The Art Museum of West Virginia University and The Friends of the Museum will hold the first “Art Up Close!” event of the fall semester, which focuses on individual works of art from the museum collection. The Sept. 9 presentation will feature WVU art history professor Janet Snyder discussing a limestone relief from the Milton Horn Collection of the WVU Art Collection.

Titled “Looking at a minor masterwork in the WVU Art Collection: ‘Crucifixion with Mary and John,’” the lecture will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the Museum Education Center adjacent to the WVU Creative Arts Center. All the events are free and open to the public.

“Crucifixion with Mary and John” is a fragile 15th-century carving that is currently being carefully preserved by the Art Museum of WVU as it awaits conservation. The Milton Horn Collection, including this relief, reveals how modern artists research and collect ideas. Visitors to the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center may be familiar with the pylons at the front entrance that were created by Milton Horn in 1954.

According to Snyder, “Crucifixion with Mary and John” demonstrates the power of medieval sculpture to move those who the take the time to observe the details that were included by the artists who made it.

Combining the use of her own detailed photographs of this monument and illustrations of contemporaneous panel paintings, Snyder will show that the anonymous sculptor created different surface textures to indicate linen or woolen textiles, and that the emotional meaning of the scene has been conveyed through delicate gestures and rich expression. She will also show how the original artist not only capitalized upon what everyone recognized as traditional colors when painting the stone, but also introduced gold and original elements of composition to intensify the powerful moment depicted in this relief carving.

Snyder is the coordinator of the Art History Program in the WVU School of Art and Design. She received her doctorate in art history from Columbia University where her fields were medieval art and architecture and Native American art. She received her Master of Fine Arts in design for theater from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Snyder’s book, “Early Gothic Column-Figure Sculpture in France: Appearance, Materials, and Significance” (Ashgate 2011) examines the representation of textiles and clothing in northern French stone sculpture and the production of this sculpture. Her publications, papers, and lectures emphasize the context for medieval sculpture. She is also co-editor of the book “Blanche Lazzell: The Life and Work of an American Modernist” (WVU Press, 2004) and the book “Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002).

She has presented papers at the British Museum, the International Congress for Medieval Art, the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, and meetings of the Southeastern College Art Conference, the Medieval Academy, the College Art Association and the Midwest Art History Society.

Her teaching fields are ancient and medieval European art and architecture, the art of northern Europe during the Renaissance, and the visual culture of Native North Americans.

The Art Up Close! presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session and light refreshments. Audience members will have the opportunity to view the actual work of art.

For more information, contact the Art Museum of WVU at (304) 293-2141 or see the website at: http://www.ccarts.wvu.edu/art_museum.

-WVU-

cl/9/8/14

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, College of Creative Arts
304-293-4359, Charlene.Lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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