Bob Jones University Museum

This Sunday, our family was joined by our dear friends (a family of 7) for a day trip two hours away to visit the Bob Jones University Museum in Greenville, South Carolina. I highly recommend this destination and offer some tips based on our experience.

Eight of nine children from our two families posing before Mass: 8, 7, 5, 6, almost 4, 3, almost 2, and 1

We went on a Sunday in order to attend the noon Latin Mass at Prince of Peace parish beforehand.  This timing worked out since the museum didn't open until 2:00 pm ... but with little time to spare as the museum was only open for 3 hours, closing at 5:00 pm. One down side, is that the children were already more antsy than normal after sitting still for the 90 minute drive, sitting still through Mass, and a restaurant lunch before being asked to be on their "Most-Quiet-You-Are-In-A-Museum-Don't-Touch-That-Stop-Talking-Best-Behavior".

Mary at Mass

As a side note, Margaret is three and a half and I believe that she hasn't ceased talking during her waking hours longer than to take a breath (only slight exaggeration) in approximately six months. This three-year-old loquaciousness is going to do me in! Whether I answer her questions, give her consequences, or ignore her, the jabbering goes on. And I love this punkin' so much, but when we're too loud for the cry room and too loud even to walk in the narthex such that I spend the entire Mass walking around outside in the 90-degree humidity, I'm looking forward to her quieting down around age four. Unless this isn't an age-phase but is a glimpse at her blossoming personality . . .

Our lunch dates at our little, calm table

Another tip is to more carefully ascertain a lunch restaurant and hours of operation than we did. We scoped out a quick pizza place right across the street from the university--and quick is good when the museum is open only three hours--but it turned out to be closed. Then we drove fifteen minutes away for another restaurant, unloaded all nine children (rookie mistake) to discover that it had an hour-long wait. The third restaurant was able to seat us, but we weren't done eating till after three o'clock for a museum that closes at five.

The restaurant did not have a table large enough to seat our entire group, so the other mother and I generously and immediately offered to sit alone with our wee toddlers and newborn at a separate table, away from the camaraderie of the group, leaving the dads and grandmothers to manage the six Very Excited Children. These are the kind of sacrifices we mothers make.

In hind sight we should have packed a picnic lunch and eaten in the parish hall right after Mass.  This parish has a nice big lawn with which the children could have burned off some energy prior to visiting the museum.

On to the museum we went! No photos of the interior are allowed, of course, but the campus is lovely. (You can view here a few images from inside the gallery, at the two-minute mark of the slideshow.)

This museum has one of the largest and finest collections in the country of Catholic artwork, which is surprising to say the least for Bob Jones University, of all places.

Just as surprising as the collection itself, however, is that the man who started it 60 years ago was Bob Jones Jr., the school’s second president and the son of the university’s namesake. The younger Jones was not only a purveyor of fine painting but also of the hoariest anti-Catholic insults, calling the church of Rome “a satanic counterfeit,” for example, and “drunk with the blood of the saints.”

Yet the younger Jones, who retired in 1971 and died in 1997, so loved the arts that he was able to put these Old Master works in a category that superseded sectarian divisions. Like theologians centuries ago, Jones viewed the artworks as “mute preachers” that could instruct viewers about the Bible, the first and final arbiter of Christian fundamentalist faith.

“He really thought that paintings can reach people and talk to people in ways that that reading books cannot,” said Steel, who knew “Dr. Bob,” as everyone called him. (source)

Seeing the artwork transported me back in time to the dozens of fine museums I've been privileged to visit across Europe.

A hidden gem, the Museum & Gallery on the private university's campus has been open to the public since 1951 and houses one of the nation's most extensive collections of European religious art. The collection – spanning the 14th through 19th centuries by artists such as Rubens, Tintoretto, Veronese, Cranach, Gerard David, Murillo, Ribera, van Dyck, Honthorst and Doré – traces the religious, artistic and cultural history of Western Europe.

"I feel like I've walked into a church," said Gini Bond, a parishioner at St. Mark Church in Huntersville. "The building outside looks very institutional, there's no art or anything. But you walk in here and it looks like a church."

Thirty separate galleries are filled art and antiquities. Besides the Old World paintings, the museum also has nearly 200 pieces of Gothic to 19th century furniture, nearly 100 sculptures, some 60 textiles, and more than 1,000 ancient artifacts.

It also features a collection of icons, dated from the 14th through the 20th centuries. Of special note are five icons once belonging to members of the Romanov family, the last tsars of Russia.

(source)

The admission prices are very family-friendly: $5 for adults and free for children 12 and under!

One could spend all day at the museum but the hours are only three hours per day Tuesday through Sunday, so I advise getting there when it opens.

Note: Strollers are not allowed! We were so grateful we remembered at least two baby carriers (slings), but that still left one toddler on the loose. Remember some kind of baby-carrying device because visitors must leave their strollers in the coat closet.

Lastly: I think ideally the youngest of children would not visit the museum. Our children, for their ages, are really quite well-behaved in Mass and restaurants yet they struggled in this museum. I actually raised my voice pretty loudly when one child ran up to a painting excitedly pointing out a feature with his pencil within inches of the canvas. The three-year-old kept touching furniture pieces of furniture. The preschoolers could hardly help but run and spin despite our constant corrections: we had only so many hands to hold them what with toddlers and babies who had to be carried. Our one-year-old screamed basically the whole time, to my deep embarrassment, leaving me so grateful that there were no other patrons in the museum, so only the staff and docents could pass judgment on Those Crazy Catholics with their passel of children. In our group, children five and above did reasonably well, but the youngest of the set really struggled.

If one is driving back from the museum in the summer along I-85 to Charlotte, one can visit one of the many peach farm stands, as we did. Watch for a blog post on my processing loads of peaches later this week!