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| Sunday, 19 February 2006 |
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Paynter set the tone for local church art June 7, 2006 marks the 31st death anniversary of David Paynter RA, OBE (1900-1975), a celebrated painter of Sri Lanka.
His father was a Christian missionary, who worked in India at the foot of the Himalayas. At the age of 19 Paynter won a scholarship to study art in the Royal Academy in London, where he won the coveted Gold medal and went on to further his studies in Italy. The Renaissance Christian art to which he was introduced there, had a marked influence on his creative work. In 1925 he returned to Sri Lanka to carry out the task of painting the murals in the Trinity College Chapel, which had been built to reflect local architecture and sculpture. His murals in the chapel which comprise 'Are Ye Able', 'Washing the Disciples' Feet', 'The Good Samaritan' and 'The Crucifixion' are Bible stories transferred to Ceylonese people and scenery. 'The Crucifixion' is set in the magnificent, if unscriptural gloom of a mangrove swamp, with a beardless Christ on the cross. Paynter's 'Madonna Con Bambino' is typical of his portrayal of Biblical figures. In this piece of art the famous nativity scene is presented as a scene from Sri Lanka. Paynter, who had studied in France and Italy, found that the painters there had painted their own countries in their own times, so he decided to paint in the same way, with more or less Sri Lankan landscapes and Sri Lankan types of people. This is true of his murals in the Trinity College Chapel, Kandy, and the Chapel of Transfiguration in S. Thomas' College, Mount Lavinia. The 'Transfiguration' is thought to be one of his best murals. When an exhibition of contemporary Christian art from all countries was held in Rome in 1951 to commemorate the Holy Year celebrations, Pope Pius XII is said to have asked for Paynter's work. Above, we carry the Trinity college murals and the mural from the chapel of the Transfiguration S. Thomas's College Mt. Lavinia. It's also as good a time as any to juxtapose some of the Paynter work with some of the significant stained glass work in Sri Lanka's churches. The stained glass windows are essentially from Colombo churches; they represent a facet of the multi religious culture in this country which is forgotten and ignored in the hurly burly of our times. As in Paynter's work, the stained glass etchings often have an indigenous quality. (The facts on David Paynter's life are by courtesy of an article published in a local journal by Derrick Shockman.) |
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