Thousands See ‘Visions’ : Bowers Exhibit of Religious Art Drawing Record Crowds

While a reported encounter between an Indian peasant and the Virgin Mary inspired the religious art now on display at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, visitors Saturday also had culture, homeland and marriage on their minds.

“We made a promise to ourselves that--because our families were against the marriage--if we got married, it would be at the basilica,” said Hortencia R. Cervantes, who was married almost 47 years ago to the day in Mexico City’s prominent Basilica de Guadalupe.

Cervantes and her family are among the 3,000 visitors expected to visit the museum this week, helping break all previous records for attendance. That attendance is most likely due to “Visions of Guadalupe: Selections From the Museum of the Basilica de Guadalupe,” the largest-ever display of religious art from the basilica.

The display includes a combination of 80 sculptures, paintings and other pieces of art inspired by Juan Diego’s reported encounter with the Virgin Mary on a hilltop in the 16th Century.

While the museum had other special exhibits on display, everyone interviewed at the “Visions of Guadalupe” exhibit Saturday said they were drawn to the museum by the basilica artwork. And just as there was art to suit everyone’s taste--from metalwork to tapestry--patrons drew differing rays of inspiration from the exhibit.

For Raoul De la Sota, a professor of art at Los Angeles City College, the display was an opportunity to see the art that most people can only read about in textbooks. He urged his students to take advantage of the opportunity. “Instead of telling them about it [in class], I just said, ‘Go to the Bowers Museum.’ ”

Since the exhibit opened Sept. 10, attendance has shot up to 300 on some weekdays, more than double the average, said museum spokesman Brian Langston. On weekends, the number has attracted up to 1,000 a day, again double the average.

Langston said he cannot be sure that everyone is drawn to the museum by the Guadalupe exhibit, but he noted that, thanks to help from area businesses, the display is the focus of an unprecedented $500,000 advertising campaign. And it surely doesn’t hurt, added Langston, that church pastors have been encouraging parishioners to see the exhibit.

The majority of exhibit pieces is dedicated to portrayals of the Virgin. Other works include a mosaic made of tiny metallic trinkets left in the basilica as offerings to the Virgin. Also present are small paintings by believers thanking the Virgin for answering their prayers. The most unusual? Possibly the man who thanks the Virgin for helping him locate a stolen 1952 Chevy.

While the exhibit is expected to resonate with Santa Ana’s largely Latino population, visitors Saturday also came from Los Angeles and San Bernardino. Many were first-timers who had heard about the exhibit through word of mouth or the newspaper.

After reading about the Guadalupe exhibit, Huntington Beach resident Jack Kirkorn decided to visit the museum with his wife, Lenore. The Kirkorns, both Catholics, had toured the basilica in Mexico City. “It brings back memories,” said Kirkorn, a battalion chief with the Los Angeles Fire Department.

Kirkorn said that while the exhibit was not akin to a religious experience, he agreed that it wasn’t your typical museum exhibit.

He saw it as a combination of enjoying the art work and solidifying “your closeness to the religion.”

For Santa Ana resident Delia Sanchez, the exhibit put her Mexican heritage, closely intertwined with Catholicism, in a whole new light.

“It makes you proud that other people see your culture as something important enough to put in a museum,” she said.

And for Cervantes, married in the basilica, the exhibit was a walk down memory lane. Because her husband-to-be, Braulio, was 14 years her senior, both their families opposed the marriage. So the two vowed that if they could overcome such difficulty, they would be married in the renowned church in the hopes that the Virgin would bless them.

After Braulio Cervantes paid $700 for the ceremony, the two were married on Sept. 25, 1948.

“She has been our patron saint,” Hortencia Cervantes, now 70, said of the Virgin.