Artist Sean Scully: The church is very tolerant when it comes to art

The renowned Irish-American artist Sean Scully (79) has created four new windows for the collegiate basilica of St Martin in Landshut free of charge. On Sunday, they will be blessed during a church service in the presence of the artist. Scully is represented in museums and exhibition centres worldwide with his abstract paintings. The former professor at the Munich Art Academy comes from Dublin and grew up in London. There, at the age of just nine, he was inspired to become an artist himself by works of art in the church of his Catholic primary school. His encounter with Islamic architecture and Arabic textiles during a trip to Morocco in 1969 also influenced his artistic work. There he found the combination of strict grid forms with the expressive power of colour. Although his expression is largely characterised by abstraction, the starting point and motif of his work is the human being. Scully now lives in various places: from Barcelona to New York to Bad Tölz. In an interview with katholisch.de, the artist explains how his collaboration with St Martin's Church came about and what role the Catholic Church plays in his life.

Question: Mr Scully, you are known worldwide for your abstract geometric shapes. How did it come about that you created such stained glass windows for St Martin's Church in Landshut free of charge?

Scully: Well, I was there a few years ago, maybe ten years ago. The church is very interesting to me, not just because it has the highest brick tower in the world. I'm very interested in bricks because I used to work a lot on building sites. The building fascinated me, but I found the windows inside quite boring because they were all white. So I said to myself: "You know, one day I'll do the windows. That's a casual thing." And now the time had come: they asked me if I would do the windows for the chapel. And I said yes. That's more or less the whole story.

Question: Where did the inspiration for the windows in St Martin's Church come from?

Scully: I realised that this was a chapel with a life-size silver crucifix, and I wanted to honour that. So I used geometric images that I painted about 50 years ago. They contain a lot of repetitive crosses that seem to fit in with this idea of the chapel with its crucifix. You only have to see them from the outside, from the street. They are even illuminated at night.

Question: Can you explain the three windows?

Scully: I wanted the windows to be very visually appealing. That's why I used this repeating pattern. And the last window, the small window, if you look from right to left, is the colour of the dress of Mary, the mother of Jesus. In La Pieta, this is a very important colour in Italian painting. And I tried to find just the right blue to create an association, a metaphorical association with the colour of the dress that Mary wears in almost all the paintings of the Pieta.

Question: So not a direct association with the Gospel of John, where Mary is under the cross, but only one in an artistic sense?

Scully: Exactly, only in an artistic sense, because I'm not telling stories. Of course I don't deny that there is a story, but my work is metaphorical, not a narrative.

Question: Is there another way to read it?

Scully: Yes, if you read it from left to right. Because first we have the colour blue, which is a melancholy, sad colour. It refers to the crucifixion. Then we have the other two windows, which refer to exaltation and joy. That's how you can read it, and I think it's a very beautiful reading.

Question: Is there a connection to Gerhard Richterwho also donated his works to the Benedictine Abbey of St Mauritius in Tholey?

Scully: I haven't thought about that yet. But even before Richter, I did a very similar window in the large cathedral in Girona. There's a huge Gothic window of mine there with the same pattern because they're from paintings that were made 54 years ago. That means they are older than Richter's.

Question: Recently, a sculpture of the Virgin Mary giving birth was of the Virgin Mary giving birth was recently exhibited in St Mary's Cathedral in Linz, which caused a stir and led to discussions. Is art supposed to shock people?

Scully: That's a good question. The Catholic Church is very tolerant, as is the West in general. People are very tolerant there. I haven't seen the sculpture, but if it's blasphemous, I'm very much against it.

Question: You come from Ireland, a Catholic country - at least until the abuse scandal. What is your relationship with the Catholic Church?

Scully: I'm very sympathetic to the Catholic Church, my son is going to communion next year. I'm not an ardent supporter, but I would describe myself as a friend of the Catholic faith. The fact that there is paedophilia in the church, as unfortunately there is in all areas, has not affected my relationship with the church in the slightest.