“Sorry, I just don’t think it’s very reverent.”įunny how something as seemingly simple as a smiling Christ, in an era where a lot of the more commercially successful artists are capitalizing on modern social sensibilities being translated to traditional subjects, as in this depiction of Christ embracing His mother by Liz Lemon Swindle, could evoke such a reactionary response. It just looks like Jesus got glamor shots.” Sister Dance gave it back. I was a little surprised at the reaction I got. It wasn’t really my style, but I thought the other sister missionaries in my dorm would appreciate them (since sister missionaries tend to be into such things) and I handed them around. When I was in the MTC, a well-meaning mother sent me some little bookmark-sized versions of the newest Del Parson painting – Christ’s Love. While the official prophetic prohibition was soon lifted, remnants of the revulsion against graven images remain to this day. President McKay instructed Friberg not to paint pictures of Deity because “the Finite cannot conceive of the Infinite.” When Friberg challenged that the church was already using pictures of the Savior painted by others, the Prophet answered, “Those were not done by our people! Our artists are not to portray the Lord Christ!” Lest we think this was a mere cultural preference, Swanson illustrates how very profound its religious underpinnings were, even into modern years, by relating an interchange between artist Arnold Friberg and Church President David O. This is not to say that Mormons of the Great Basin era weren’t engaging in the arts – early Mormon settlements were renowned for their bands, choirs, and theaters – they just weren’t creating “graven images.” This is a very sympathetic aesthetic for the family-as-cathedral Mormons, who led lives, not quite of stark aseticism, but of tranquil domestic simplicity.Įxcept for the notable exception of Minerva Teichert, who produced grand historical and scriptural scenes in the early part of the 20th century, there is no notable presence in the fine arts for Mormons until the 1950s and 60s. The Dutch were adept at sublimating blatant depictions of religious stories into subtle commentaries on morality through still life, landscape and genre scenes which decorated the interior of middle-class homes rather than adorning the pulpits of cathedrals. While Mormons may not have taken a violently anti-art iconoclastic stance, it seems that they did inherit the bourgeois sentimentality of the Dutch Baroque.
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Even when the church purposely conscripted “art missionaries” to study fine art in Paris, they studied the casual genre scenes of the Impressionists rather than the monumental allegory and mythology of the History Painting tradition that was always a staple of Catholic France. The dearth of Mormon art in the 19th century may be construed as a curmudgeonly holdover of this culture, or it may be a legitimate doctrinal concern. Vern Swanson points out that most of the 19th century pioneer Mormons came from Protestant traditions of Northern Europe, and carried their characteristic whitewashed iconoclasm with them across the plains.
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In more recent years, it rears an impious head as the Taliban government of Afghanistan destroys monumental Buddhist sculpture.Īnd faithful Latter-day Saints find themselves alternately sympathizing with both viewpoints. Its subsequent transformation into anti-religious fervor is the battle cry of the French revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks, and the Communists in China. It characterizes the turmoil in Byzantium, it crops up again in the Protestant reformation, which sees Netherlanders whitewashing their cathedrals to separate themselves from their Catholic Belgian cousins.
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It characterizes Islamic art, which for centuries has avoided the depiction of any living creature, for the fear that the artist who tried to create was usurping the role of the One true Creator. This little verse has caused more turmoil in art and in history throughout the monotheistic world than perhaps any other. …thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
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#Are pictures graven images series
(this is the first in a series of six posts on the Pillars of Mormon Art)