The Elements of the Holy Communion
Jacques Iselin (1933- )

Oil

1963

Methodist Collection of Modern Christian Art, No.19

Commentary by Francis Hoyland

A tall painting of this size and format and with this degree of abstraction immediately reminds me of cubism particularly as practised by Braque, Picasso and Juan Gris.

However instead of a newspaper, guitar and a bottle here we have the Eucharistic Elements, and instead of greys and blacks we have glowing yellows, oranges and reds.

Nevertheless, the imposition of large, abstract, or perhaps abstracted, shapes upon one another and their juxtaposition with recognisable forms: the cloth, the chalice, the ears of the corn, the loaf of bread and the fish is straight forward cubism, as is the multi-positioned treatment of the chalice itself.

The phase of cubism represented by this painting insists that the canvas is flat and that its flatness must be respected all the time. It was a reaction against analytic cubism which manipulated and experimented with space and form to such an extent that the integration of the picture surface was threatened.

The multiple view-points, or station points, of the painter, and so of the spectator, also threatened to wreak havoc with pictorial stability.

The response of Picasso and Braque to this threat was robust and drastically painterly. Stability is reaffirmed by their magisterial command of their material as well as by the process of making flat screens recede back from the picture's surface, one behind another.

In Braque's hands this eventually became a language which was capable of producing the vast lyrical achievement of his late works - particularly of his 'studio' series.

Cubism insists that a picture is a picture and that a painted form is just that and certainly not the object depicted, or any kind of direct imitation of it.

Iselin 's painting is far more light and airy and delicate than the paintings it is derived from. The secret centre of its existence seems to me to be the delicate line that runs throughout the picture.

This line is tender and thin - think for a moment how thick the lines often are in a similar Picasso - and it seems to be hidden beneath the juncture of the large, abstracted shapes as well as being visible around the loaf, the fish and the chalice.

The rhythm or movement of the forms also distinguishes this picture from the work of other cubists. It is light-footed and elegant rather than dogmatically affirmative. But, above all, it is the kind of light we experience while looking at it that sets this painting apart.

The pure white of the chalice almost literally glows and perhaps many Catholics are familiar with a kind of radiance that seems to be shed by the Blessed Sacrament.

"And was it just the light of day that shone about us on our way" said Cleopas to the other disciple as they discussed their Journey to Emmaus with each other in later years.