Murals by Minerva

PROVO — If in the past you disliked Minerva Teichert's paintings because they were too loosely rendered, with the paint too thinly applied, you need to visit the Museum of Art at Brigham Young University and give the "Minerva Teichert: Pageants in Paint" exhibit a chance to win you over.

This lavish display of 47 large-scale Teichert paintings examines how the early 20th-century American mural and pageantry movements influenced her work; and how the artist's love of drama impacted every painting she created.

By experiencing her art in this context, you will see her technique and style of painting in a new light.

"This is a new approach to looking at Minerva Teichert's work," said Marian Wardle, curator of American art at the MOA and a granddaughter of the artist. "I hope it helps viewers understand where Teichert was coming from and the culture of the time, because, among other things, her paintings are cultural artifacts of her day."

Exhibition resource materials state that when Teichert (1888-1976) attended art school in Chicago and New York in the early 1900s, mural paintings and theatrical pageants were dynamic components of American popular culture. The artist embraced these popular art forms and used the visual language they provided to tell the stories of her religious heritage (the Book of Mormon paintings) and the American West.

"The aesthetics of pageants and murals are nearly identical," says the exhibition material. "Both were meant to be seen from a distance by large numbers of people for educational purposes. Both convey their messages by highlighting human form and action through the absence of detail. Both spread figures across a simple backdrop — usually a landscape — within a shallow space. And both use the same compositional devices to achieve their aesthetic goals: dramatic tableaux, processions, and theatrical poses and gestures." (Each of these last three elements is defined and explored in the exhibit.)

In "The Book of Mormon Paintings of Minerva Teichert," authors John W. Welch and Doris R. Dant explain Teichert's painting techniques: "Teichert preferred soft, welcoming tones, using creams, browns, yellows and greens to create a warm and inviting relationship with the viewer. Her colors tend to reflect the real colors of the world, rather than the garish brashness of many modern illustrators. The one exception that she always indulged herself in, however, involved the color red. Her trademark was the red accent, and she liked to say that her heaven would always contain a little bit of red."