Big and beautiful.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

First off, see these paintings in order.

That means, when you walk upstairs into the big changing exhibition gallery at the University of Oregon's Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, take an immediate right. Head to the end of the room, by the glass display case. Turn left and you're looking at the first of nine big murals painted in 1959 by Portland artist Carl Morris.

Now take an enormous breath and open your eyes and look quietly and deeply and you might imagine that you're standing in some ancient or future temple.

The nine paintings run counterclockwise around the gallery, like Stations of the Cross, though unlike most Catholic iconography they are almost, but not entirely abstract.

Morris was one of the few Northwest artists to gain much traction in the New York-dominated art world of the mid-20th century, a realist painter who moved easily into the world of abstract expressionism later in life.

He had worked for the Federal Art Project of the Depression. In 1943, he did the splendid social realist murals - of timber workers and farmers - in the downtown Eugene post office.

Morris was commissioned to create these nine murals for a Hall of Religions that was built in Portland at the 1959 Oregon Centennial Exposition.

Just imagine anyone trying to do a government-sponsored hall of religions today - the project would collapse under the weight of all those lawsuits before ground could even be broken.

Even then there was tension. The hall's creators imagined that its art would depict their traditionally Euro-centric view of the history of religion in Oregon. To that end, a priest, a minister and a rabbi - sounds like the beginning of a barroom joke today - were put in charge of the art.

Like many Northwest artists, Morris was influenced by Eastern thought and felt strongly that non-Western and indigenous religions were also part of the history of religion in Oregon. He proposed a wider vision.

In the end, the priest, the minister and the rabbi blinked, and Morris had six weeks to prepare his murals.

What a six weeks that must have been.

The Oregon Centennial caught Morris at the perfect moment between his WPA social realism and the nearly pure abstraction of his later years.

Morris handled the question of which religion to depict by painting about no particular religion; instead he painted an epic study of light, darkness and humanity.

You won't find crosses here, or Stars of David, or lines from the Bible or the Koran or from ancient Vedic texts. There are few definite visual references at all, though you catch glimpses of human figures, suggestions of buildings that might be temples, and odd glimmers of landscapes that you can't quite place.

The murals have no creeds or denominations, and yet they are very clearly and explicitly religious art, perhaps even devotional. They don't preach but they have the power of incomprehensible dreams.

The first mural, "Light Breaking Across Darkness," shows an absolutely ebullient moment, in which what might be a star explodes across a background of geometric color.

This could be the God of Genesis, commanding light into existence, it could be the Big Bang or it could simply be the lush expression of an accomplished, enthusiastic painter with a commission to fill and not much time to do it.

Morris indulges in a rare bit of sermonizing in the next painting. "Groups Over the Land" shows groups of human figures, each contained in an isolated background of a different color. This is, perhaps, the outcome of the Tower of Babel.

The other paintings in the series offer such rewards as beautiful color, graceful brushwork and haunting looks at scenes that could exist only in eternity.

What these nine murals don't offer is any simple narrative. Morris may have had definite ideas he wanted to express about religion as he was painting them, but the murals' strength lies in their imponderable beauty.

Two years after it opened the new gallery, the Schnitzer has got it exactly right this time.

The stately gallery is literally a big room to fill, with its high ceilings and long, long walls. Some other exhibitions have been dwarfed by the gallery's size.

The Morris murals, which have been stored in the museum vault most of the time since the centennial celebration, almost exactly fill the exhibition space with their ample physical dimensions.

But more than that, they have a spiritual presence that's so immense that just nine paintings perfectly inhabit the gallery, transforming the very secular space of a university art museum into a quiet, reflective temple.

The exhibition, well curated by Larry Fong, is nicely filled out by about two dozen smaller paintings from Morris' earlier years as well as a few preliminary sketches for the murals.

What these murals really want is their own chapel.

At the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, 14 big abstract paintings by Mark Rothko have such profound presence that viewers are often, and mysteriously, reduced to tears.

Perhaps some day a rich philanthropist will build a Morris Chapel in Eugene. In the meantime, you have until Sept. 9 to see the next best thing.

EXHIBIT REVIEW

Carl Morris: History of Religions

What: Nine murals done in 1959 by Portland painter Carl Morris on the history of religion in Oregon; also paintings from earlier in his career

Where: Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 1430 Johnson Lane, on the University of Oregon campus 

When: Through Sept. 9

Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday; 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday.

Admission: $5

Free talk: Art historian Prudence Roberts talks about Morris' work and his connections with artists Kenneth Callahan and Mark Tobey at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the museum.