Ely Cathedral, Bishop Alcock's Chapel: Painted altar panels

In 2003 the Dean and Chapter decided to institute westward-facing celebration of the Eucharist in the late fifteenth-century chantry chapel of Bishop John Alcock. As the altar was to be moved forwards, they decided to replace the mid-twentieth-century needlework, which had served as its reredos, with a new work of art.

I was commissioned to design and paint a series of panels to provide a setting for the Eucharist and a stimulus for private prayer. This suggested a complete treatment of the altar wall involving a combination of decoration with the Instruments of the Passion, but avoiding the conventional central devotional focus (which the figure of the celebrant would conceal during services). A selection from the Instruments was chosen in discussion with the Chapter and the Fabric Advisory Committee. The patterns are contemporary in effect but rooted in medieval principles of design, responding both to the architecture of the chapel and to the Victorian east window and floor.

The Instruments are depicted illusionistically as though they were relics pinned to the fields of pattern. Local models were chosen from Ely’s often violent history. The fourteenth-century sword ( now in the Fitzwilliam Museum) was found in the river and the Anglo-Saxon spear was excavated locally. The manacles come from the bishop’s prison and the nails from the cathedral roof. The hammer is from the artist’s tool box and the branches of a local tree make the scourge.

Such objects imply the continuing relevance of Christ’s Passion as something capable of repetition throughout history and in our own time. Some of them can be understood in a number of ways. For example, the cockerels (painted from a ceramic by Robert James) refer to the cockerel that features in Bishop Alcock’s rebus, but also signify the denial of Peter. They and the sword, with which he angrily cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, show Peter’s inadequacy during Christ’s Passion. But the manacles also refer to Peter’s chains, broken in Acts, and denote the saint’s subsequent redemption through a life of courageous and faithful ministry, providing a model for fallible Christians. The sword also refers to Simeon’s prophecy to Mary, ‘Yea, and a sword shall pierce through thine own soul’.

The festive character of the patterns transforms the Instruments from signs of humiliation and failure into the Arma Christi, the battle honours of Christ’s victory over evil.

Executed in oil on marine ply and framed in oak, the panels were installed on December 13th 2004. The Master and Fellows of Jesus College, (founded by Bishop Alcock in 1497) contributed to the costs.