Banners are found in sanctuaries of large cathedrals and small rural churches. This article offers some means for evaluating the purpose and qualities of banner art.
Improving Liturgical Banners
The Song of Solomon sings, “His banner over me is love,” and other scriptural allusions remind us that flags, standards, and banners were an ancient art. (See for example Exod. 17:15, 16; Ps. 20:5; 60:4; Song of Sol. 2:4; 6:4, 6:10; Jer. 50:2.) Indeed, Constantine’s substitution of the cross for the Roman eagle on his army’s banners is legendary. But what of the contemporary use of banners in the church?
A recent survey of church art in our county revealed that the visual art most often being produced by both Protestant and Catholic churches is the banner. Many small rural parishes, county seat churches, and the congregations adjacent to college and university campuses are enthusiastically reviving interest in liturgical textile art.
It is also apparent, however, that there is a wide range of quality in the banners displayed. In fact, most banners, while showing our contemporary desire for variety in the worship environment, also demonstrate the churches’ need for thinking more carefully about the theological, liturgical, and artistic principles involved in banner art.
Many churches first approach banners as a project in Christian education undertaken by youth or by children in the church school. Undoubtedly a banner can be a useful tool for teaching the symbolism of important themes in biblical theology. Typical is the attempt to express a joyous response to God’s love since banners are often seen as celebratory implements like flags in a parade, a not unlikely comparison.
But a red felt banner with the slogan “Smile, God loves you” in variegated colors is not necessarily the most effective means of expressing the wonders of divine grace, however sincere the fledgling banner makers may be. The search for fresh ways of giving form to faith will surely avoid trite phrases and clichés.
Theological Criteria
How then can we encourage better banners? First, because there has been a long controversy over the proper use of images in the church, some theological criteria need to be established. Shall there be an attempt to portray Christ, or shall only symbols be used? Shall new visual metaphors be encouraged, or shall only familiar signs like the cross and dove appear? Shall banners be used only on special days of the church year, or should they become fixtures like the national flag?
Rather than being simply an aid to devotion, or a gimmick to “get the kids involved,” a good banner can be a significant offering of praise to God for the creation and redemption of life. The banner may express our gratitude for spiritual gifts or may put us in touch again with the anguish of suffering and sacrifice. A banner may affirm an important conviction, as when an Epiphany banner reminds us of the worldwide thrust of the gospel.
Designers of church banners, then, will have the same theological principles to guide them as church musicians, architects, or dramatists. They will know that the best banners grow out of the life of a community, just as flags emerge from the life of nations. If God speaks in history, then the artist needs to have studied the history and contemporary witness of the church which commissions the banner. All banner makers, whether amateur or professional, need to think carefully about the theology of the church and of the particular occasion(s) on which the banner will be displayed. Somehow the artist must discover links between the reality of God in the midst of a worshiping people and visual forms available in the textile art of banners.
Closely liked with a church’s theology is its liturgical practice, so some knowledge of liturgy is important for banner markers. Too often, banners made by children and youth have been hung for a Sunday service when the young persons had special responsibilities for the worship, but then the banners were left hanging for many months afterward, whether or not they were appropriate. This illustrates our need to recall that banners, unlike permanent windows, can have a temporary utility by highlighting a theme for a particular Sunday or season in the church year.
Enlisting Artists
Artistic excellence is also difficult to achieve with untrained eyes and hands. Composition, color design, and manipulation of different materials such as rough burlaps or satins—these are considerations not unlike musicians’ concern with rhythm, tonality, timbre, phrasing, and the like. While many churches, even rather small ones, give at least minimal recognition and pay for the skills of organists or choir directors, few churches carefully select a person with visual artistic skills to oversee and direct the production of banner work. Perhaps because of iconoclastic views of art, particularly in Protestant churches, we have not enlisted the help of people with art training.
Yet such artistic persons live in even the most isolated communities. Art teachers in the public schools, photographers, and persons in newspaper advertising have skills that could dramatically improve the banners produced even in church schools. Many artists probably would be quite flattered to be asked to design a challenging, interesting project such as four banners based on Old Testament readings for the Advent services.
What are some new possibilities for creating interesting banners? One answer is to have the banner take shape before the eyes of the congregation throughout a season. During the seven weeks of Lent, our congregation saw a single banner progress from a plain purple hanging to a fully imaged work on Easter Sunday. On each Sunday a different symbol of Christ was added, yet integrated so that a visual unity was achieved along the way as well as at the end. Thus a stump produced a shoot which became a vine that grew to cruciform shape and included white flowers for Easter. The ever-changing banner was a real interest-grabber, although we probably erred by trying to include too many images in one banner.
Where can banners be displayed? I have seen good banners in the entrance halls, over doors, and from balcony railings as well as from rods suspended from ceilings and walls of sanctuaries. Pulpit antependium hangings and Communion table paraments are essentially banners. Small banners representing the twelve apostles were hung from the aisle candle holders during one service. In a special service with clowns and mimes, a central banner was suddenly unfurled from its rolled-up position by a tug on a securing string which released the velcro binding
A procession of banners is, of course, a compelling visual experience, particularly when combined with stirring music by instruments and voice, for as Marion Ireland’s book Textile Art in the Church has shown us, “Religious flags and heraldic flags are by nature processional, and therefore mobile” (Marion Ireland, Textile Art in the Church [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966], 69). And how many churches have hung banners outside to line entrance walks or to flutter in the breeze from doorways or even steeple towers? That is often done by galleries, theaters, and such stodgy institutions as museums; why not by churches?
Design Principles
What, then, makes a good banner design for churches? Marion Ireland’s classic book discusses six basic principles: organic unity, theme, balance, rhythm, hierarchy, and evolution (Ireland, pp. 181–192). We can summarize her discussion by certain questions that a designer of banners needs to address:
- Does each part contribute to the whole, or do unnecessary elements distract from the unity?
- Does the banner have a dominant theme identified by some preeminent shape, color, line, or meaning?
- Does the banner have a balance of color, line, and form within itself, and does it balance with other visual elements such as the windows of the sanctuary?
- Does the rhythmic repetition of color, line, or form strengthen the design?
- Is there a hierarchy of elements so that each part is appropriately related to the dominant theme?
- Does the design progressively lead the eye toward the central visual meaning of the banner?
People respond to textures and shapes as well as to colors and movement. A crucifixion banner was constructed by a Hiram College student who used rough materials to match the mood of her subject: burlaps, wools, and leathers were joined in a semiabstract design which is more powerful because of the textures used. In a Thanksgiving banner by another artist, a shimmering blue satin was used for sky effects, this material contrasting vividly with the warm tones and textures of the earth shapes. Rich embroidery of bright colors, metallic threads, and rickrack set against a black background created a majestic design in another banner to emphasize the crown of life from Revelation with its background of suffering.
Shapes can be varied also from the usual vertical rectangle. Long triangles or inverted arches may echo stained windows, while narrow horizontal strips over doorways may provide significant entrances and exits for worshipers. The Newman Center at Kent University produced a huge circular banner on a frame, perhaps one of the most unusual forms to utilize, although one often seen in museums and galleries which display contemporary examples of textile art.
Certainly, designers should be encouraged, if they have the skills, to experiment with abstract shapes. The chaplain at Hiram College commissioned a creation banner, but no particular direction was given to the artist such as “reproduce Michelangelo’s fingers of God and Adam.” From the artist’s imagination emerged a swirl of blue and green forms, clearly evoking the organic forms of the earth and the waveforms of the ocean, while not literally reproducing either. Such a banner is harder to dismiss than a simple banner saying, “LET THERE BE LIGHT.” The eye and mind trace, again and again, the blues and greens as they interact in curvilinear loops. Meanings are multiple and metaphoric rather than literal.
This banner, then, reminds us that symbols can take different forms in the visual medium. Protestant churches have been word-oriented in liturgy and musical art, which perhaps explains why most banners being created today contain language. But words can be spoken or sung more effectively than portrayed in the visual arts unless particular attention is taken to make the very form of the letters and words artistically pleasing with excellent calligraphy. The banner normally should be more a window or a stage than a book: a focus for meditation, or an occasion for reflection on the drama of God’s presence in the world.
Makers of banners have the opportunity to renew a congregation’s sense of the beauty of God. They can provide a changing environment that matches the shifting moods of music or the moving themes of the church year. By their movement in procession and their display inside and outside of churches, banners can enliven the worshiper’s awareness of the dynamic quality of faith which is rooted in the living God.