“THE Vanity of Small Differences” is an exhibition of six huge tapestries by Grayson Perry, each of which, inspired by William Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress, charts a stage in the journey of social mobility made by young Tim Rakewell (a wry reference to Tom Rakewell, Hogarth’s protagonist). The tapestries include many of the characters, incidents, and objects that Perry encountered on journeys through Sunderland, Tunbridge Wells, and the Cotswolds when filming All in the Best Possible Taste with Grayson Perry, a series on social class for Channel 4.
References to classical art and religious painting also inform the work and reflection on this aspect of the tapestries was a key element in the conversations that led to this exhibition, the first showing of these works in an ecclesiastical setting. The Dean of Salisbury, the Very Revd Nicholas Papadopulos, says that his concern, knowing that several panels are titled after famous works of sacred art, was to be sure Perry’s treatment of the sacred themes was respectful and enlarged understanding and appreciation.
The Dean views Perry as “a magpie-like figure — taking ideas and imagery from a range of sources — making use of archetypes without simply singling out medieval sacred art”. Nevertheless, the fact that works of sacred art inspired these tapestries, and that tapestry itself is an art-form that the cathedral’s early custodians would have been familiar with, and was used to bring religious stories to life and depict historical events, means that, when the tapestries are shown in this space, these connections and references are activated and animated in ways that wouldn’t otherwise occur. As a result, showing Perry’s tapestries here proves to be an inspired move.
The Dean notes that the monumental scale of the tapestries works well in a building of this size. Not only is their scale exactly right, but their colours also blend well with the double windows above, while the stonework, being quite muted, sets off the extraordinary bursts of colour within each tapestry. The colours seem to “leap off the wall at us”, and some lovely parallels have been created. One such, identified by the Dean, is that one of the cage fighters adoring Tim and his mother in the first tapestry (The Adoration of the Cage Fighters) has an image on his back of the archangel Michael casting Satan out of heaven. The same scene also appears in the window immediately above. As the Dean states, “You couldn’t make it up.”
More than this, through his narrative, “Perry asks us to see ourselves as others may see us, and he also asks us to acknowledge the ways in which we judge others.” This, the Dean believes, “is worthy of exploration in a cathedral context” because “self-questioning and self-reflection are vital disciplines in the life of faith, just as welcoming and honouring people from every walk of life is part of our vocation as a place of prayer and worship and as a place which is visited by thousands.”
One of the purposes of liturgy and worship is to look at ourselves in the light of the gospel, making self-reflection a core spiritual discipline. A point that the Dean likes to make to visitors is that, although these tapestries were made ten years ago, they are, after Brexit, the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, and the war in Ukraine, “of more relevance than ever before” in their exploration of how united or divided we are as a nation.
Finnbarr WebsterAdoration of the Cage Fighters (left) and The Agony in the Car Park, hung beneath cathedral windows
Perry’s narrative reverses the journey made in Hogarth’s The Rake’s Progress, yet the story still ends in tragedy as he crashes his car and, despite his money, dies in the gutter. The Dean notes that “Personal wealth at all costs doesn’t end well.” He points to the penultimate panel (The Upper Class at Bay), in which Rakewell has bought into the landed gentry, but is surrounded by protesters demanding that he pay his taxes. There, it is clear that he has “forgotten where he came from and his wider societal obligations”. The question that this raises is what the basis of social mobility is. Is it just the acquisition of money? And what responsibilities attach to us as members of one human community? The final panel (#Lamentation) suggests that Tim’s last word is “Mother”’ so, at the end, “he is recalled to the non-negotiability of family and where you are from.”
Perry has an idiosyncratic approach to religion, although it is a surprisingly frequent theme in his work. He has spoken, for example, of psychoanalysis and art as making meaning, and of religion as being about people getting together. The Dean sees this latter understanding as an element in this exhibition, and the cathedral’s exhibition programme more widely.
“Cathedrals are gathering places and do bring people together.” So, “part of the purpose of staging exhibitions is to bring people together; people who might not otherwise come to a cathedral.” His hope is that such people will gather for this exhibition but, by gathering in a cathedral, will not only look at the tapestries, but also gain a sense of a place where worship of God is paramount. In other words, “those who encounter the work here will have to try very hard if they are not to have a different encounter as well.”
“The Vanity of Small Differences” is at Salisbury Cathedral until 25 September. More information here
