Week Twelve: First Fall: Station III by Jean Charlot

March 24, 2019

Week Twelve: First Fall: Station III by Jean Charlot

As we continue my tenth anniversary survey of artists and artworks in the Sacred Art Pilgrim Collection, I have a Lenten-themed print of Christ falling under the Cross to display this week by French-born Artist Jean Charlot, one of the first pieces I acquired in my search for modern religious art. From Europe, Charlot eventually made his way to America by way of Mexico, finally settling in Hawaii, where my own artistic journey would take me to the Charlot Collection in the Hamilton library at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for a look at other works on a traditional theme of sacred art, which preoccupied the globe-trekking artist throughout his career: the Stations of the Cross. Charlot served for a time as staff artist on an archaeological dig at the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza in Yucatan. The earth-hugging, molded figures in this color lithograph from an uncompleted series on the Way of Sorrows, dating from 1948, show the influence of both Pre-Columbian pottery and wall-paintings and Polynesian folk art forms on Charlot's sacred imagery. (John Kohan)