New exhibitions at university museums across the Midwest and all the way to the Curia in Rome illustrate the value Jesuits place on visual art
By Amy Korpi
Since the first cave drawings, humankind has used art to teach, tell stories, and inspire. In the Christian tradition, art has helped worshipers communicate and experience the idea of transcendence. Ever since Ignatius of Loyola commissioned an illustrated book of Gospel meditations, the Society of Jesus has been involved in creating and promoting artistic media.
According to recently deceased historian Fr. John O’Malley, SJ, co-editor of The Jesuits and the Arts 1540-1773, “By the late 16th century, the Jesuits became the most prolific patrons and producers of arts in the world.” They were building new churches with novel architecture, adorning them with paintings and sculptures, and making good use of the printing press. Unlike the leaders of many Catholic orders of his time, Ignatius appreciated the revelatory power of the imagination in prayer and contemplation.
CURIA COMMISSIONS
A new collection that invites such contemplation—Heaven’s Heart—can be found at the headquarters of the Society of Jesus in Rome. When Father General Arturo Sosa, SJ, wanted to imbue the walls in the “Father General’s Corridor” with greater warmth, life and mission, he selected Fr.
Arturo Araujo, SJ, an artist and associate professor of visual arts at Seattle University. Together they determined that the subjects should evoke the Society’s Universal Apostolic Preferences (UAPs): showing the way to God; caring for our common home; walking with the excluded; and journeying with youth.
One of the collection’s pieces, God, The Creator, is featured on the cover of this magazine. It measures approximately 6 x 7 feet and combines digital printing, silkscreen, watercolor and gold foiling with ultra-smooth fine art paper on wooden canvas.
According to the artists (Fr. Araujo involved his students in the creation), the piece “illustrates a child’s imagination, and its parallels to God’s creations. Imagination stems from a youth’s environment and its role as the source of their initial creative pursuits.”
The image employs a photo from the archives of the Jesuit Refugee Service, which serves displaced people around the globe. In the photo, a young Kenyan refugee is writing on a blackboard. “What I saw was not a boy but God himself in the act of creation,” Fr. Araujo says.
MIDWESTERN EXHIBITS EMPOWER IMAGINATION
One need not travel to Rome to appreciate art within a Jesuit context. Many colleges and universities nationwide are homes to collections of art that educate and inspire
Following are just a few in the Midwest.
The Lied Art Gallery at Creighton University presents exhibitions of contemporary art throughout the academic year, showcasing the work of regional, national and international artists as well as Creighton students and faculty. “We believe that all people should embrace the arts as
a way to organize aesthetic thought, nourish their soul, and continue lifelong learning,” says the gallery’s director Jess Benjamin.
Founded in 2005, the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA) in Chicago provides a space for “artistic expression that illuminates the experiences of humanity and the spirit through connection, engagement and reflection. As a university museum, the LUMA supports the power of art to inspire and educate,” says Matt McDermott, Loyola University Chicago’s associate director of external communications. He calls the Martin D’Arcy, SJ, Collection “one of the finest collections of medieval, Renaissance,
and Baroque art in the Midwest.” Recent LUMA exhibitions include Art and Faith of the Crèche, a holiday tradition for over a decade, with more
than 60 crèches representing the local cultures of artists and artisans from more than 50 countries. The LUMA also has a permanent collection titled Windows of Faith, featuring five windows from local artists who capture the culture and history of their faith through a rich lexicon of visual imagery and symbols.
Ninety miles to the north, Marquette University’s Haggerty Museum of Art
“aligns with the Ignatian tradition of teaching and learning, and provides an instrument for finding meaning in life through imagination, feelings, and reflection,” says Susan Longhenry, the museum’s director and chief curator.
One prominent piece in the collection, Marc Chagall’s Bible drawings, does all these things.
Each year, students in MU’s Foundations in Theology course view and discuss the powerful portfolio of 105 black-and-white, selectively hand-colored etchings depicting scenes from the Old Testament. “As a modern, Jewish artist not tethered to traditional Christian interpretations of the Biblical text, Chagall developed a unique visual vocabulary that synthesized elements
from diverse cultural and artistic traditions,” Longhenry says. The exhibition Robert Motherwell: Contemplative Beholding provided another collaboration between an exhibition and a theology course. In 2021, students in a class titled Contemplation and Justice in a Violent World, beheld a work of art for 20 minutes every week, then wrote a reflection expressing what they saw, how they felt, and the way the work changed for them over time. “My thought, supported by the literature, is that the disciplined practice of beholding will allow students to perceive everything more clearly,” says Fr. Ryan Duns, SJ, who teaches the class. The Haggerty also provides a lab for faculty.
In 2022, the museum partnered with Marquette’s Center for Teaching and Learning on Ignatian Pedagogy: Spiritual Seeking and Visual Thinking.
This professional development seminar sought to help faculty utilize art as an instrument for finding meaning in life through imagination, feelings and reflection; articulate how art can offer an alternative way of “knowing” that strengthens students’ capacity to generate calm, enhance focus and cultivate self-awareness; reflect on personal identity and faith journeys; and more.
The museum will continue such aims in 2023—collaborating with faculty to advance the university’s commitment to environmental justice.
The Xavier University Art Galleries in Cincinnati host exhibitions of artwork by professional visual artists, as well as students and faculty in the department of art. Recent special exhibitions and programs include FotoFocus, The Art of Romare Bearden, Mirror of Race, Focus on Race, Native Americans and King Records.
A summer 2023 exhibition titled PJ Sturdevant, Photographs – June 1-July 31, 2023 – A Record of Disuse, is a collection of photographic prints featuring objects that were once functional. Now worn, discarded or even unrecognizable, the objects may cause the viewer to wonder what their original functions may have been.
“We believe art can transform lives, and that exposure to art as part of the broader tapestry of society enriches us all,” says Kitty Uetz, director of Xavier University Art Galleries.
