May she rest in peace where sorrow and pain are banished, and may the everlasting light of your merciful love shine upon her; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

 

Father eternal, unfailing source of peace to all who seek you, we entrust to your love and protection all for whom this anniversary of the tragic and untimely death of Diana, Princess of Wales reawakens the pains of grief and loss.

Comfort all who mourn, that casting all their cares upon you, they may be filled with your gifts of new life, of courage and of hope; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

 

 

DURAND'S FORTUNA

 

The media is the surrogate patron of Fortuna. An earlier similar composition by Durand, ECLIPSE, was unveiled in 1996 and was reproduced worldwide, even on the front page of the Times of India. Some of Durand's doubts about the accessibility of mythological subject matter must have been answered by the broadsheets and red tops, which reported that it was not just any sea nymph or princess of the waves they had identified in ECLIPSE. No. Even without her cornucopia and rudder - obscure symbols to be sure, but customary to this deity - they had recognised the heraldic apparition dancing on a crystal ball in mid-ocean with or without her entourage of tritons, dolphins and hippocamps as Fortuna herself:

'She has played the blushing bride, the dutiful wife and the patron saint of a thousand good causes. Yesterday the cartoon life of Diana Princess of Wales took a classical turn when a new portrait cast her in an altogether new role: the Roman Goddess Fortuna.'

The Guardian, 2 October 1996.

 

By giving a Roman goddess the profile of an English princess, Durand's FORTUNA becomes a 'people's picture', despite its seemingly elitist classical allusions. PEGASUS for the time being remains relatively unknown.

If the media were to identify Prince William as the blond, dishevelled rider of the winged steed (there is some resemblance) no doubt PEGASUS would achieve the same worldwide attention. Then both these pictures and the mythological subjects they depict could merge high and popular culture, striking a nice balance in the same way that they strike a nice balance between the symbolic and the real. High and popular culture could meld.

Ultimately, Durand reminds us that some art is conceivable only by a few, but could be accessible to anyone. As George Walden observes '...there is such a thing as high art, and that some things will always remain for the privileged few - privileged not in the tired old class-conscious meaning of the word, but in the sense that by hard work and/or natural ability they are able to appreciate, e.g. highly refined musical forms or classical literature that is not given for everyone to understand even if we are given every opportunity to do so' (Evening Standard, 13 July 2000). With Fortuna, Durand gives everyone this opportunity.

Armando Bayraktari Kingston upon Thames August 2000

 

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