STILLPOINT Archive: last updated 10/28/2019
Bruce Herman's newest paintings are part of a collaborative exhibition inspired by T. S. Eliot's cycle of poems Four Quartets. Herman, professor of art and Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts at Gordon, has collaborated with fellow artist Makoto Fujimura, Yale composer Christopher Theofanidis and theologian Jeremy Begbie, on Q U 4 R T E T S. The exhibition is currently on a yearlong tour in venues in the United States and overseas.
Herman's four large works are based on the seasons of the year, the stages of life and the medieval Four Elements: earth, air, fire and water. "In Eliot's Four Quartets," he says, "a repeated theme is 'In my end is my beginning, and to make an end is to make a beginning.' The cycle of human maturation from childhood to youth to adulthood to old age is evoked. One’s childhood often presages the character of the mature person: '...for the leaves were full of children,/Hidden excitedly, containing laughter'" (“Burnt Norton”).
The image shown here is a detail of Quartets No. 1 (Spring) (oil and alkyd resin with 23 kt. gold and moon-gold leaf on wood panel, 97" x 60"), the first of the four. The model is the artist's grandson, Will Herman.
QU4RTETS EXHIBITION SCHEDULE:
November 29, 2012–January 17, 2013 | Baylor University
January 29–February 10, 2013 | Duke University
February 21–March 8 | Yale University Institute of Sacred Music (ISM)
April 13–May 1, 2013 | Gordon College (part of Celebration of the Arts, April 17–20, 2013)
For complete schedule, visit www.fujimurainstitute.org/qu4rtets.
