Adrian Wiszniewski: The Good Samaritan and The House Built on Rock
Title: The Good Samaritan and The House Built on Rock
Artist: Adrian Wiszniewski (b. 1958, British)
Location: Liverpool Cathedral (C of E)
Date: 1995
Located on opposite walls of the aisles either side of the sanctuary in Liverpool Cathedral are two paintings by Adrian Wiszniewski: The Good Samaritan (south choir aisle) and The House Built on Rock (north choir aisle).
The Good Samaritan: A contemporary depcition of the parable of the Good Samaritan shows a young woman who has stopped to help a naked man sitting in a pool of his own blood. The same colour red forms a cross that flows up from the pool of blood above the woman's head. Young, smart professionals exchange business cards in the foreground while a couple in the fore and background look into the middle-distance, unmoved. The sky is black as an echo of the moment of the crucifixion. The painting is 11ft tall with a complex interplay of figures, colours and forms that comes to a head upon the victim.
The House Built on Rock: Set within a strange, sandy beach landscape, Wiszniewski’s canvas is again divided into blocks that form a cross at the centre of the composition. The body of water in the background is again black, as is the sky, and a family are held together in gestures that convey normality and tension. The father sits upon his rock-built house, while the daughter carries a model of the cathedral. Sandcastles, buckets, shells and an sand eel present a whimsical if not eerie scene.
Adrian Wiszniewski (b. 1958, British) studied at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, and the Glasgow School of Art. Wiszniewski was part of the ‘New Glasgow Boys’ a term coined for the young painters who came out of the Glasgow School of Art in the 1980s and came to prominence with the 1987 exhibition Vigorous Imagination at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. Their work was characterized as having decisively broken with the prevailing popularity of minimalism and abstraction. Critics have often said that Wiszniewski’s work has a poetic quality to it; describing it as belonging to the 19th-century Romantic tradition in British art. Though he is most often thought of as a painter and printmaker, Wiszniewski has worked with media such as neon, tapestry, sculpture and ceramics during his career. Wiszniewski’s work is in the permanent collections of MOMA, New York, the Tate Gallery, London and Setegaya, Tokyo.
Further Information
Medium (The Good Samaritan and The House Built on Rock): Acrylic on canvas
Size (The Good Samaritan and The House Built on Rock): approximately 8 x 11ft
Permanent display
See Wiszniewski’s The Good Samaritan and The House Built on Rock on the Ecclesiart map here.
Stained glass at Liverpool Cathedral: For comment on the stained glass see Visit Stained Glass, which is an online showcase for some of Britain’s finest stained glass windows.
Other artworks in churches by Adrian Wiszniewski: Stations of the Cross (2000) St Edmundsbury Cathedral
Other contemporary/modern works of art in Liverpool Cathedral: The Welcoming Christ, Elizabeth Frink, (1993); Painting of Crucifixion, Gary Bunt; Icon of the Trinity Painting, Cristi Paslaru; The Outraged Christ, Charles Lutyens, (2006-11); LJMU Cross sculpture, JRM Robertson (1980); The Baby Christ Child, Don MacKinlay, (2002); Josephine Butler windows, At the End ... A Beginning (Richard Harrison), Risen Christ Maquette, Elizabeth Frink, (c. 1992-3), Calvary, Craigie Aitchison, (2006); The Holy Family, Josefina Vasconcello; Painting of Liverpool Cathedral, Hannah Thompson; cross icon painting, Ludmila Pawlowska; Christi Paslaru pieces in Chapel of The Holy Spirit; The Redemption, Arthur Dooley and Anne McTavish; The Prodigal Son and The Good Samaritan, Christopher Le Brun.
Related A&C journal article(s): Adrian Wiszniewski Work for Liverpool Anglican Cathedral 1/6; Adrian Wiszniewski Work for Liverpool Anglican Cathedral 4/4