Saint Louis University’s art history department has a new face this year. Maureen Quigley specializes in medieval manuscripts, but when the sun goes down, her alternate passion comes to life: tae kwon do.
Quigley is a passionate art history scholar who said that she is very grateful to be at SLU. Her office in Xavier Hall reflects her personality with its stained glass windows, medieval and modern art on the walls and 14th century manuscripts in her desk drawers hiding among her pens, papers and stapler.
Quigley, originally from New York, was raised in South Dakota. She majored in history with a focus on the Middle Ages at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minn., and she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Texas. After a few temporary teaching positions, including one at the American University of Paris, she chose to join SLU’s staff, she said, because of its excellent reputation.
“SLU has an international reputation in medieval studies, so it was very attractive to me,” Quigley said.
Quigley acknowledges art history is “never one of those things students know about coming in from high school.” Regardless, she became interested as an undergraduate.
“I loved how the theology, philosophy and social aspects were reflected in the things people were making, such as stained glass windows, cathedrals and gold work,” she said.
Today, she specializes in illuminated manuscripts from 14th century France, roughly the same time period of such events as the Black Plague, the Hundred Years’ War and the end of the Crusades.
“Illuminated manuscripts are basically writings with paintings in them. In the Middle Ages, books were made of animal skins and parchments, but the lines in our notebooks are exactly like medieval paper,” Quigley said.
There were many other books in this period other than church-related documents. She mentioned many on courtly love, nature and Aristotle, as well as works by Chaucer and Dante. There were many romance books, though perhaps a little different from the common student’s perception of a romance novel. Romances during this time were of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and other epic heroes.
In addition to medieval art, Quigley is also an aficionado of modern art.
In particular, she favors Henri Matisse because she finds similarities between his use of color and the illuminated manuscripts of the 14th century.
“I like the abstraction of modern art and the history of medieval art,” she said.
When she is not teaching, Quigley is engaging in another unique passion.
“I’m a tae kwon do instructor at the World Martial Arts Academy in Olivette. I started when I was 15 and now have my fourth degree black belt,” Quigley said.
She claims there is no connection between her tae kwon do skills and the duels of armor clad knights during the Middle Ages.
“My brother was into it, and I was good at it. I didn’t mind hitting and getting hit,” Quigley said.
This semester she will be teaching an art history course titled “Art in the Afterlife.”
“It’s about the development of images of heaven and hell. Students will be working in non-Western and modern art views of the afterlife,” Quigley said.
