Artwork for Tertianship building

September 23, 2008 in General, News

Sculpture in ManresaA bronze and glass sculpture which was commissioned for the Tertianship building in Manresa was unveiled and blessed on Monday, 22 September, by John Dardis SJ. The artist is Corkman Eoin Turner. He was approached by Joe Dargan SJ and asked to design a sculpture which would be inspired by the motif of the Blessed Trinity, especially as seen in the famous icon of Andrei Rublev, and by the theme of Jesuits taking the Gospel to all parts of the world. Eoin Turner spoke at the unveiling of his work.

Turner’s Tertianship Trinity

Joe Dargan, the Irish instructor of tertians, having supervised closely the building of the attractive tertianship in Manresa, went to Cork to commission a work of art which would grace and inspire it. Eoin Turner was a sea captain, fishing out from Castletownbere, but always sensing a vocation to be an artist, a vocation he eventually followed. Joe asked him to design a sculpture which would be inspired by two themes: the Blessed Trinity, especially as envisaged in Rublev’s famous icon of the supper at Emmaus; and the vocation of Jesuits to take the Gospel wherever the spirit led them. He gave Eoin a copy of Lowney’s book on Heroic Leadership to fill out the Jesuit theme.

Go to Manresa to see the result, five foot high, in bronze, with navigational charts which suggest our calling to work “in quavis mundi plaga”; and the triple flames of the Blessed Trinity. Eoin spoke at its unveiling at the opening of this year’s tertianship on Monday 22 September. He explained that he was motivated by four criteria in executing the work. He wanted it to be architecturally appropriate for the building; to contain and portray the fundamental Christian belief in the Blessed Trinity; to represent the specific characteristics and personality of the Society of Jesus; and to express his own personality. Those present at the unveiling were quite convinced that he had succeeded in all these respects.