Austin Museum of Art
Austin, TX
512.495.9224 Downtown - 512.458-8191 Laguna Gloria
http://www.amoa.org/
Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium
/ Contemporary Illuminated Manuscripts and Paintings
February 12 - April 30, 2000
"Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium / Contemporary Illuminated
Manuscripts and Paintings" presents 25 years of work by New York artist
Bernard Maisner. An innovative and singular figure in contemporary art,
Maisner has developed a complex iconography of ancient and contemporary
symbols and techniques in his meticulously crafted illuminated paintings.
Like Blake and Heraclitus, whose writings he weaves into his compositions,
Maisner seeks to uncover the originating principle of systems. In 55 drawings,
paintings, illuminated pages, and books, this exhibition examines what art
historian Dore Ashton has called Maisner's "love of riddles, of all
that is cryptic, that has kindled the spirit of inquiry felt throughout
his work." (left: The one who loves... (Henry Miller),
1982, egg tempera, gold leaf, shell gold, ink, paper, 3 1/8 x 3 11/16 inches)
From
his earliest days as an artist, Maisner studied original medieval texts
at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, and the Bibliothéque National
in Paris. He spent years acquiring the medieval techniques of gold leaf,
calligraphy, and interlace, incorporating the manuscripts' seamless integration
of script and image into his own work. Although Maisner is scrupulous in
maintaining the authenticity of these techniques, he combines them in contemporary,
unexpected ways: Using calligraphy, the artist integrates writings by such
diverse modem authors as Franz Kafka, Anaïs Nin, and Henry Miller into
his works. His applications of gold leaf, woven through luminous layers
of collage and glazes, can be read as contemporary abstractions, or depictions
of symbols from Eastern metaphysical thought. Maisner's formative influences
are diverse. He has studied biology and subatomic physics, and is fascinated
by Rorschach signs, rebuses, and the early Renaissance works of Flemish
painter Rogier van der Weyden. (left: Moment of Flight, 1987,
acrylic, watercolor, graphite, gold leaf and sand on stretched paper, 36
x 24 inches)
In
recent years, Maisner has moved from miniatures to large-scale paintings,
freeing the artist from the rigorous control of the miniaturist's grid,
and allowing him to experiment with rich, allusive juxtapositions of forms
and images. Several critics have noted the dreamlike quality of these recent
compositions and their resemblance to that anticipatory moment that precedes
creative thought. (left: Yes, 1989, oil, ink, mulberry paper,
and damar on canvas, 60 x 60 inches)
This exhibition is curated by Terrence E. Dempsey, SJ,
and organized by the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, Saint Louis University,
St. Louis, Missouri. It is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue
with an essay by the renowned art historian Dore Ashton. The catalogue is
available in the Museum Store.
Read more in Resource Library
Magazine about Austin Museum of
Art.
rev. 12/23/10
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Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2010 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
"Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium / Contemporary Illuminated
Manuscripts and Paintings" presents 25 years of work by New York artist
Bernard Maisner. An innovative and singular figure in contemporary art,
Maisner has developed a complex iconography of ancient and contemporary
symbols and techniques in his meticulously crafted illuminated paintings.
Like Blake and Heraclitus, whose writings he weaves into his compositions,
Maisner seeks to uncover the originating principle of systems. In 55 drawings,
paintings, illuminated pages, and books, this exhibition examines what art
historian Dore Ashton has called Maisner's "love of riddles, of all
that is cryptic, that has kindled the spirit of inquiry felt throughout
his work." (left: The one who loves... (Henry Miller),
1982, egg tempera, gold leaf, shell gold, ink, paper, 3 1/8 x 3 11/16 inches)
