It will be the biggest piece of art, in both size and artistic scale, that the Catholic Church in Scotland has commissioned from an artist since the Reformation.A large painting of the execution of Saint John Ogilvie, to be placed in St Andrew's Cathedral in Glasgow, will be painted by Peter Howson, it was announced yesterday.
Howson, who describes himself as a Christian without denomination but rather a "follower of Jesus", said the work could be as large as five metres wide and eight metres high.
This would fill the space designated for it: the wall of the Blessed Sacrament chapel inside the cathedral.
The painting will show the death, by hanging, of the Scottish priest - Scotland's only canonised post-Reformation saint - at Glasgow Cross in 1615, surrounded by a crowd of up to 600 figures.
The artist - who said he was living the devout "second half" of his life, compared with his first half where when he battled addiction problems - said that, since childhood, he had wanted to emulate Renaissance painters such as Michelangelo, whose most famous works were for the Church.
Howson will start work on the painting early next year and it will be displayed in the cathedral when it reopens after renovation in 2010.
The artist said one of his ambitions was to paint a work for the Vatican, and he hoped this commission, which will be painted with oil on canvas before being placed in the cathedral, could lead to that.
Howson, 50, who was once part of the New Glasgow Boys group of painters, as well as spending time as a war artist in Bosnia, has been following a religious path in his art in recent years, depicting the crucifixion of St Andrew in one major painting, as well as the Stages of the Cross.
Howson said yesterday: "It will show the martyrdom of a man of courage, and I hope that people will come to venerate it. My job with this is to waken people up who are sleeping, who are not reading, who are saturated by rubbish on the TV."
Glasgow's Archbishop Mario Conti said: "I have always felt that we should have some memorial to this saint whose canonisation so many of us remember with great pride within our cathedral.
"Now the opportunity has arisen to have a truly world class painting done by Peter Howson, a painter I have long admired both for his artistic talent and his spirituality."
Howson said that as far as denominations of Christianity were concerned, he did not care for them, though he occasionally attended Mass with his fiancee, who is a Catholic.
"When I am with Protestants I want to be with Catholics, and when I am with Catholics I want to be with Protestants," he joked.
He added: "I follow Jesus, I am a Christian. In fact I think it's ridiculous that there are any divisions at all."
Responding to a question about whether it was appropriate that the former painter of nudes, such as his 2002 image of rock star Madonna, should be involved in such a commission, Mr Howson said: "I don't think any artists in history have been saints. I can't think of one."
Archbishop Conti added: "If you want to see nude figures, go to the Sistine Chapel: there are plenty there."
Composer James MacMillan, whose own work is informed by his Catholic faith, also spoke at the announcement of the commission.
He said that he thought there was a new wave of connections being wrought between artists and the church.
He said: "In commissioning such a breathtaking work from Peter Howson, a message is being sent to society that the cords which bind the creative imagination to a sense of the numinous has been unbroken."
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(Source: TH)