Crèche Exhibit LUMA I

The annual Art of the Crèche exhibit of nativities from the Govan collection at the Loyola Museum of Art was back in full force this year. There were so many wonderful ones that I hadn’t seen before that I couldn’t stop taking pictures of them. So I’m going to write more than one post about them.

This one from Mexico was the first one to catch my eye. Check out that skull at the bottom. There were two more folk art ones from Mexico I loved as well.

I was especially excited to see the Santos or little saints from the French region of Provence because I recently read a book called “The Art of Living in Season: A Year of Reflections for Everyday Saints” by Sylvie Vanhoozer who grew up in Provence. Each of the chapters of the book focuses on one of the santons from a typical Provence crèche.

The book includes illustrations of each of the little saints by the author and it was wonderful to get to see them in person.  The santons in the exhibit were created by the Workshop “Santons Marcel Carbonel”. The late artist Marcel Carbonel was the first “santonnier” to fire the clay figures that artists had been making since the late 1700’s. The figures include typical rural people from Provence each carrying a gift for the baby Jesus including L’agriculture (the farmer),  La femme au fagot  (the woman with kindling), and La poissonniere (the fishmonger).

I am mostly drawn to the folk art nativities by an “unknown artist” as the exhibit labels say or by artists working in traditional styles but I also appreciate some of the more modern interpretations. I don’t think I’ve posted a picture of this one constructed of found wood by Jean Morman Unsworth in 2011.

Stay tuned for more crèche posts!