The Spectator’s notes | 12 April 2017

Each Easter, I think of David Jones (1895-1974). He was a distinguished painter and, I would (though unqualified) say, a great poet. There is a new, thorough biography of him by Thomas Dilworth (Cape). A sympathetic review in the Guardian wrestles with why he is not better known: ‘The centrality of religion to Jones’s work offers a clue to his obscurity.’ Jones recognised this possibility himself, writing about ‘The Break’ in culture, which began in the 19th century. He thought it had to do with the decline of religion, but more with a changed attitude to art, caused by mass production and affecting what he called ‘the entire world of sacrament and sign’. Jones’s work is indeed religious, so Holy Week is the best week of the year to look at it afresh, but it is not pietistic. It is better understood as an artistic quest — a lifelong effort to collect and connect the sacraments and signs strewn by our history, implanted in our language and available to our senses.