The highly gifted Mark Symons remains one of the more enigmatic figures in the field of British art.He was born in Hampstead in 1887 and brought up in Sussex.His father was the artist William Christian Symons and a cousin was Arthur Symons, the editor of the Savoy.The family was staunchly Roman Catholic and William Symons had done decorative work in Westminster Cathedral; Whistler, Sargent and Brabazon were family friends.One of his brothers, Thomas Symons became a monk and taught at Downside.Another, Robert Symons, emigrated to Canada working on ranches, but he too became a painter and art teacher towards the end of his life.Mark Symons studied at the Slade 1905-9, winning a two year scholarship 1906-7.However, on leaving he decided that his real calling was to the priesthood.Ill health caused him to postpone a decision, but he prayed incessantly, made numerous retreats and worked for the Catholic Evidence Guild (1918-1924).To this organization with its goal of disseminating Catholic ideas to everyman he was completely devoted.He was often to be seen wheeling a barrow in the streets of London, from which he would disseminate Catholic literature to anyone he met.He was in fact known to have preached on numerous occasions in front of a crucifix at Hyde Park Corner.He continued to paint sporadically in these years, exhibiting the occasional picture at the Royal Academy.But his life was to change radically when, in 1924, he met and married his wife Constance Gerber.It was she who, seeing an unfinished painting of his, encouraged him to resume his former calling.They moved to the Reading area, where he painted hard for the 10 remaining years of his life and showed regularly at the Academy again.These late years saw him develop a highly individual style of painting best described as a type of everyday religious symbolism.Many of these canvases showed, as indeed his Berkshire neighbour Stanley Spencer’s pictures also showed, religious events taking place in modern, contemporary settings such as a street in his home town of Reading.They were to prove highly controversial for the viewing public of the day and at times even proved too much for the jury at the R.A.But in this, like Spencer, he can be counted as one of the very last inheritors of the late pre-Raphaelite or last romantic tradition.Symons died of a brain tumour in his forties.

According to Symons’s biographer Stephanie Wines Symons considered The Earthly Paradise to be his masterpiece.In this large canvas with its highly intricate composition the artist has laid out a striking visual representation of his religious philosophy.According to those who knew him he was towards the end of his life increasingly occupied with the coming of the millennium and the idea of an earthly Paradise.He believed fervently that man’s fall from grace and expulsion from Eden was not so much a geographical displacement as a spiritual one.He felt that Paradise was indeed still close to us if we could but purify ourselves so that we could see it.Symons’s philosophy seems to have stemmed very specifically from the biblical reference (Matthew 18:3) “Verily I say unto you, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven”.It was his profound belief that children were innocent and could feel, see and experience Paradise on earth.By extension he felt that if we in the adult world could only be as children, then we too could experience Eden ourselves. This is what is laid out for us in this present painting.The tondo-shaped central section of the work shows a brightly coloured Eden populated exclusively by children and young people.In the bottom sections to left and right are depicted the grey, outcast adults who may be yearning to regain this paradise.One or two are being invited in, where they will be clothed in white and reborn as children.Tellingly, the figure of the naked man preparing to cross the barrier of these two worlds into a state of Paradise is Symons himself.

If we examine the picture in more detail, Symons has included a number of literary references for the viewer.Those on the various scrolls that can be seen quote verbatim from the Book of Revelations.“And God shall wipe away all tears” is Revelations 21.4.“Behold I make all things new” is Revelations 21.5 and the “Come , Come ,Come” seen on the flying child-angels at right is a quote from Revelations 22.17.The parallel between the New Jerusalem envisaged by St John of Patmos and Symons’s own vision of an earthly Paradise is clear.Symons transcribes verses on to the scrolls, but clearly the large number of figures dressed in white robes in the painting also relate to figures in the Revelations vision.Are they not effectively the figures “clothed in white raiment and they had on their heads crowns of gold” referred to in Revelations 4.4?

The inscription on the broken chunk of masonry bottom centre references Genesis 11.4 and the Tower of Babel.The inscribed stonework has been positioned by Symons outside the circular Paradise and we are invited to conclude that all of the grey, adult world’s attempts at greatness have, Babel-like, crumbled to nothing.The natural world of trees, flowers and plants, the world created by God, has grown over and subdued the collapsed efforts of man.

The scroll at the top is for today’s audience a little more obscure.This is a translation – possibly by Symons himself – of a passage from Le Soulier de Satin (The Satin Slipper), a play by the Frenchman Paul Claudel (1868-1955).Claudel, a brother of the sculptress Camille Claudel, was himself a sincerely committed catholic.His play, much talked about when it appeared in the 1920s, not least on account of the 11 hours needed to stage it, must have seemed to Symons to chime with his own beliefs.Claudel’s work is ostensibly a love story set in the Spanish Golden Age, but it is really a religious and philosophical treatise on the human condition, dealing in particular with concepts of love, separation, sin and redemption.The relevant passage quoted is spoken in the play by a character called Saint Adlibitum, who is yearning for a lost land from which he has been exiled.We are dealing again with man’s fall from grace and the notion of a lost Eden. The parallels between writer and artist are clear.

Stylistically The Earthly Paradise seems to pull on a fascinating mix of influences.It is too simple to categorize this merely as a work of a very late pre-Raphaelite.The Pre-Raphaelites have unbdoubtedly had their influence it must be admitted.But interestingly, rather than the languid symbolism of late Burne-Jones, we are dealing here more with a revival of the earlier Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood way of seeing things.There is a density of detail, a brightness of colour and a compression of perspective here, which places Symons’s Pre-Raphaelism closer to that of other Brotherhood revivalists like Byam Shaw and Fortescue Brickdale.But there is more here obviously.Symons cannot but have been exposed to a large amount of catholic iconography during the years he spent training for the religious life. The Madonna at the centre of the composition has a distinctly Northern Renaissance feel to her.If the grouping behind the Madonna’s head is Pre-Raphaelite, then the prominent group of figures just to left of centre, while similar, also have an attenuation about them and a swaying stance that is reminiscent of the work of El Greco.The white robed and crowned figures similarly suggest El Greco, but undoubtedly William Blake as well. The ambitiously foreshortened figure flying towards us in the sky is in fact a quote from one of Michelangelo’s representations of God in the Sistine Chapel.The figure holding the white robe to receive Symons himself, bottom right, seems to quote from a number of Old Master representations of St Veronica as she holds the veil with the imprint of Christ’s face.The National Gallery’s painting by The Master of Saint Veronica, could well be the source.Beyond the Old Masters it is probably also safe to assume that Symons knew the work of the Victorians Richard Dadd and John Anster Fitzgerald.The highly unusual large oviform composition of The Earthly Paradise, bursting with numerous figures immediately reminds the viewer of Dadd’s similarly constructed The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke.If we search for more contemporary comparison, then we need only look as far as Symons’s fellow Berkshire painter Stanley Spencer, already mentioned.It is known that these two corresponded and it is impossible for them not to have known each other’s work.Both were highly religious men and neither saw anything incongruous about depictingsaints or angels or even Christ himself, mingling with the inhabitants of 1920’s and 30’s Cookham or Reading.

The Earthly Paradise emerges then as a densely packed and intriguing statement of Mark Symons’s religious philosophy.On a substantial scale and composed with astounding intricacy it is rewarding both visually and intellectually.The artist, highly individual even eccentric, is still today something of an enigma.His relatively short life andsmall output coupled with his habit of giving away so much of his work with little thought for posterity have inevitably meant that his reputation is still somewhat in the shadows.However, the re-appearance of this masterpiece on the market should now herald a serious re-appraisal of this fascinating painter.