Thou Openest Thine Hand

Thou openest thine hand

10’ x 12’ painted directly onto plaster wall

Painted over 1970s

In this entry I told the story of how I first learned about this mural, which is now covered over.

This is the best image I've been able to find of it, courtesy of Prof. Bockelman. Two verses in the King Jame's Version of the Bible use this phrase:

Psalm 104:28 "That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good."

Psalm 145:16 "Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing."

The Jones Bank Mural

This is my first attempt loading video directly to blogger. These were shot by Karl Marxhausen for the blog.

The documentary, the Koenig Connection had a quote by Reinhold describing this piece, which I'll post this Sunday, along with some of my own photos showing the whole mural.

Marxy in the Tower - 1966

[9-19-10 Update: I scanned Marxy's faculty photo and posted it. Also found what looks like a painting of Marxhausen by a student.]

These was a feature story in The Tower.

[Edit: I showed this to Karl Marxhausen, and he confirmed that he's the one in the photo here with his dad.]

The 1966 issue had a whole section devoted to student artwork, including this portrait by Dave Burk. Look familiar?

From the Scrapbook - Lincoln Capitol Brochure

This is an official brochure which acts as a guide for the building, including its art.

Foyer-Past, Present and Future Life on the Plains

...In the arches, around the circular ceiling mosaics of the past, present and future, activities of society and all cultures are represented...

These six murals were added to celebrate the 1967 state centennial. Marxhausen was to only artist to create two for the Capitol, "The Spirit of Nebraska" and "The Building of the Capitol."

From the Scrapbook - Tower on the Plains

A member of the staff at Concordia with an interest in Marxhausen's work collected publications which featured his work. This is a page from the Nebraska publication, Tower on the Plains.

More Art in Weller

Marxhausen's office used to be located in Weller's basement. His office would be to the left if you walked down this hall, while the classroom would be to the right. Those glass cases displayed artwork by students. The rooms are now used for storage and were stripped bare of any artwork when Brommer became the art building. However, Marxhausen's scripture in brick remains along with this mural.

Several teachers I spoke to mentioned the brick piece, and a few of them also recalled that this mural was painted by Marxhausen. It bears a distinct resemblance to an image from the Hall of the Bulls in a cave in Lascaux, France.

This piece in one of the display cases does not look like any of the other work by Marxhausen that I've seen, so I think it may have been done by another Professor or a student. Still, if it were done by a student, could it have been done for a class taught by Marxhausen? Does anyone have any information about this piece?

- Duncan

The Lincoln Capitol

Here are pictures of the Lincoln State Capitol, and also what the "Nebraska State Capitol" book (edited by Frederick C. Luebke) has to say about them:

Both panels of the south bay were designed by Reinhold Marxhausen. The Minnesota native received his formal art education at Mills College in California and has been a professor of art at Concordia College in Seward, Nebraska, since 1952. For his designs, Marxhausen employed a distinctive technique. Whereas the other muralists constructed their designs by means of traditional techniques, he laid his tiles of plywood panels and glued them in place with epoxy. He did not limit himself to ceramic and glass tesserae, but also incorporated pieces of hardwood flooring into his mural. In all cases, he butted the pieces tightly against each other, thereby eliminating the need for grout to till the interstices.

“Building for the Capitol” is the title of the mural that occupies the southernmost wall space on the east side of the foyer. The last of the murals to be installed, it draws on well-developed principles of mural design that permit diverse elements to be arranged on a single pictorial plane. In this instance, the second capitol of Nebraska stands below and to the left of a framed quotation from the Declaration of Independence. To the right one sees an indistinct outline of the present capitol. Together these elements dominate the composition and are joined in a rich field of variously colored tiles laid in purely abstract patterns.

“The Spirit of Nebraska,” which occupies the south panel on the west wall, is the thematic climax of the series. Because its content was not specified in Alexander’s grand plan, it presented the artist with a difficult compositional problem. Marxhausen chose to treat this abstract subject through a collage of naturalistic elements and symbolic devices. The panel is dominated by a bold Arabic numeral 1 made of gold glass set in a raised square of dark wood. It symbolizes Nebraska’s unicameral legislature, the only one-house state legislature in the United States. The lower part of the panel is dominated by an overall brown color, which, according to Marxhausen, represents both the rich soil of Nebraska and the deeply rooted conservatism of its citizens. Buried in this earth are fossils of Paleolithic creatures that roamed the plains before the Ice Age. Buried with them is a black box containing human bones. They are meant to symbolize the remains of unimaginative, nonproductive people, who, in Marxhausen’s view, deserve to be fossilized along with dinosaurs. But from this dark base emerge two vital elements. A plant on the left stands for agriculture, and on the right is the Nebraska capitol, itself a symbol of the spirit of Nebraska. Marxhausen’s design also includes hands that are kneading bread (to represent work) and hands that are upraised (to indicate hope and aspiration).

-Amber Konz