August 24th to September 30th over 40 pieces of art focusing on the image of the Cross are on display in Saint Mary's University Lillian Davis Hogan gallery.
The gallery is open daily from 9am to 8pm.
These works come to us as a traveling exhibition from
CIVA, Christians in the Visual Arts.
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Marc
Chagall (1887-1985) Russian/French
Christ in the Clock
9”
X 7 7/8”
Lithograph
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Fra
Antonio Lorenzini (1665-1740) Italian
Decent from the Cross
23
1/8” X 14” (paper)
Engraving
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Georges
Rouault (1871-1958) French
Golgotha
12”
X 8 6/8”
Color
intaglio
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Jacques
Villon (1875-1963) French
Crucifixion
18
1/4” X 16 1/4”
Lithograph
on gold leaf
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From the exhibition notes:
The cross is the great symbol of our Christian faith
because Christ’s Death and Resurrection are central to what we believe about
the world. Since the Christian faith has been the great producer of images of
the three monotheistic religions it is only natural to suspect that cross
images might be recurrent in the art made by Christian societies. CROSS/PURPOSE
is a sampling of some of the many forms the cross has taken over the centuries
and the purposes for which it has been used.
Historically crosses have taken the form of rude sticks
tied together and book covers of jewels and ivory. They have been worn as a
talisman against evil and as a witness of the faithful in an evil world. The
cross has been used on coinage and on banners leading armies into battle. It
has been used to enshrine the glory of Christ’s claim on the world and to
enshrine the Christian dead. Over the centuries both good and evil people have
sensed a special power in the cross’s presence and have sought to use it or
counter it for their personal ends. Constantine used the cross as a symbol of
his placing the empire under the protection of the saving Grace of Christ.
Hitler revived the pre-Christian crux
gammata (swastika) probably as a substitution for and a mockery of the
Christian cross. In so doing the Third Reich simply paid homage to its power.
The
time frame for CROSS/PURPOSE begins with a sixth century AD coin from
Constantinople, jumps to a small 15th Century woodcut by an
anonymous artist, winds through several works from the Catholic Reformation,
runs head-long into the wars and outsider art of the 20th Century,
and ends with some remarkable contemporary pieces by living artists. Along the
way one encounters figurative, abstract, expressionist, realist, and conceptual
art by such masters as Jacques Callot, Marc Chagall, Georges Rouault, Bernard
Buffet, Alfred Manessier, Jacques Villon, and Otto Dix
It
is a show rich in variety and meaning. The small realist etching Man With a Crucifix by Robert Sargent
Austin (1895-1973) holds its own against the huge color etching Man in the Shape of a T by the
contemporary Spanish artist Julio Vaquero. Vaquero’s figuration contrasts
brilliantly with the Picassoeque intaglio with color, Crucifixion by French sculpture Louis Cane. The Crucifixion by the young self-taught Michael Banks who grew up
in a housing project in Alabama owes much to the sophisticated fantasy Christ in the Clock by Marc Chagall, yet
remains fresh and new. The eloquent black Christ of Clementine Hunter works
symbiotically with Jacques Villon’s cubist rendition of the Savior as her
yellow background echoes the gold leaf ground of his lithograph. The extreme
agony of war’s cruelty is called forth by such works as Luc-Albert Moreau’s The Christ of the Camps (1944) and
Benitz’s crucifixion of a peasant.
The
varied uses of the cross are seen in the three freestanding examples in the
exhibition. There is an
instructive devotional cross from
Guatemala, a 19th Century French grave marker, and a processional
cross from Ethiopia.
It
is hoped that CROSS/PURPOSE will allow us to reevaluate this instrument of
agony and death. It is hoped that we may again see past its use as a fashion
statement and once more embrace Christ’s Cross as the central symbol of our
faith.
