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Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium
November 14, 1998 to June 28, 1999
The late art historian George Kubler wrote in The Shape of Time, "[Works of art] are like gateways, where the visitor can enter the space of the painter, or the time of the poet, to experience whatever rich domain the artist has fashioned. But the visitor must come prepared: if he brings a vacant mind or a deficient sensibility, he will see nothing."
Nearly twenty-five years ago at the beginning of his formal art career, Bernard Maisner entered the gateway of manuscript illumination, immersing himself in the study of texts from Medieval Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. He brought with him a perceptive intellect and an imagination that allowed him to mine the riches of these works, absorb their beauty and mystery, and learn the techniques of illumination.
Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium is the first comprehensive exhibition of Maisner鈥檚 art, containing over 85 works spanning the years 1975 to 1998. The exhibition reflects Maisner鈥檚 ongoing love of books and pages that began in the mid-1970s and continues to the present; his smaller works of the early to mid-1980s; his multi-paneled works of the late 1980s; the large paintings of the early 1990s; and the more expressive, loose, brush work paintings of the mid-to-late 1990s.
Eminent art historian Dore Ashton perceptively notes that Maisner does not seek to "embalm time." His work is rooted in the tradition of illumination that is well over a millennium old; but it is also modern in its concept, its use of materials (egg tempera and gold leaf sometimes juxtaposed with cigarette ash and dirt), its designs and its themes. He has been attracted to passionate writers, be they modern literary figures, musicians, composers, or ancient philosophers.
Maisner is primarily interested in non-narrative texts, which he fully integrates into the design and composition of the overall works. Words flow through hourglasses, rise like steam from a cauldron, or fly out in centrifugal spirals. Often in his microcosmic worlds, Maisner deals with ultimate concerns. As Maisner himself says, his subjects are the "questions of infinity, endlessness, beginnings, endings, emotion, intellect. Unity, opposites and paradoxes fascinate me. Creation, love, suffering, passion, and death . . ." But in pursuit of these themes, Maisner does not desire definite answers鈥攊t is sufficient for him to stand in wonder at the mystery of life.
George Kubler stated that "when a specific temperament interlocks with a favorable position, the fortunate individual can extract from the situation a wealth of previously unimagined consequences." This is the achievement of Bernard Maisner. He has seen the richness, mystery, and power of illumination with a modern eye, has understood it anew, and has presented the viewer with a "wealth of previously unimagined consequences."
After its initial presentation at MOCRA, Entrance to the Scriptorium travels to the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA; the Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX; and the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.
The exhibition catalogue features 70 color reproductions, a catalogue essay by art historian Dore Ashton, and an introduction and interview with the artist by exhibition curator Terrence Dempsey, S.J.
Bernard Maisner is not only one of the finest illuminators of manuscripts at work today, but an accomplished painter as well. His paintings andilluminations combine text, design and materials in a way unlike any other contemporary work. What results are stunning works of art that are ravishing in their beauty and intriguing in their mystery. Maisner is represented in some of this country鈥檚 most prestigious private and public collections. Born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1954, Maisner first became familiar with illuminated manuscripts during his college studies at The Cooper Union in New York.
Since that time he has been a guest lecturer, teacher and researcher at such prominent institutions as the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Cloisters Museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pierpont Morgan Library, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Maisner鈥檚 search for meaning in his art takes him in the direction of the infinite, of opposites, of reverence of Nature, and of things mystical and unanswerable. This mid-career retrospective exhibition is originating in St. Louis and will travel to six national venues.
[Bernard Maisner] set out to grasp the passage of time in living metaphors. | Dore Ashton
above:
Installation view of Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium at MOCRA, 1998鈥1999. Photo by Jeffrey Vaughn.
Related programming
Bernard Maisner: 鈥淭he Art of the Illuminator鈥
Two Lectures: Ellen Dissanayake and Jack Renard
鈥淭he Hand Acts Out a Joyous Dance鈥: Celebrating the Art of Bernard Maisner
Watch on the MOCRA Voices Vimeo channel
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Exhibition |
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Bernard Maisner: The Hourglass and the Spiral |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Erika Diettes: Sudarios |
Regina DeLuise: Vast Bhutan 鈥 Images from the Phenomenal World |
Calligraphic Art of Salma Arastu |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part Two, The Second Decade |
Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi |
Jordan Eagles: BLOOD / SPIRIT |
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part One, The First Decade |
Archie Granot: The Papercut Haggadah |
A Tribute to Frederick J. Brown |
Patrick Graham: Thirty Years 鈥 The Silence Becomes the Painting |
Adrian Kellard: The Learned Art of Compassion |
Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art |
James Rosen: The Artist and the Capable Observer |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Good Friday |
Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears |
Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace |
MOCRA at Fifteen: Pursuit of the Spirit |
Oskar Fischinger: Movement and Spirit |
The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture |
Arshile Gorky: The Early Years 鈥 Drawings and Paintings, 1927鈥1937 |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds |
Junko Chodos: The Breath of Consciousness |
DoDo Jin Ming: Land and Sea |
Rito, Espejo y Ojo / Ritual, Mirror and Eye: Photography by Luis Gonz谩lez-Palma, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Pablo Soria |
Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture: Richard Meier and Steven Holl |
Daniel Ramirez: Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus, an Homage to Oliver Messiaen |
Avoda: Objects of the Spirit 鈥 Ceremonial Art by Tobi Kahn |
Tony Hooker: The Greater Good 鈥 An Artist's Contemporary View of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study |
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds, an encore presentation |
Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds: A Fortieth Anniversary Celebration |
Lewis deSoto: Paranirvana |
Robert Farber: A Retrospective, 1985鈥1995 |
Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium |
Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses |
MOCRA: The First Five Years |
Steven Heilmer: Pietre Sante | Holy Stones |
Utopia Body Paint Collection and Australian Aboriginal Art from St. Louis Collections |
Manfred Stumpf: Enter Jerusalem |
Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece |
Edward Boccia: Eye of the Painter |
Consecrations Revisited |
Keith Haring: Altarpiece 鈥 The Life of Christ |
Ian Friend: The Edge of Belief 鈥 paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, 1980鈥1994 |
Eleanor Dickinson: A Retrospective |
Post-Minimalism and the Spiritual: Four Chicago Artists |
Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part One |
Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater |
Transformations: Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre |
Visible Conservation |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection |
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part Two 鈥 Three Major Installations |
Beyond Words: Three Contemporary Artists and the Manuscript Tradition |
MOCRA: 25 |
Gary Logan: Elements |
Gratitude |
Surface to Source |
Quiet Isn't Always Peace |
Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings |
Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections |
Lesley Dill: Dream World of the Forest |
Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE |
This Road Is the Heart Opening: Selections from the MOCRA Collection |
Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado: Cuentos Nuevomexicanos |
Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual |
Selections from the MOCRA Collection |