THE
P RTAL
May 2013
Page 7
James Thornhill Anglican
Luminary
by Fr Keith Robinson
James Thornhill was born in 1675 at Melcombe Regis in Dorset into a “family of fortune
dissipated by the extravagance of his own father”. At an early age he was sent to a relative in London who,
recognising some artistic ability, placed him to be trained with the King’s Sergeant-Painter (also a distant
relative). In fact young James soon proved to be so gifted an artist that he was encouraged to explore the
exciting innovations taking place in southern Europe; in particular the way in which both private and public
buildings were being decorated with schemes of illusionistic painting. This was a revolutionary development
in European art, which amazes and impresses us even today.
the Painted Hall at
Greenwich
The
most
wealthy
and
fashionable among the British
elite brought the Neapolitan
Verrio to decorate their mansions
in this new style. He was soon
followed by the Frenchman Louis
Laguerre who worked in the same
flamboyant manner.
references to his wealthy patrons,
who frequently appeared within
them. This was the case, of course,
throughout Europe at the time.
Yet Thornhill has a small but
significant catalogue of religious
work to his credit. Apart from St
Paul’s, he decorated the Earl of
Oxford’s new chapel at Wimpole
Hall in Cambridgeshire with an
Adoration of the Magi and life-
size Doctors of the Church.
On his return to England,
James, already inspired by what
He contributed a Last Supper
he had seen in Italy, was greatly
reredos to his parish church in
influenced by these two men,
Weymouth. The Tate Gallery
for whom there was almost too
possesses two different sketches
much work available. Thornhill
soon rivalled Laguerre, and Queen Anne employed for reredoses of the Adoration of the Magi, and the
him to decorate several of the royal palaces. Much has V&A possesses two different sketches for circular
been lost, but one of his greatest surviving schemes is ceiling paintings of the Ascension of Christ.
the Painted Hall at Greenwich. He worked on this for
Very surprisingly, Thornhill was also commissioned
almost twenty years.
to design the great west window of Westminster Abbey
the dome of the new St Paul’s
with the Patriarchs and fourteen prophets, and the
But Thornhill is probably best known today for one north rose window of the Abbey with sixteen apostles
of his religious works, the decoration of the interior of and evangelists (unfortunately disfigured in the 19 th
the dome of the new St Paul’s Cathedral. This is still the century). Their brilliant colours can be appreciated
largest single decorative scheme anywhere in Britain. today.
The commission stipulated that all eight scenes of
the Story of St Paul must come from the Acts of the
Apostles, and that they must be in monochrome,
simulating sculpture. We should remember that
there were no precedents for decorating a Protestant
cathedral. Thornhill took great trouble to study the
texts, and imaginatively, but faithfully interpret his
sources.
a small but significant
catalogue of religious work
subject-matter is restrained
No Englishman had ever done anything quite like it.
Indeed, he was the first English artist to be knighted
(in 1720). And even if the subject-matter is restrained
and carefully considered, we surely see a new attitude
to figurative art within the Church of England,
interpreted with some of the vigour and imagination
of counter-reformation Europe.
Thornhill died at his home in Dorset on the 13
May 1734, survived by his wife Judith, and his son
Most of his commissions were of a frankly secular and daughter, who had married the artist William
character, generally mythical subjects with allegorical Hogarth.