The Religious Sculpture of Christian Petersen

by Dr. Lea Rosson DeLong

Brunnier Art Museum, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa

April 1, 2001

While Christian Petersen (1885-1961) came to religious sculpture late in life, during the decade proceeding his death in 1961, it dominated his production. Part of his output was in the portraiture of clerics, where he was ecumenical, sculpting honorary plaques for ministers in Ames from the Methodist (G. Samuel Nichols, 1940), Presbyterian (Walter Barlow, 1959), Lutheran (Frederick J. Weertz, c.1956-61) congregations and in Des Moines, Rabbi Eugene Mannheimer of the Temple B’Nai Jeshurun. But in his narrative sculpture, his subjects were largely drawn from concepts associated with the Catholic Church.

He began dealing in religious imagery around the end of World War II. This catastrophic war, which we know affected him deeply, must have worked together with his own ripening inclinations towards the Catholic Church in the 1940s. His conversion to Catholicism took place in 1949, but it must have been developing throughout the decade. Petersen was married (in 1931) to a faithful and practicing Catholic– Charlotte Garvey Petersen–and surely, she was an influence and facilitator in this change of heart and mind. In addition, by the late 1940s, most of Petersen’s major commissions for the Iowa State campus were behind him and, though he continued teaching sculpture classes until his retirement in 1955, he had more time to devote to his developing personal interest in religious imagery.

Religious sculpture in any style has not been an important subject in the 20^th century, though broader concepts of spirituality have been important, especially in the development of abstraction. Few major sculptors have taken up its themes: Marino Marini is probably the major figure although other sculptors such as Ernst Barlach have made occasional contributions. The Catholic Church’s patronage for sculptors of significance had ended more or less with Bernini in the 17^th century, and religious sculpture, like most sculpture in Europe and America during the 18^th-19^th centuries was basely largely on older styles: there were few innovations. Still, throughout that time until the present, Catholic churches have continued to adorn themselves with sculpture, but most of it was manufactured in stock figures using an academic style that emphasized detailed realism and a simplified, un-nuanced emotional expression. There was little notice of Modernism in style or content in the sculpture that found its way into Catholic churches.

Petersen, like many individuals and institutions, expressed antagonism toward Modernism, yet its simplifying stylizations crept into his work and helped strengthen it. He often stated his distaste for modern art and, compared to his 20^th century sculptural contemporaries, Petersen’s work is certainly traditional. Like many people of the 20^th century, he didn’t like what he saw around him and, so, as an artist, an intellectual, and unsentimental observer of the world, he was deeply affected by the tone and the tragedy of his own time. It was his insistence on looking realistically at the world and, at the same time, processing the dismay that would form his approach to religious sculpture.

A look at his religious sculpture should begin with his two most important works from the period of World War II Men of Two Wars, 1942 [Editor’s Note: this sculpture is now called Carry On.] and Price of Victory (Fallen Soldier), c.1944.

Both deal directly with the war, and both display his sorrow over the countless human tragedies it was creating. Although not strictly religious sculpture they contain religious themes that should be seen as the intellectual and emotional background of his work. Both deal with the themes of death and sacrifice (and heroism) that would be transferred to his concept of Christ.

Unknown Prisoner [Editor’s Note: This sculpture is now called Unknown Political Prisoner.] along with drawing that developed the idea, is a transition between the war sculptures and those of a clearly religious nature. Here, the figure cannot be securely assumed to be Christ although the position of crucifixion and the background of the blocky cross makes a clear connection with Christian imagery. Whether Christ or not, the figure is unmistakably a victim of torture and may further suggest they are a sacrificial victim. Petersen employs the slack-legged posture found in Price of Victory in which we feel the weight, the dragging unsupported weight of the body on the edge of life. By turning his face toward the cross, employing the nude and by the title associated with the sculpture, Petersen seems to suggest the millions of anonymous sufferers of torment and death during the war years. Most Americans would have felt the war directly in one way or another and would also have learned of the existence, if not the extent, of the concentration camps and the civilian death toll in all war zones.

Near the end of the war, Petersen began his series of figures of saints. Exactly why he chose St. Bernadette of Lourdes (1844-1879) is not known. Perhaps she was one of the favorite saints of his wife; perhaps someone at St. Cecilia Church in Ames (to which the Petersen’s presented the statue) suggested it. Perhaps as he considered his own conversion, Petersen was intrigued with the simple but firm faith of the untutored French country girl to whom the Holy Virgin chose to reveal herself. It is also possible that Petersen was responding to a 1943 movie, The Song of Bernadette, which most Americans of the time would have known. Starring as Bernadette, Jennifer Jones won the Academy Award for Best Actress that year for her sweet, but intense portrayal of the young saint. The posture of Petersen’s figure is nearly exactly the same as that assumed by Jones in the film whenever she hears and attends to the voice and vision of “the lady.” This sculpture is the only known instance in which popular culture likely influenced a finished work by Petersen.

The year of 1946 gave Petersen the first of his three major religious sculpture commissions, Madonna of the Schools (the others were St. Bernard and St. Francis Xavier) and the first time he had the opportunity to show on a large scale his capacity to deal with the subject matter.

The church of St. Cecilia, of which his wife and child were members and where his daughter, Mary, attended school, asked for a sculpture for their school. As was common with Petersen, when a commission offered him the germ of an idea, he expanded in into an entire sculptural complex, just as he had with the History of Dairying courtyard, the Fountain of the Four Seasons, Marriage Ring, and others.

His first idea incorporated a pool of water, one of his favorite elements in his campus monuments (Reclining Nudes of Robertson Hall, History of Dairying courtyard, Fountain of the Four Seasons, Marriage Ring). Seated at the head of the pool was a gentle, maternal St. Cecilia gathering around her children to whom she imparts her love of music. Cecilia is the saint for whom the Ames church is named and is also the patron saint of music. The combination of the pool with the gentle musical saint and the sweet children would have suggested the serenity, comfort and quiet joy that music, especially sacred music, often brings into life. But for some reason, probably having to do with the extensive landscaping and plumbing involved with a pool, the sculptor developed a different idea.

Madonna of the Schools followed a tradition he had established for himself at Iowa State: commissioned to produce a sculpture, he was not content to simply supply a single figure but instead developed an entire complex that involved sculpted figures, the landscape, the element of water and a relational, narrative situation which altogether created an entire environment. When he abandoned the idea of a pool, Petersen composed a more complicated concept which integrated sculpture and architecture and possessed a more dramatic and perhaps engaging tone than his earlier proposal of children gathered around St. Cecilia.

At the appearance of Madonna and Child, three children pause in their play to acknowledge her presence. The scene has some sensation of immediacy in that the children look as if they have interrupted their recess for a few quiet moments of looking attentively, staring really, before returning to their games. It is almost a trompe l’oeil effect, a term meaning a painting or a sculpture that looks so real that it momentarily “fools the eye.”

The bodies of the two boys face outward into actual space, but their torsos are twisted so that the heads look up and out at the Madonna; they still hold their baseball bat and baseballs and, in the next moment, they will turn from the Holy figures and dart back into our own space to continue their play. A girl with braids kneels and is directed entirely toward the Mother and Child in a more stable, less mobile position. Here, as well, it is easy to imagine her unfolding her hands and racing back to her playmates. This figure is likely based on Petersen’s ten-year-old daughter, Mary, who was a pupil at the school around this time. As with many works of art, by capturing a single, fleeting moment of human awareness, Petersen has suggested a timeless and enduring situation.

The Madonna is not an ethereal, insubstantial, or delicate form, but is a sturdy, earthy figure whose blockish proportions are echoed in the treatment of the figure of the Christ Child. She seems to take a step forward, creating a slight sway in her posture that assists in giving the figure a more graceful aspect. The shoulders and arms form a rectangle that encloses the body of the child and the heads converge into a triangular composition, all of which create stability in the composition. The crossing and overlapping of hands and the legs of the Child add animation.

The facial expression of both Madonna and Child is somber and, pensive. One source attributed that emotion to the fact that so many children were not being educated in a religious, specifically Catholic, atmosphere, but it may be more accurate to assign her demeanor to Petersen’s state of mind after World War II. His figures commonly expressed little overt emotion and were not strongly differentiated in their features or emotional tone. Many of his religious figures, however, seem to be actively trying to convey an emotion in their faces, often that of sorrow.

This sculptural complex received considerable attention in the Catholic press, including being the subject of a children’s feature entitled “Catholic Comics.” The comic strip illustrates a bishop and a parishioner saying, “Mr. Petersen, you are the foremost sculptor in Iowa. Here is our idea,” to which the artist replies, “Grand. It must be done in a new way, too.” Even in a comic strip, this last comment acknowledges the perception that Petersen had created a new sort of religious sculpture that, as the caption explained, “combines biblical and modern values in artistic unity.” The sculpture is “modern” in the sense of showing the boys with the baseball bat and balls and contemporary children at play. In using the term “modern values,” it is not clear what exactly Catholic comics meant to convey (perhaps what they really meant was modern life, as shown by the children with contemporary clothing and playground toys), but it certainly did convey the character of Petersen’s postwar work when it noted both its modern and traditional qualities.

The strength of Petersen’s work in this religious genre is that it uses traditional forms but infuses them with an awareness that humanity has experienced a new and unprecedented horror in the warfare, genocide and atomic destruction of the 20^th century. The gravity infused into his figures of Christ in particular never allow us to forget what tragedies had been visited upon humanity, just as Petersen himself seemed almost obsessively mindful of the war and its aftermath.

Much of this overwhelming concern on his part is expressed through drawings in which he explored many themes related to war and its effect upon the spirit. The drawings deal with the realities of a world without peace. Some show soldiers wounded while other soldiers minister to them; one series depicts the return of a wounded veteran, but many present a Christ figure who is saddened by, as one drawing identified, “the evil that surrounds him.”

Petersen’s works reinterpret some old themes in light of the 20^th century; they are not sentimental, nor do they offer a false, lulling comfort. There is the feeling that the events of our century have imparted to these hold figures, as they have to human history, a sober awareness and sorrow that is permanent. Sweet-faced Madonna and confident, triumphant Christs are not to be found in Petersen’s religious art.

Around the time he finished Madonna of the Schools, Petersen’s conversion to Catholicism took place, and it seems to have inspired him to several depictions of Christ. Of this group, the most important may be Christ with Bound Hands, a figure of which he made three casts, one for Archbishop Rohlman of the Dubuque Diocese who had administered the sacrament of Confirmation to the artist. Afterwards he wrote to the Archbishop in one of the few times he recorded his emotions: “Words are inadequate as expression of my feelings upon being accepted into your family at the beautiful ceremony in your chapel…. The last weekend has been of such import that it takes time to assimilate the full significance thereof….”

Into this figure of Christ With Bound Hands, Petersen seems to have put some of his own personal concepts of Christ and his fate at the hands of this world. He depicts a figure of power who willingly and knowingly submits to judgment. In a rare commentary on one of his sculptures, Petersen explained that this was Christ as he was being judged in the Roman court of Pontius Pilate, an instance in which he showed his true kingship. His role as king, according to Petersen, is usually recognized after his resurrection, but Petersen felt that that quality was present earlier, as he stood trial. He wrote in response to a question about this sculpture: “I have acted upon the conviction that the royal bearing and divine power of the Son of Man must somehow have revealed themselves in His suffering countenance and manacled hands, and that His contempt for the insincerity and futility of the secular might arrayed against Him must have been softened by His infinite mercy. This Kingship of Christ is timeless; and the opposition to it is timeless, too. In the statue, I have tried to depict the timeless King judging his judges.”

Obviously from this statement, it is clear that Petersen wanted to capture a complex state of mind and deal with more than one emotion. It is not just Christ’s suffering that he is concerned with, but also his knowledge of the injustice being done him and a mixture of “contempt” and “mercy.” Aside from the expression of the face, the body itself helps carry the sculptor’s message. It is undeniably a powerful body, on whom the rope around hands seems rather insubstantial. The lower body, covered by a cloak, is translated into a strongly cylindrical, stable base. There is the impression that this is a person fully capable of defending himself physically and intellectually, but who, by the strength of his own will, submits to powers which he knows he could overcome.

In a study that may be related to this concept of Christ, Petersen wrote the words “all the evils which have kept him prisoner,” suggesting that the continued presence of evil in the world and in human actions necessitate the ongoing suffering and sacrifice of Christ to atone for them. The figure often reminds me of a comment by G.K. Chesterton who was asked how he could justify Christianity after the slaughter of the First World War. He replied that the problem was not that Christianity had been tried and had failed, but that it had never really been tried at all.

An unsigned inscription on the back of a photograph of this sculpture found in the Petersen Papers explains, “This concept of Christ grew from Christian Petersen’s feeling after World War II concerning the inhumanity of man towards man. The muscular Christ represents power, the power that was meant to be used in goodness by man. But conflict between nations and races, man’s self-indulgence, and greediness – ‘All the evils which have kept him prisoner’–bind the hands, the power, of Christ.”

In 1950, Petersen began work on two monument religious sculptures, both commissioned by Catholic communities in Iowa. Saint Francis Xavier is the tallest figure Petersen created and was designed for the basilica and school of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Dyersville. In a postwar world that was rapidly becoming post-colonial as well, it might seem that evangelical saints would not inspire flattering treatments. Yet, Petersen seems to have assessed them in the most positive way possible, trying to capture their deeply held faith and sense of mission. He seems to concentrate on the good such emissaries intended to do and not on what many would judge to be negative consequences of spreading the Christian faith.

St. Francis Xavier (1506–1552) was a founding member of the Jesuit order and then traveled to India and east Asia as a missionary. The statue depicts him holding aloft his crucifix, gospel book clutched in the other hand. His stance is firm and his posture authoritative, as if he is gripped by an unquestioned determination to convert and save these distant populations. Unlike the figure of Christ in Petersen’s work, who is often shown holding himself in check, self-contained, and contemplative, this religious figure of St. Francis Xavier is full of activity and assertion.

Three panels on the large base of the statue add to the narrative of the saint’s life: one is a map of India and Asia where he carried out his evangelism; the second shows him kneeling in prayer with a sailing ship and an island of palm trees referring to his travels and the exotic lands to which he journeyed; the third depicts the saint teaching the Christian faith to four Asian children. These last two scenes, which might seem so problematic for us today, were Petersen’s testament to his reverence for his new religion and the fervor and devotion brought to it by this saint of the 16^th century.

Petersen’s other important commission was for a figure of St. Bernard of Clairvaux for the theological seminary of Mount Saint Bernard in Dubuque. Like St. Francis Xavier, Bernard (1090/1–1153) is best known for his expansion of the Cistercian order and his preaching of the Second Crusade (1147–1149)

The artist’s earliest concept of this saint is shown in a clay model which depicts him actively gesturing, as if in the midst of one of his persuasive sermons. He was known as an eloquent speaker and an impulsive, zealous organizer and leader. All of these qualities are suggested in Petersen’s interpretation: the mouth is partly open as if speaking, one foot steps forward as the body twists and the arms gesticulate, especially the right one which swings across the body setting the sleeve of his cloak in motion. It is a vigorous, engaging figure.

For reasons not known today, Petersen altered this tone in his final sculpture, which was a less emotional, more circumspect figure. Here, St. Bernard strides resolutely forward on one of his many journeys, not preaching or speaking. He is a far more self-contained figure, less actively engaged with the outside world and more focused on the internal impetus that fuels his purposeful stride.

The sculpture itself has gone on two journeys, one from Petersen’s studio in Ames to the seminary in Dubuque in 1954 and then forty-three years later, back to central Iowa to the parish of St. Bernard in Breda. When the seminary closed and the facility passed to the possession of the Presentation Sisters, the sculpture was offered to this rural parish which then had to arrange for the daunting task of getting it back and installed safely. In a spirit of cooperation and generosity that seems appropriate for a statue of such a tireless traveler, the people of this community carried out their mission through volunteer efforts and contributions.

Both sculptures were produced at a time when a sculpture of a saint would have seemed a dead and completely tradition-bound enterprise, but Petersen seems not to have been concerned with current state of religious statuary and instead developed his own concept of these men of faith. He does not seem to have found them irrelevant to his contemporary concerns, but instead animates them with a fervent faith and an active engagement with the world. They seem less shadowy holy figures from a distant, ill-defined past than figures that take on the world anew, whose faith and resolution, self-discipline and focus are needed to recover from the traumas of warfare and destruction.

At the time of his death in 1961, Petersen had created a substantial body of work in religious themes. In addition, he tried to reinterpret many of them in ways that would make them resonate with the later 20^th century. There is no denying that many aspects of his work were traditional in that he chose well-known (and often interpreted) figures such as Christ, the Madonna and Child, and prominent saints and that he continued to work in a figurative mode. He did not reconfigure them in Modern styles such as abstraction as did other artists (such as Marc Chagall) and yet, there, as in nearly all of his work, a nod to Modernism in the underlying simplicity and abbreviation that at times edged towards abstraction.

In his few writings and his drawings, we can trace his preoccupation in the postwar years with a spiritual state of mind, derived largely from his distress over the war and its aftermath and partly from his own religious evolution. He felt strongly that he had lived through a time of great tragedy. Many of my conclusions about this period in his life are drawn not only from the finished sculptures, a few of which have been discussed here, but very much from his drawings of the period. His commissions had slowed down, and he seems to have used drawing as a way to speculate about and experiment with ideas for giving form to his feelings. Much of this output is related to the sculptures he produced, but a good deal of it seems to be a way of thinking about life – and death. My impression from his drawings is that he would have liked to have the opportunity to design a war memorial that would integrate his spirituality and his belief that many of the world’s ills could be dealt with by turning to religious faith.

Obviously, that never happened, but these ideas and feelings were parceled out in a series of finished sculptures that brought traditional religious figures into our own time. Of all his sculptures, they are the ones which express the greatest range of emotion, and which give us our most direct insight into the artistic and spiritual life of the artist.