(Photograph © Andrew Dunn, distributed via Creative Commons)

I had not heard of this artist until I saw a documentary depicting his life and work. It turned out he’s a well-regarded English sculptor and typographer of the early part of the last century, known mostly for his religious images. Born as a nonconformist (an English term for any church affiliation other than Anglican), Gill became a Roman Catholic. He said that he did not convert to Catholicism, but rather realized he was a Catholic and joined the church. I found this faintly amusing, as C. S. Eliot did the same thing. In any case, Gill was very affirmative about his religion—loudly declaiming how important it was at every opportunity—though, interestingly, his religious images had more than a hint of eroticism in them. It was this combination of the sacred and profane that made them so fascinating, and he got commissions to do religious sculptures all over England. As I continued watching the documentary, I discovered that I had run across Gill before, though in a roundabout way. He designed Gil Sans, a typeface I much admire, and was also responsible for the stations of the cross in Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with Westminster Abbey), one of my favorite places in the world.

This morning, wanting to know more about this rather unknown artist, I looked him up in Wikipedia, and discovered that he was considered a “paraphiliaic,” a term I’d never heard of before. It didn’t sound good. Of course, the article went on to describe what this meant. When Fiona MacCarthy’s biography was published in 1989, she carefully spelled out Gill’s pansexual tastes—rather revolting ones, I might add. Oddly, this prompted the art critics in England to reassess Gill’s work and had the effect of strengthening his artistic reputation.

Isn’t life strange? It’s too bad Eric Gill isn’t around to recoup the benefits of his newfound fame.

I have a fondness for unfinished cathedrals. My first love is St. Mark’s in Seattle, which is basically a bare brick-and-cement bunker, inside and out. My second, in London, is Westminster Cathedral (not Westminster Abbey), the seat of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. Westminster Cathedral was built around the turn of the last century as a replica of an Italian duomo, with Byzantine elements thrown in for good measure. With a layered red-and-white stone exterior, a tall campanile, the widest nave I have ever seen, a wooden floor, eye-popping mosaics, and lovely slabs of marble on the walls and columns, it is hard to believe it was built a little over a hundred years ago. But, like St. Mark’s, the parish ran out of money, and the interior of the cathedral was left unfinished from the tops of the columns to the ceiling, about three-fifths of the space.

We came and sat for an hour out of the wind and cold. Sitting inside, everything above your head is one dark hole. At first, I wondered if there had been a fire, until I realized it was bare brick painted black. To me, it’s symbolic of how the god-thing works–an empty space where the deity is supposed to be. No one will ever convince me, except under torture, that our gods are not of our own making. This doesn’t mean I’m not a believer–only that I know we make it all up.