{"id":152609,"date":"2023-04-06T14:08:30","date_gmt":"2023-04-06T18:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=152609"},"modified":"2023-04-07T17:33:02","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T21:33:02","slug":"created-in-1971-a-sculpture-of-the-crucifixion-with-a-bates-and-brazilian-provenance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2023\/04\/06\/created-in-1971-a-sculpture-of-the-crucifixion-with-a-bates-and-brazilian-provenance\/","title":{"rendered":"Created in 1971, a sculpture of the crucifixion with a Bates and Brazilian provenance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On April 12, 1971, one day after Easter Sunday, a 23-year-old Brazilian artist in residence at Bates showed one of his newest works to a gathering of fellow artists: a strikingly tall wood sculpture depicting Jesus Christ on the cross.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifty-two years later, with this month being an important time for many faiths, including the Christian Holy Week, we brought the sculpture out into the bright springtime light at Lake Andrews for a closer look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also sought insight about the art and artist from two Bates people with different perspectives: a Bates alumnus from Brazil who was at that April 1971 event in Chase Hall, and the Rev. Dr. Brittany Longsdorf, the college\u2019s multifaith chaplain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a height of 7 feet and a width of 5 feet, 8 inches, the sculpture, which is safely stored at Bates, was carved from pine boards by Ziltamir Sebasti\u00e3o Soares de Maria, aka \u201cManxa,” a nickname he got from a white shock of hair he had a young age, a stain or manchinha<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The artist Ziltamir Sebasti\u00e3o Soares de Maria, aka \u201cManxa,\u201d at work in Chase Hall during his residency at Bates in 1971. The unfinished sculpture of the crucifixion is behind him on the wall. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Manxa was one of several visiting Brazilian artists who came to Bates starting in 1968 into the early 1970s under Partners of the Alliance, a federal cultural exchange program between Maine and its Brazilian sister state, Rio Grande do Norte. During Manxa’s time at Bates he created a number of works, leaving them as gifts to the college. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manxa\u2019s dramatically-scaled sculpture of Christ on the cross hews closely to traditional depictions of the crucifix, says Longsdorf, who teaches the First-Year Seminar \u201cArts and Spirituality\u201d and whose doctoral dissertation looks at how U.S. college chaplains can embrace the arts to meet the needs of students of diverse religions as well as nonreligious students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sculpture depicts the Five Holy Wounds, Christ\u2019s crown of thorns, and the initialism INRI<\/em>, which stands for the Latin phrase \u201cIesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum<\/em>,\u201d or \u201cJesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,\u201d the sign that Pontious Pilate had affixed to the cross of Jesus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s worth noting, Longsdorf says, is that Christ\u2019s eyes are wide open, rather than closed and downcast, as in some depictions. \u201cThere\u2019s pain and suffering, yet Christ\u2019s eyes are open. It\u2019s like we are awake to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"What:
The Brazilian sculptor Ziltamir Sebasti\u00e3o Soares de Maria, aka “Manxa,” created this wood sculpture, Auto Retrato Do Meu Povo<\/em>, or \u201cSelf Portrait of My People,\u201d while in residence at Bates in spring 1971. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another departure from tradition is that Christ is holding fruit and leaves in his hands. This might suggest that \u201chis suffering is really about resilience and growth, which is different from most crucifix pieces.\u201d Manxa left some open space around the arms of the sculpture, which \u201cemphasizes the body over the cross,\u201d Longsdorf says. \u201cIt draws your attention to the body and the wounds, both the pain and awakeness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This depiction refrains from implying the Resurrection, Longsdorf says. \u201cThis is still the Good Friday scene, the crucifixion, and Christian traditions try to let there be grief and sadness and loss between Friday and when Easter brings joy. You need that liminal space of mystery and grief, so that when the stone is rolled away, there’s surprise and joy together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"What:
A detail of the bottom of the sculpture by Manx that depicts the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Humberto Torres \u201973 and his cousin Luiz Torres \u201974, who both came to Bates from Sao Paulo, were at that April 1971 luncheon. Humberto now lives in the city of Natal in Rio Grande do Norte, in Brazil\u2019s Northeast Region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI recall Manxa describing the fruit [that Christ is holding in his hands] as cashew, though the fruit is not exactly as he carved it. The leaves are from the cashew tree too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cashew is a major cash crop in Brazil\u2019s Northeast Region and Rio Grande do Norte. \u201cSome families cultivate cashew as their main income. The nut grows outside the fruit; you need to roast them and crack them out of the shell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"What:
The sculpture’s depiction shows Christ with his eyes open. \u201cThere\u2019s pain and suffering, yet Christ\u2019s eyes are open. It\u2019s like we are awake to it,” said the Rev. Dr. Brittany Longsdorf, the college\u2019s multifaith chaplain. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Manxa wrote the work\u2019s title on the back in Portuguese: Auto Retrato Do Meu Povo<\/em>, or \u201cSelf Portrait of My People.\u201d To appreciate its meaning beyond religion, one must know about Manxa’s homeland in Brazil\u2019s Northeast Region, says Torres. \u201cIt\u2019s the poorest area of Brazil, and much worse in 1971 than today, plagued by long droughts and constant neglect by all<\/em> levels of government, with poor health and poor education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the phrase \u201cmy people,\u201d Manxa might mean \u201cthe population of the interior of [Brazil\u2019s] entire Northeast,\u201d says Torres. \u201cSome rhetoric compares the suffering of \u2018my people\u2019 to the suffering of Christ on the cross, and that faith in God \u2014 Jesus Christ \u2014 is their only hope of survival.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Says Longsdorf, \u201cIt\u2019s a really beautiful way to name the way, probably the religious practices of his culture, and also art in his culture, that are both so deeply a part of the shared lived experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the bottom of the sculpture, Manxa added a personal detail, carving his name, the date of the Bates events, and a symbol of a circle and cross radiating light next to his name. \u201cI interpret it as a carved globe, with the cross above and the rays, as representing Jesus in his glory,\u201d Torres says. \u201cIt resembles the Catholic icon that depicts Jesus as a child with a globe in his hands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The circle has a diagonal line through it, which Torres thinks might suggest an armillary sphere, a navigation device associated with the Portuguese during the age of discoveries. \u201cIt made it possible for them to cross oceans and not be lost in the middle of nowhere. It has a line, the Milky Way, crossing the sphere. So the line carved crossing the globe could be taken from this instrument.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"This
At the bottom of the sculpture, Manxa added the date of the Bates event (April 12, 1971), his name, and circle and cross radiating light. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The guests who came to Bates to meet Manxa in 1971 were an eclectic group of both homegrown and from-away artistic talent reflecting the burgeoning and quirky arts community of early 1970s Maine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was Robert Phinney, a carpenter who hand-built a funky pine-board cabin on the Kennebec River that was the subject of Robert Petroski\u2019s book The House with Sixteen Handmade Doors<\/em><\/a>. And Dutch-born Harry Stump, known as \u201cMaine psychic sculptor<\/a>,\u201d whose adventures in the Dutch Underground made him a hero. And sculptor Ronald Therrien, who cast the bronze statue The Lobsterman<\/em> displayed on Canal Plaza in Portland. And sculptor and painter Nancy McGuire, identified in a newspaper article as \u201cMrs. Robert McGuire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A photograph and cutline from the April 12, 1971, edition of the Lewiston Evening Journal<\/em> shows Manxa with Auto Retrato Do Meu Povo<\/em>, or \u201cSelf Portrait of My People.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Bates faculty on hand that day reflected the college\u2019s strengthening arts pulse, aided by arts champion President Hedley Reynolds, who hosted the lunchtime gathering in Chase and who would later secure major funding to build the Olin Arts Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esteemed poet and Professor of English John Tagliabue was there. Three years earlier, he had traveled to Brazil with Partners of the Alliance. Also there was Don Lent, who had arrived a year earlier as Dana Professor of Art. Thanks to Lent\u2019s work, Bates would add art as an academic major in 1972. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Torres recalls that Reynolds and others visited Brazil in fall 1967. “I was the interpreter for the group, with them full-time.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back home in Rio Grande do Norte, Manxa continued as a working artist, working in mediums that included steel, marble and concrete, as well as wood. \u201cHe left a lot of work all over the city, and some in other towns,\u201d says Torres. He had a role in the creation of the huge Portico dos Reis Magos<\/em>, or Statues of the Wise Men. \u201cThe administration building of the Federal State University has a huge work, and the chapel at the university has one of his works in concrete.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"What:
Seen against the blue April sky, the sculpture Auto Retrato Do Meu Povo, or Self Portrait of My People. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Manxa died on March 19, 2013, in S\u00e3o Vicente, where he was born and lived for many years. An artists\u2019 website has this personal statement, translated from the Portuguese:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI am a plastic artist, sculptor in granite, marble, bronze and wood. I am also dedicated to agriculture and cattle and horse breeding. I love my children and nature with its ecosystem, thanking my beloved God every day for all this wonder of life that he has given us on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An alumnus from Brazil and the college’s multifaith chaplain explain the history and meaning of a sculpture of the crucifixion created at Bates in 1971.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":152639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,11010],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152609"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152785,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152609\/revisions\/152785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}