I was immediately attracted to this painting when I saw it shared on a Facebook group last week. It is entitled 'Preaching to the Congregation' by German artist Jacobs Alberts, dated c.1910. I began to reflect on my attraction: what was it about the painting that drew me to it? I share these thoughts with the important qualification that I know very little indeed about art or art history. This post, therefore, is merely an account of my reaction to the painting. To begin with, it could - with but a few small changes - easily portray Anglican worship in these Islands and North America a century earlier, c.1810. The preacher would then have be in a gown, not surplice, for the sermon. The beautiful, quiet simplicity of the church - not least the clear glass - would also have been the norm. (The decoration on the font, of course, is a hint of the Lutheran context.) Those of us who have an attachment to Georgian and Regency Anglicanism can, therefore, see something of a reflection ...
Protestant Episcopalian - Burkean - clerk in holy orders