Journey of the Spirit (1921) by Glyn Philpot Style:Wood frame part performance

part performance

fresh and intimate

This striking piece from The Rainbow Collective's launch collection brings a splash of colour and a touch of sass to any space

The Met records it as watercolour

Held by the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Journey of the Spirit (1921) by Glyn Philpot Style:Wood frame part performancePainted in 1921, Journey of the Spirit shows three nude male figures striding across a stark, dreamlike landscape. Philpot turns the body into symbol: heroic, vulnerable and searching. Its muscular forms echo Michelangelo, but the mood feels less biblical than inward, a private passage through desire, faith and self knowledge. For a gay Catholic artist in interwar Britain, such imagery offered a coded way to honour male beauty and spiritual longing