amamblog:

Depicted on this chasse is the beheading of Thomas à Becket at the altar of Canterbury Cathedral by knights of King Henry II (the result of an ongoing feud between Becket and Henry over the separation of Church and State). Becket’s blood stained the floor and was collected by the cathedral clergy, diluted with water, and distributed to pilgrims who traveled to Canterbury after the saint’s death. Known as “Becket Water,” this mixture was said to perform miracles, curing illnesses and healing deformities when consumed. Limoges Becket chasses like this one may have contained Becket Water at one point, or perhaps the saint’s corporeal relics that were distributed all over Western Europe.

Image:
French
Reliquary Chasse Depicting the Martyrdom of Saint Thomas à Becket, ca. 1210
Gilded copper alloy and champlevé enamel over wood core
Gift of Baroness René de Kerchove, 1952.20 

amamblog:

Clare Leighton - Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights

Known for her illustrations of nineteenth-century British novels by authors like Thomas Hardy, Claire Leighton also wrote prolifically on the virtues of rural life in an increasingly urban and industrial world. This series of wood engravings for the 1931 Random House edition of Wuthering Heights combines Leighton’s cherished English countryside with the brooding moors of the novel’s romanticized Yorkshire landscape. Written in 1846, Wuthering Heights was the only novel by Emily Brontë, a member of the famous Brontë family of writers. Leighton’s series of twelve illustrations depicts both crucial moments in the book’s narrative, which chronicles the passionate but doomed love story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, as well as tangential episodes and characters.

These works are on view in the exhibition “Representing the Word: Modern Book Illustrations” through July 31. 

Image: 

Clare Leighton (English, 1900–1989)
Heathcliff’s Grief, from the series Wuthering Heights, 1930
Wood engraving
Gift of Mrs. Malcolm L. McBride

amamblog:

In celebration of the 150th Anniversary of Oberlin College and Town in 1983, AMAM curator William Olander organized the exhibition Art and Social Change, U.S.A., in celebration of Oberlin’s long tradition of social awareness. The exhibition featured artwork by John Ahearn, Nancy Buchanan, Sarah Charlesworth, John Fekner, Mike Glier, Jenny Holzer, Peter Huttinger, Barbara Kruger, and Sherrie Levine, as well as performances by Candace Hill-Montgomery (b. 1945) and Eric Bogosian (b. 1953, OC ‘76). The performances provided direct social critique that complemented the work of the other artists in the exhibition, located not only in the galleries, but in the museum courtyard, Tappan Square, and around town. 

To inaugurate the exhibition, Hill-Montgomery performed Win Within Eye Shot Out. The piece was text based, but defied classification as a poetry reading. Hill-Montgomery’s reading was accompanied and occasionally  interrupted by the piercing voice of opera singer Lisa Dunbar. The spare performance, like Hill-Montgomery’s other work, utilized the artist’s perspective as a black female artist to heighten awareness of contemporary race and gender issues. In contrast, Eric Bogosian’s two-part performance, comprised of Voices of America and Funhouse, critiqued current social issues by taking on the guise of the undesirable and desperate characters of the American landscape: the drug pusher, the criminal, the alcoholic, the beggar, the insurance salesman. These characters, which the artist sought to reinsert into public consciousness, grew out of Bogosian’s observations of daily life on subways, in diners, and on city streets.

This work is on view through May 26 in the focus exhibition ’Performance at Oberlin,’ which chronicles the history of performance art at Oberlin College since the 1970s, curated by Thomas Huston (OC ‘13).

Image:
Poster for Live Performance, Art & Social Change, 1983
AMAM Exhibition Archives