Maurice Schmidt, TAMUK Art Professor Emeritus, is pictured with his new book in his home. He has completed a lifetime achievement in the publication of his book, “The Tabernacle of Exodus As a Work of Art: An Aesthetic of Monotheism.” Maurice Schmidt, Texas A&M University Art Professor Emeritus, has completed a lifetime achievement in the publication of his latest book, “The Tabernacle of Exodus As A Work of Art: An Aesthetic of Monotheism.”

Schmidt will discuss his book at noon Feb. 5 in the Alumni Room of Honor located in the Memorial Student Union Building on the Texas A&M University Kingsville campus. Book signing will begin at 1 p.m. at the University Book store that same day. Schmidt’s discussion is part of the International Affairs Group lecture series.

“As an artist, and a Jewish person who believes in his faith, I wondered how did the tabernacle do its job, and how did it work to wean the Israelites from idolatry,” explained Schmidt, who knew he wanted to be an artist since he was 14 years old. During his career as an artist, Schmidt has created over 1000 paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures. Schmidt, a well-known successful artist and author, works daily on artistic projects.

His latest writing project started out as an article and eventually developed into an extensively researched scholarly book that was meticulously researched and completed in Nov. 2009.

His book will be interest to historians, artists, art students, architects, clergies of all faiths, architects and anyone interested in how symbols express ideas, and how they travel through time from culture to culture.

This book is the first work to establish the ancient Israelite Tabernacle as a major, work of art. It brings together the seemingly divergent worlds of biblical symbolism and art history. While all acknowledge that Western art was often inspired by biblical story and poetry, the modern study of art presupposes that Western religious art originates only from Greco-Roman civilizations, according.

The Tabernacle was a structure built by the children of Israel under the supervision of Moses around 1450 B.C. The layout of the Tabernacle and the materials of its construction were revealed in great detail to Moses at Mount Sinai, after the children of Israel were freed from hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt (the Exodus). The Tabernacle was a portable construction made by wise skillful workmen and transported by one tribe known as the Levites through the 40 years in the desert wilderness and on into the land of Canaan.

The first chapter of the book proves that the Tabernacle was a work of art because it has a comprehensive design. The tabernacle was not hastily thrown together. It was made by Israelite slaves who had been artisans in Egypt. How Moses used but modified Egyptian art forms to wean Israel from idolatry is explained in detail in Schmidt’s book.

The book explains the Tabernacle’s origins and how it works with precise distances between shapes, their proportions and arrangements. Schmidt said the Egyptians were very precise in their measurements and their forms.

“The Tabernacle reflects the golden section that is a proportion used in paintings and architecture and establishes proportions that are always pleasing known to ancient Egypt, as well as, to Greek and other ancient civilizations. It is still used in dimensions of furniture, homes and buildings,” Schmidt said.

He explained that using the forms and materials of Egyptian art familiar to Israelites, but excluding familiar images of people, animals, and natural forms from direct focus of the people, Moses moved the Israelites away from nature workshop. Prayer and ritual also reinforced the worship of the invincible, nonphysical God of Israel.

In Chapter 6 of the “The Fleeting Colors of Eternity,” Schmidt explains that the bright colors in the sky at early morning and at sunset become prayer times of Israel, as they are to this day.

“The ever changing, powerful, bright colors of heaven evoke the presence of God but without an image. These colors of the sky become the curtains of the tabernacle and the robes of the high priests,” Schmidt said. “Centuries later, those colors become the robes of the Holy Family of Christianity and the priests of the church.”

He also stated that besides the link between religion and art, the book shows the influence on him as an artist and writer. The weather and the environment of South Texas are similar to that of Israel. “Our agricultural cycles are similar; our sky always has some of the fleeting colors of eternity which comforted our Biblical ancestors,” he said.

“My art reflects these similarities which brings my faith into my artwork as well,” Schmidt stated.

Sitting in his living room for an interview his passion for his life time work is evident because visitors can appreciate his art work created in all media.

Throughout the years, Schmidt’s work as an artist has been recognized by many art critics. The late Ben P. Bailey Jr. praised his work after viewing an exhibition of Schmidt’s paintings, sculpture and art work at Texas A&I University in the early seventies.

“Possibly the single most noticeable fact about Mr. Schmidt’s work is his evocation of the joy, and the conflicts, of life, by color in his paintings and by lively dynamic composition in all media,” Bailey stated.

“While I gratefully acknowledge many diverse influences, I follow no ideology and no art movement. I have no more desire to be contemporary than I do to be traditional. Neither do I stick to one theme. I am not ashamed of emotion but I distinguish it from emotionalism. I am not interested in consistency of media, or style or in current taste. I prefer instead the roots of art-God’s creation, and my own sense of wonder,” Schmidt stated at that time.

“The Tabernacle of Exodus As a Work of Art: An Aesthetic of Monotheism,” is Schmidt’s latest book. He wrote his first book “Life in Art: How to Achieve Mastery in Paintings and Drawings” in 1974 and was used a textbook. Schmidt also wrote “A Life in Art” that reflects his autobiography and passion for art. He wrote an art column for the Corpus Christi Caller Times for 15 years.

The book, published by the Edwin Mellen Press, can be acquired at its website at www.mellenpress.com and through online Amazon book seller.

Schmidt, who moved to Kingsville in 1965, taught at Texas A&I University, later Texas A&M University Kingsville, for 40 years and retired in 2004. Before teaching here, he taught at Our Lady of the Lake in San Antonio for three years. Schmidt, who was born in and raised near New Braunfels, Texas, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas in 1958. He later attended Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and received a Masters of Fine Arts in 1965.

He also attended the Art School of San Miguel in San Miguel Allende, Mexico and studied mural painting with James Pinto and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where he studied sculpture and graphics.