Divine Designs
The University of Tennessee’s McClung Museum has orchestrated a Harmonic Convergence of beauty.
The museum has collected 50 works of art representing five major world religions — Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism — for the exhibit “Sacred Beauty: A Millennium of Sacred Art, 600-1600,” opening Saturday, Sept. 8 and continuing through Jan. 6, 2008.
That’s 600-1600 CE (or AD, if you haven’t updated your time-measurement phraseology). The five major world religions were in place by then. Islam, the infant of the bunch, was founded by Muhammad in the 7th century.
Those 1,000 years cover the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods in Europe — and fall 2007 just happens to be designated the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Semester at the university.
It’s a happy, unplanned convergence. Plans for the “Sacred Beauty” exhibit began more than two years ago.
McClung Executive Director Jeff Chapman coordinated the exhibit. He has traveled freely to choose objects for loan from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Asian Society of New York, Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., among many other institutions and private collections.
“I think for Knoxville this is a really unique opportunity to see examples of the art of these five religions,” says Chapman.
“There are some exceptional pieces in the exhibit. We’re getting a couple that were on exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that they are removing to lend us.”
The exhibit includes a large Islamic prayer rug; a large stone statue of Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god; A Renaissance-era painting of the Madonna and Child; a 42-inch-high statue of Buddha covered in gold leaf; and a rabbinical circumcision kit.
“There are some very fine pieces,” Chapman says. “We were very lucky for the Hindu (objects), for example.” The exhibit offers a “Nataraj, the Dancing Shiva a really iconic piece that you see in every art book that addresses Hinduism.”
Visitors to the exhibit may claim a free 28-page, full color catalog.
“The catalog is exquisite,” Chapman says. “There is an essay on each religion, written by a (UT) scholar. We illustrate each of those (essays) with the pieces from the exhibit.”
The catalogs are free courtesy of a grant from Bank of America.
Two programs are offered during the run of the “Sacred Beauty” exhibit.
The academic advisers for the exhibit will each discuss two or three objects from the exhibit in an illustrated program that begins at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct 7. The advisers are UT faculty members in art, history and religious studies.
There will be a program on Mary Magdalene at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16. One of the objects on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a 15th century reliquary that purportedly contains a tooth of Mary Magdalene.
Participants in the program will discuss the reliquary and the legend of Mary Magdalene in the Middle Ages, perform medieval and Renaissance music devoted to Mary Magdalene, and read scenes from a medieval play about the female disciple of Jesus Christ.
Doug Mason may be reached at 865-342-6441.
© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
