David Jones (1895-1974)

Today marks the death of the Catholic poet and artist David Jones. Born in a suburb of London to a Welsh father and an English mother, he studied art at an early age. During World War I he served in the British army throughout the entire conflict. After he studied art and converted to Catholicism. He worked with the Catholic artist Eric Gill for several years. In fact, he married one of Gill’s daughters. Jones worled as an illustrator for several books in the 1920’s and 1930’s before switching to painting. In 1937 he produced his first book, In Parenthesis, a poetic account of his wartime experiences. In 1952, he issued his second book, The Anathemata, a poem inspired by his visit to Palestine. W. H. Auden considered it the most important long poem of the century. The website for the David Jones Society says of Jones:

Drawing on a variety of cultural and historical contexts, including Welsh legend and myth, Roman history and Catholic Christian theology, his visual art and his poetry develops and explores explore the “sacramental” practice of the artist in a world torn by violence and cultural fragementation. His essay “Art and Sacrament” has been hailed by Rowan Williams as “one of the most important pieces of writing in the twentieth century on art and the sacred.”