Beyond Uneasy Tolerance
The saga of Friends and theArts in 75 quotations
(most of them not in your Faith and Practice)
arranged chronologically, 1650-1995
Now available: Expanded version in pamphlet form : 100 quotations
with additions from Rufus Jones, John Macmurray, Thomas Kelly, John Punshon and others
- Part I: 1650-1950
- Part II: 1950-1995
NOTES:
(1) Corporate writings (Yearly Meeting epistles, etc) are in
boldface.
(2) Clicking on a date will take you to a page with fuller information about the
source of the quote.
(3) In the source notes, Nicholson = Frederick J. Nicholson,
Quakers and the arts; a survey of attitudes of British Friends to the creative arts
from the seventeenth to the twentieth century (London: Friends Home Service
Committee, 1968); Greenwood = Ormerod Greenwood, Signs of life;
art and religious experience, Swarthmore Lecture 1978 (London: Friends Home
Service Committee, 1978).
1954a ...an artist (even a tenth-rate one) in the Society of Friends tends to have a split personality. The emphasis on "works" is such that the artist feels torn between spending his time and thought on activities in and for the Meeting, and on the other hand separating himself from such activities and expressing his faith in the particular creative way natural to him. When such work—regarded usually as play—has no place in the corporate life of the Meeting, and very little in the personal life of most Friends, he has to seek patronage and informed criticism outside the Society.
—Ann Gillie, 1954
1954b The real artist knows beauty as the form of truth. One does not exist without the other in the perfection to which he is dedicated. The kind of receptivity needed for an art is akin to the receptivity needed in Meeting for Worship, as the inspiration of the artist is akin to the inspiration of ministry. It is when we limit what von Hügel called "material for grace to work in" that we commit that offense against the spirit which impoverishes us. The brain has been regarded as respectable material but not the senses. The spirit needs both, and both need the spirit and each other.
—Agnes Yendell, 1954
1954c It seems to me that neither religion nor art can be had without a price. If the indifference of his fellow-Quakers is the price the Quaker artist must pay for both, should he not find compensation in the fact that his faithfulness in his art can speak of his religion to non-Friends? I myself came into the Society through the example of a Quaker fellow-actor working with imperturbable good-humor, reliability and patience under very trying conditions.
—Beatrice Saxon Snell, 1954
1954d The vigorous correspondence on Friends and the Arts is a sign of health just as the rarity of such discussions in the past was a sign of disease. But the letters should not make comfortable reading. We ought to be wincing constantly, as the writers prick home to one tender nerve after another through the thick skin of indifference which we have allowed to grow over them. If it is true that we have closed our eyes to one of God's greatest glories, and to those through whom it shines, how can we call to those who have seen that light and not ours? How, even, can we ourselves claim to be seeking God in his fulness?
—Editorial, The Friend, 1954
1954e Where [the London YM quote of 1925] might well be amended is in the implied suggestion that some men may be called to abandon art in the interest of some other service to God and man, but never the reverse. It may be that some Friend will be called to abandon his painting in order to identify himself with the people of Africa. But it may be that another is doing right when he resigns from certain important committees in order to devote himself more completely to his art .... The "good" is often the enemy of the "best"; but we must not conclude that the "best" is necessarily to be identified with moral reform, while creative art is merely "the good".
—Horace Alexander, 1954
1955 The same subtle tendency by which a testimony for simplicity narrows into a rigidity of outlook affected for many years the attitude of Quakerism toward the arts.... When I first began to practice as a writer, I still encountered a certain amount of prejudice in that some Friends regarded the first duty of a Quaker writer to be the conveying of a "message", whereas obviously the first duty of a writer, Quaker or otherwise, is to maintain the artistic integrity which is part of the integrity of the human soul.
—Elfrida Vipont Fouldes, 1955
1958 The poet does not need to be told "what to think." Nevertheless, he needs the help of his whole society, of all of his companions, if he is to be a bard rather than a babbler, if he is to escape rebellion, alienation and the growing unintelligibility of the outsider.
—Sam Bradley, 1958
1959a Music and drama, painting and sculpture all help to develop our perception, our enjoyment of life and our search for truth and fulfilment. We must recognise that the inner and outer world must be made one; this involves the creation and enjoyment of beauty, in the things that are nearest to us, in our homes and schools and as far afield as we care to go. Understanding cannot come through a narrow approach to knowledge.... It must not be thought of as necessarily only intellectual. For some it will come through a feeling for imaginative and artistic expression; for some through the inheritance of a traditional standard of craftsmanship.
—London Yearly Meeting, 1959
1959b I have a fear that Quakerism does not naturally turn to poetry. Quakerism is serious, concerned, moral, more concerned with lines than colors—yet Quakerism is poetic. It too often forgets that the poet is one of God's true servants. The Friend sees the Deed as more solid than the Word: he may forget that In the Beginning is the Word.
—E. Merrill Root, 1959
1959c Do Friends have a concern to seek out and nurture the flame of creativity that burns in all men? Do we provide an atmosphere in our Meetings for Worship, and in our schools, which helps us to discover our creative abilities, and discipline them, and exercise them to the fullest power God has given us?
Do we set aside a time every day for the reading of poetry, for listening to music, for looking at painting? By our own work is a vision of the Truth advanced among us, and let to shine before all men so that they may be led to a clearer knowledge of their Father?
—Queries proposed by Barbara Hinchcliffe, 1959
1960a Friends often enough refer to spiritual joy in their ministry, but it is a pity that there is not more outward expression of it ... We ought to be joyful, not in a mysterious inward sense only, but in a way that everyone can recognize. If we have discovered the water of life we ought to be exuberant; whereas in fact we often seem too serious and apprehensive. It may be that we are still suffering from the legacy of the period in the Society's history when it tragically misunderstood the world of art, and could not distinguish gaiety and exuberance from worldly extravagance and indulgence. This deprived us of one of the greatest sources of religious experience and one of its most potent expressions; it has left our imagination dim.
—Kenneth Barnes, 1960
1960b Not all modern art or literature is unifying and exuberant; much of it merely reflects the bewilderment, frustration and fragmentation of our culture. The task of a religious society is to find a way through—to overcome fear and frustration, to bering the fragments of culture together into a new synthesis. How do the arts stand in relation to this? Artistic activity must not be thought of as the deliberate instrument of social change, to be used for that purpose and then set aside; it is an expression of truth, of a sincere relation between the creator and his world, something he must immerse himself in, irrespective of consequences. In this it is not different from what is called pure science and like science it is inevitably an instrument of change, and indispensable. We are nourished by art and poetry, and our constructive task is ill-informed, our vision unclear, and our effectiveness reduced if we deny their part in our lives.
—Kenneth Barnes, 1960
1962 It is idle to speculate what art in its purest, simplest, most spiritual form could have done to spread the influence of Quakerism over a larger sphere.
—Fritz Eichenberg, 1962
1963 The image educates emotion where reason never reaches. The significant image held, recalled, has the power to transform. No one knows why this is so. One can only know that it works. A trust of this practice is one of the most liberating factors for spiritual growth. A great artist holds to an image until depth of feeling knows and understands what mind alone cannot know. How the community needs its image makers!
—Dorothea Blom, 1963
1965a There are many, including a goodly number within the Society of Friends, who find that the insights and experiences of the arts are perhaps the clearest manifestations of spirituality in every day existence. Nevertheless Friends have not identified their attitudes toward the arts with much precision. And this doubtless reflects a fair amount of indecision as to the validity of the attitudes of earlier Friends in these matters, for the arts appear to have been definitely relegated to the pastimes called frivolities, and treated with uneasy tolerance if not the more usual outright condemnation.
—Ben Norris, 1965
1965b Art fails when either brain, or emotion, or technique gets the upper hand. It succeeds when all there are highly developed but are subservient to the shaping spirit. The same principle applies to education and to the art of living.
—Clive Sansom, 1965
1966 The history of the protest of early Friends against excess and ostentatious superfluity is fascinating. It is easy to ridicule their apparent denial of the Arts; yet it must be admitted that, certainly visually, out of it there was born an austere, spare, refreshingly simple beauty ... What is hopeful is that in the Society there is no finality; we can laugh at ourselves and go on learning. As long as we are given to constant revision there is hope for us. Special pleading for the Arts is no longer needed. They are not viewed, as they once were, as a distraction from God. Rather they are seen as a manifestation of God.
—Robin Tanner, 1966
1967 Religion has infinite meanings, covering also those who say they have none. But any artist worthy of the name will follow his vision even when it seems to clash with his creed. I say "seems" deliberately, giving the Almighty greater credit for subtlety, wisdom and complexity than do many of his devotees. Quakerism is a religion I have found closest to my needs. Certainly it influences my life, and therefore my work. I rest in its silences, am taught to look within myself for my own answer. That the answer is sometimes at variance with an aspect of Quakerism is also meaningful. God created thorns on the stems of his roses.
—Jean Stubbs, 1967
1972a Simplicity directs the individual to choose those forms of recreation that rest and build up the body, that refresh and enrich mind and spirit. One should consider the proper expenditure of time, money and strength, the moral and physical welfare of others as well as oneself. Healthful recreation includes games, sports and other physical exercise; gardening and the study and enjoyment of nature; travel; books; the fellowship of friends and family; and the arts and handicrafts which bring creative self-expression and appreciation of beauty. Recreations in which one is a participant rather than merely a spectator are particularly beneficial.
—Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, 1972
1972b The best poetry and the deepest unifying worship demand the loss of selfhood. The Kingdom is only revealed through mental tensions and struggles. The poet must step aside from his shadow to see the created thing afresh and in its own light. He has to have courage to break out of inhibiting conceptions and fears. So too with worship. We must let go of our assertive, selfseeking egotism before we can participate in the large Good.
—Charles Kohler, 1972
1972c Perhaps the artist more clearly than others explores and utilizes the creative possibilities of tension—the necessity and desirability of conflict, which are the warp and woof of his work, his matrix. (Take the painter who depends on dramatic contrast in color values; the sculptor who physically "fights" his hard medium; the poet who has available to him the all-too-leaden images of words with which to transmit the ephemeral; the writer of fiction who truly loves his impaired characters and is forever raw through living their woundedness. All this is conflict in creative tension. This is dialogue. This is the "mismatched" human condition where not every faculty of reason and sense and body performs in a perfectly orchestrated symphony.)
—Candida Palmer, 1972
1972d I care more that the poetry is good poetry than that it is Quaker poetry; the latter question only becomes relevant if the answer to the first is affirmative. For I believe that any question about the moral value of art is worth asking about art whose formal embodiment of its vision helps us to see newly, freshly, more subtly, and doesn't simply confirm us in our prior prejudices.
—Christine Downing, 1972
1978a On the evidence we have, it seems to me that in some ways, in spite of their asceticism, our ancestors were closer to the artistic experience than we are: that is, to the beauty and mystery revealed by theimagination. They built finer meeting-houses....
—Ormerod Greenwood, 1978
1978b I want to share with you that sense of the importance of bad art as well as good. Art as an activity matters, however the product be judged. I am for ephemeral art—for the song of the moment, for all that comforts and entertains, for doggerel birthday wishes, for the skit at the summer school social, and for the touching memorial verses at the back of the local paper, made by the family so that Gran may go with dignity, and the deep feeling find some memorial beyond a bunch of flowers.
—Ormerod Greenwood, 1978
1978c There are few human activities in which perfection is possible; for in most things the human limitations of knowledge, time, energy, skill, and motive impede us; only in the arts do they work for us, so that we can truly say of certain works of music, poetry, painting, sculpture and architecture that we can neither wish nor imagine them otherwise. When we find this degree of perfection and are able to respond to it, they become in sober truth a revelation of the divine in the sense that Jesus was human yet complete.
—Ormerod Greenwood, 1978
1979a It is hard, even today, for many Friends to give up the long-held conviction that creative work in the arts is inferior to social concern. Social concerns deal with people, here and now encased in a plight before our very eyes, while art seems ephemeral. These Friends, in their desire to serve, which I deeply respect, simply have not known that many a hungry soul has found God in an art form. And if you really find God it will take you out into concern for another, but, for the art-hungry, it may not be in the exact same way that the socially concerned person is led. Rather than taking you to a particular social cause dealing with peace or human rights, it may take you in the direction of a new image of man, a new concept of the responsibility we must have today for the human race as a whole.
—Virginia Hyde Davis, 1979
1979b Can't we see that the essence of art is a source of life renewing itself in every act of creation? The same should hold true for a spiritual movement such as the Society of Friends, which needs constant renewal. Without the arts we lose our youth—without our youth we lose our Society.
—Fritz Eichenberg, 1979
1979c Quakerism has attuned me more to humanity and increased my sensitivity. It has strengthened my faith in faith, in myself, and in my art. To what degree this can be perceived in my work is not for me to say, because when I draw I give myself over to the process and the only objectivity toward my work is in its aesthetic control during the execution. Interestingly enough, my style of thinking, writing, and speaking have become similar to my style in art—except that the media are different. Quakerism led me to self-discovery, self-motivation, and inner freedom. In my life it has been like the organ tone in Baroque music, the sustaining deep note which gives the melody above it body and support.
—Peter Fingesten, 1979
1979d Both writing poetry and being a Friend imply an act of trust in the nature of Reality. If there is a dimension of our individual beings which is psychical and spiritual, and which in some mysterious way is open-ended and linked to a reservoir of creative energy beyond ourselves, then perhaps the Quaker "Inward Light" and what some poets have termed "inspiration" are two manifestations of the same Source.
—Winifred Rawlins, 1979
1983a Quakers should enter the world of the arts with humility and courage: courage because it is a risk of our certainties. A religion unwilling to take risks shuts out what is creative. Preoccupation with moral integrity is likely to assume that life can be tidied up: that is its goal. In fact, it is because life is essentially untidy that it can be creative.
—Kenneth Barnes, 1983
1983b What might be called "classical Quakerism" up to the 20th century represented a kind of Franciscan voluntary poverty in the arts, inspired by a vision of a divine community of love and simplicity. In the 20th century comes liberation from these older taboos and an embracing of a vast, expanded complexity and richness of human experience.... How do we preserve that simplicity and at the same time enjoy our new-found riches? How do we break out from what was perhaps a cultural prison without falling into the hands of the world, the flesh, and the devil, the hell on hearth that seems to follow so many liberations—political, economic, sexual, cultural?
—Kenneth Boulding, 1983
1984 I am pleading for art with a conscience, for art as a witness, for using the gifts we have received by a higher dispensation for mankind's benefit. . . ..
An artist with a social conscience walks a thorny path. Sensitive to the illnesses of his time and giving expression to his concern in any medium he is bound to run up against the guardians of the status quo. Art is not a popularity contest nor is it apt to make you rich, as history records. Your conscience and the strength of your convictions must back you up.
—Fritz Eichenberg, 1984
1992a The artist and the maker in search of truth venture deeper than most of us dare to into the paradoxes and mysteries of human experience—joy, pain, our delicate and now threatened relationship with the natural world, our fraught and miraculous relationships with each other and with God. Artists make the journey into that interior deliberately, regarding it as their calling to discover and reveal inner pattern and meaning, or warn us when these things are fractured or even missing. They often do this without counting the cost to themselves; and in the apparently inchoate darkness or blinding light of that experience they create a new way of communicating their unique vision.
This can be compared with the utterances of the prophets, the mystics and other great leaders whom we recognize as being empowered, as being channels for the Spirit. From their insight succeeding generations can draw sustenance.... These artists and mystics take risks in exploring the dark, strange places, and they return with images for our transformation.
—Brenda Clifft Heales and Chris Cook, 1992
1992b ...the artist and the Quaker are on the same internal journey. Each is seeking a relationship with the Divine, and each is seeking a way to express that relationship. There are just many different ways of expressing it. For many, the path to the Self has to be entered by way of the arts, whether or not we are gifted in that field. That doesn't seem to matter. As St. Paul says: If we have not love, we are as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And for many of us, the pathway to love is through the arts.... The process of working with and forming material things can lead beyond them to the spiritual, and shape of clay or colors of paint can be a window into another world.
—Janet Mustin, 1992
1993 Any doctrine, any church, any poem can be a container of the truth; but if we come to value it for itself, and not for the reality that it contains, the life drains out of it, the angel departs, and the form becomes empty. To worship it is idolatry, as the first Quakers tried to convince the world. Eternal truth comes to humankind like a tide flowing in; as it ebbs, the ridges on the sand show us the action of the water. But when it comes in again, the shapes it creates and abandons are different. That is why I believe that it is to modern poetry, rather than the masterpieces of the past, that we must look for witnesses to the holy spirit at work in our desperate times.
—John Lampen, 1993
1994a The Holy Spirit can indeed restore us to health (or stimulate us to work well) through the medium of music as well as prayer or antibiotics! And why, indeed, should I be surprised that this is so? Creativity is the gift that we were given on the eighth day of creation. In naming and re-making the world we are co-workers with God, and whether we are making a garden or a meal, a painting or a piece of furniture or a computer program, we are sharing in an ongoing act of creation through which the world is constantly re-made.
—Jo Farrow, 1994
1994b If I can get past the desire to have my work admired because it's mine;
If I can write to heal and not to impress;
If I can serve the work by rigorously attending to what it wants to be rather than imposing my will on it;
If I can resist pressures to do what's fashionable or politically correct and stick to minding my call;
If I can trust my religious community to uphold me without expecting them to promote my work;
If I can trust that Providence will send me as much recognition as is spiritually good for me—
—Then I've found the link between art and attending to the pure Life.
—Esther Greenleaf Mürer, 1994
1995 Be aware of the spirit of God at work in the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life. Spiritual learning continues throughout life, and often in unexpected ways. There is inspiration to be found all around us, in the natural world, in the sciences and arts, in our work and friendships, in our sorrows as well as in our joys. Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may come? Do you approach new ideas with discernment?
—Britain Yearly Meeting, 1995
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Q u a k e r s and the Arts Historical Sourcebook
Maintained by Esther Greenleaf MürerThis page last updated August 2000
SOURCES OF QUOTES
1954b Agnes Yendell, letter to The Friend, 23 April 1954. (Back)
1954c Beatrice Saxon Snell, letter to The Friend, 23 April 1954. (Back)
1954d "Is Art Un-Quakerly?" Editorial (unsigned), The Friend, 2 April 1954. Quoted in Nicholson, 114-6. (Back)
1954e Horace Alexander, letter to The Friend, 30 July 1954. Quoted in Nicholson, 111. (Back)
1955 Elfrida Vipont Foulds, Living in the Kingdom. William Penn Lecture 1955. (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Young Friends Movement, 1956?), 11. (Back)
1956 David Griffiths, "Quakerism: some aspects of the positive life", Friends Quarterly Examiner, January 1956. Quoted in Nicholson, 117. (Back)
1958 Samuel M. Bradley, "Private Man to Public," Approach, No. 27 (Spring 1958): 16-20. Quoted in Dorothy Gilbert Thorne, Poetry among Friends, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 130 (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill Pubs, 1963), 19. (Back)
1959a London Yearly Meeting, Christian Faith and Practice (1959), extract 449. (Back)
1959b E Merrill Root, quoted in Dorothy Gilbert Thorne, Quakerism in fiction and poetry recently written by women, Ward Lecture 1959 (Guilford, NC: Guilford College, 1960), 16. (Back)
1959c Barbara Hinchcliffe, quoted in Dorothy Gilbert Thorne, Poetry among Friends, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 130 (Wallingford, PA, Pendle Hill, 1963), 20. (Back)
1960a Kenneth Barnes, The Creative Imagination, Swarthmore Lecture 1960 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1960), 80. (Back)
1960b ibid, 81. (Back)
1962 Fritz Eichenberg, Art and faith, Rev. ed., Pendle Hill Pamphlet 68 (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 1962), 5. (Back)
1963 Dorothea Blom, Encounters with art, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 128 (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 1963), 13. (Back)
1965a Ben Norris, in Seek, Find, Share, Friends World Committee for Consultation, 1965. Quoted in Nicholson, 121. (Back)
1965b Clive Sansom, The Shaping Spirit, 1965 James Backhouse Lecture (Sydney, N.S.W: Friends Book Supplies, 1965), 20. (Back)
1966 Robin Tanner, "Life is art," the second part of his address to a symposium at Bath "Towards a Quaker view of the arts," printed in The Friend, v. 124 (1966) 285. Quoted in Britain Yearly Meeting Quaker Faith and Practice (1995), extract 21.29. (Back)
1967 Jean Stubbs, in The Artist Speaks: special issue of Reynard, 1967. (Back)
1972a Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice (1972), 20. (Back)
1972b Charles Kohler, "Poetry-worship-religion," Reynard, No. 25 (Summer 1972): 6. (Back)
1972c Candida Palmer, "Cultural impedimenta old and new in Friends' relation to the arts." Quaker Religious Thought 14, no. 3 (Winter 1972-73): 14f. (Back)
1972d Christine Downing, "Friends' relation to the arts: some further preliminary reflections." Quaker Religious Thought 14, no. 3 (Winter 1972-3): 29. (Back)
1978a Ormerod Greenwood, Signs of life; art and religious experience, Swarthmore Lecture 1978 (London: Friends Home Service Committee, 1978), 2. (Back)
1978b ibid, 51f. (Back)
1978c ibid, 64. (Back)
1979a Virginia Hyde Davis, 1979, Nurturing the seed through art, Lecture (FGC?), 6 July 1979. (Back)
1979b Fritz Eichenberg, "Friends' benign neglect." Friends Journal, 15 March 1979. (Back)
1979c Peter Fingesten, "Spirit in art." Friends Journal, 15 March 1979. (Back)
1979d Winifred Rawlins, Friends Journal, 15 March 1979. (Back)
1983a Kenneth Barnes, "Integrity—in Quakerism and the arts." Quaker Monthly 62-67 (June-July) 1983, 150. (Back)
1983b Kenneth Boulding, "Quakerism and the arts." Friends Journal, 1 Nov 1983. (Back)
1984 Fritz Eichenberg, Artist on the Witness Stand, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 257 (Wallingford PA: Pendle Hill, 1984), 29f. (Back)
1992a Brenda Clifft Heales and Chris Cook, Images and Silence, Swarthmore Lecture 1992 (London: Quaker Home Service, 1992), 94. (Back)
1992b Janet Mustin, 1992. Quoted in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice (1997), Extract 169. (Back)
1993 John Lampen, Findings: poets and the crisis of faith, Pendle Hill Pamphlet 310 (Wallingford, PA: Pendle Hill, 1993), 43. (Back)
1994a Jo Farrow, 1994. In Britain Yearly Meeting, Quaker Faith and Practice, (1995), extract 21.38. (Back)
1994b Esther Greenleaf Mürer, "Quakerism and the Arts: and Now, the Good News...." Friends Journal, October 1994. (Back)
1995 Britain Yearly Meeting, Quaker Faith and Practice (1995), Advices and Queries, extract 1.02.7. (Back) | Top