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Arts

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, on securing this debate and on the role that he has personally played in supporting the arts in our country. I wish to speak particularly about the role of the Churches in the artistic life of our land. My first and rather general point is to acknowledge that sometimes that has been a bit ambiguous. One thinks of the destruction of statues and stained glass as well as of abbeys and monasteries after the Reformation—an attitude which later was portrayed in more peaceful terms by Trollope in the person of Mr Slope. We need to acknowledge that side of it as well. Sometimes there have also been attempts to curtail artistic freedom in the name of religion. That is based on an instinct that sacred art, or that which purports to depict the sacred, is just that, sacred, and therefore has to operate within appropriate constraints. That is true but it is not a truth which needs to be pursued by violence or the threat of violence. The prohibition of images of God in the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions did not, however, preclude a rich artistic tradition which each of those faiths has, indeed, sponsored, but the aim has always been primarily the glory of God rather than the glory of the artist him or herself. Those who paint icons in the eastern orthodox Churches to this day have to have their hands blessed first. Perhaps in the western artistic tradition we could have paid more attention to that attitude of humility. Had we done so, we might have avoided the separation of art into a rather esoteric specialist area in the life of society—the high arts, to which the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, referred—which has tended to be a feature of our own culture. A second and related general point is that the very separation of the arts from the sciences is problematic. Fifty years ago C P Snow warned of the emergence of two cultures in our society—the arts and the sciences. We now know that such a separation is unhelpful and, indeed, untruthful in a variety of ways, but we are still struggling to achieve a greater sense of the unity of human knowledge and endeavour. We are also left with the modern paradox of our lives being ever more dominated by science, with the scientific community itself perceived to be too much in a cultural cul-de-sac rather than being part of that venture of human imagination of which Einstein spoke, as the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, commented. What of the particular role of the Churches? Let me refer briefly to three areas. First, there is the stewardship of our church buildings, which is an obvious area. They, too, are works of the imagination. Around half of the grade 1 listed buildings in this country are churches. The Church of England alone has the staggering number of 4,200 grade 1 listed buildings, out of a total of just over 16,000 parish churches, and their maintenance is a huge challenge and responsibility. Many congregations and parishes manage it cheerfully, but for an increasing number the burden is becoming too great. For all its ““high establishment”” in constitutional terms, state aid in Britain for the maintenance of historic churches has lagged far behind that in most continental countries. In Scandinavia and Germany, the church tax system has fully provided for the maintenance and repair of churches. In that very secular country, France, the state bears the full cost of repair for all church buildings built before the 20th century. The emphasis on local responsibility for church maintenance has had a good side in stimulating a sense of local pride and ownership of the buildings that constitute such a major part of our built artistic heritage. They are places which the non-churchgoing poet Philip Larkin once described as,"““serious places on serious earth””." In the future, greater government involvement in their maintenance will surely be required. This very day, English Heritage is launching a campaign of awareness called Inspired!—I believe the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, is part of that initiative—to secure the future of historic places of worship. The valiant efforts of many parish communities need greater supplementation, as English Heritage so clearly argues in its new initiative. Significantly, the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, has contributed a powerful new poem to the launch of the campaign. It extends to all historic places of worship; there are 30 listed synagogues in this country. In addition to the work of repair and maintenance, new works of art are still regularly commissioned for our churches, and that, too, is vital to their future and to their contribution to society at large and economic life. Secondly, I pay tribute to the contribution that church music makes to our artistic life. Again, amid a decline in some respects, there is good news. There are still many fine church choirs, supported by the Royal School of Church Music. Other styles of music have also secured a place in church life, mirroring the music of popular culture and even that of some musicals in the West End, with all the strengths and weaknesses that result from that. Cathedrals deserve a special mention, as they are centres of excellence today to a greater degree than ever before. In my cathedral, we have three choirs of the highest standard based on boys, girls and adults respectively, with a specialist, semi-professional group of songmen supporting the boys and girls as required. We employ three excellent organists to train and lead those choirs, which take part in a wide range of services and other events. For the boys and girls concerned, their experience gives them a musical and artistic foundation for life. Finally, there is also the public drama that the Churches contribute to national life, which should not be underestimated. I am talking about great occasions of state and so forth. At the end of the day, art must be for the people and at the heart of national life if it is to fulfil its true purpose in society.