Resurrection In Cookham Is An Imposing Example Of Spencer At His Most

Resurrection in Cookham is an imposing example of Spencer at his most vibrant and thoughtprovoking, encapsulating the paradoxical enigma of the artist and his ideology. On the one hand, it inspires memories of the preRaphaelite Dutch and Flemish painters of the Middle Ages while, on the other, it appears Surreal, deliberately blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction, dream and reality. Furthermore, the painting telegraphs a shift in Spencer's private life whereby he would find it increasingly difficult to marry his religious conviction with his desire for polygamy in the near future.
As the 1920's ebbed away Stanley Spencer began to alter his prevailing artistic focus which heralded a change both in his work and his connection with the British public. Although the mystic, religious element in his paintings never ceased, the 1930's saw events in Spencer's private life greatly influence the manifestation of his creative presence. Shortly after he was elected Associate of the Royal Academy in 1932 (itself a statement of the high esteem in which he was held within artistic circles), the married Spencer began to descend into obsession once again, the subject of his desire this time being Patricia Preece, an enchanting woman whom he had met while studying at Slade. In an era that demanded strict adherence to marriage vows, Spencer's infatuation with Preece was damaging to his public reputation as well as to his financial affairs. After splitting from his wife Hilda to be with Patricia, Spencer ended up with neither with Preece (who was in fact gay) continuing to spurn his advances during the mid1930's while his exwife refused to take him back even after a debilitating mental breakdown in 1940. Worse still, the fiasco cost Spencer his home; he would spend the majority of the rest of his life drifting in and out of economic trouble. The event also became public knowledge and clearly affected the way in which he was portrayed though one should be careful not to overdramatise the effects of the Patricia Preece episode as Spencer was always thought of as something of an oddity by contemporary critics.
Artistically, the passion released by this exceedingly eccentric episode inspired some of Spencer's most challenging work. The Leg of Mutton Nude and the SelfPortrait with Patricia Preece stand out as examples of the new eroticism in the artist's output that further polarised contemporary opinion on Spencer, the latter still appearing especially disquieting with the superimposition of the artist upon a rather aloof looking Miss Preece. His disregard for the prevalent cultural and sexual mores was both typical of artistic voyeurism of the time and an indicator of the artist's state of mind. Moreover, he felt torn between the religious doctrine of his upbringing and the desire to lead a sexually liberated life, yet the change in his creative output would not go unnoticed by the public.