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People and Faces

By Fr. Johann Roten, S.M.

Benjamin Miller was a skilled and sensitive observer. The many woodcuts that picture individuals in various circumstances are an open book to melancholy, solitude, angst of indifference and rejection. There is a deep craving for understanding and bonding in many of Miller's faces. There is the hungry visionary look of the poet (Edgar Allen Poe), the faded seduction of the harlot, the timid expectation of the lady au café, and the dreamless face of the sleeping girl. Miller shows special empathy for victims of fate and social injustice. Part weary, part defiant, the face of the refugee tell the history of hope deceived. The lame man with blind eyes is scrutinizing a life curtailed and broken. The blind man has turned his life outside-in. His face is bathed in quiet interiority and radiates the peace of hope retrieved.

Miller's art, in some ways, is reminiscent of Evelyn Underhill's deep cravings. For the English mystic, each person is guided by three fundamental cravings which are to be a pilgrim, a lover, and an ascetic. We are pilgrims on the way to a lost home, a better country, our personal Eldorado, and ultimately to the heavenly Jerusalem. Lovers, our quest goes to the heart to heart, to the perfect soul mate, and our rest in God. Ascetic we crave for lost purity, the ideals of youth, and the elusive perfection that will make us holy.

Miller's work breathes the purity of empathy, the delicate touch of a loving and compassionate observer. There may also be the craving for elusive perfection, the silent swan song of lost and buried illusions. But the lover will keep the upper hand, and contentedly returns to the ordinary truths and simple joys of life.


HOW TO GO:

The Prints of Benjamin Miller
May 1–July 27, 2018
Marian Library Gallery, seventh floor of Roesch Library
Open 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Monday–Friday; Closed July 4

Admission and parking are free; visitor parking passes can be obtained at the visitor parking information center

For special arrangements, please call 937-229-4214.

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