(this is the first in a series of six posts on the Pillars of Mormon Art)
…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.
This little verse has caused more turmoil in art and in history throughout the monotheistic world than perhaps any other. 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. 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. Its subsequent transformation into anti-religious fervor is the battle cry of the French revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks, and the Communists in China. In more recent years, it rears an impious head as the Taliban government of Afghanistan destroys monumental Buddhist sculpture.
And faithful Latter-day Saints find themselves alternately sympathizing with both viewpoints.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Except 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. 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.”
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. McKay. 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!”
While the official prophetic prohibition was soon lifted, remnants of the revulsion against graven images remain to this day.
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. 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. I was a little surprised at the reaction I got. Sister Pyper laughed. “Sorry. It just looks like Jesus got glamor shots.” Sister Dance gave it back. “Sorry, I just don’t think it’s very reverent.”
Funny 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. But I think even amid the sudden movement to embrace very frank and very Americanized views of scripture and Deity that seems to be selling so well, there is still a vast sea of unsettled angst and discomfort among the membership of the Church.
Another anecdotal experience, but it illustrates my point well, comes from an elder I served with. One day he came to district meeting with a very odd-looking, small spiral-bound book.
“What is that?” I asked him.
“Preach My Gospel,” he answered. It was about 3/4 the size of the copy I owned. I looked at it quizzically. “I got sick of it,” he elaborated, “all that note space on the margins. So I cut it all off. And I wanted to go through and cut out the pictures I didn’t like, but there was important stuff on the back.” He indicated a few of the pages, “so I just used a magic marker.” And indeed he had – he had blacked out every Simon Dewey painting in the entire book.
“I just don’t like the way they portray the Son of God,” he said firmly.
The Church itself has no official position on the depiction of Deity, and uses many direct representations of the Savior in its official publications. While for years it relied on Harry Anderson, a Seventh-Day Adventist, to illustrate the Savior in its media products, it eventually did give official sanction to the now-famous (and often urban mythologized) portrait of Christ by Del Parson. A definite reversal of President McKay’s counsel is obvious.
But what of the average Latter-day Saint who is trying to avoid idolatry in his life, trying to tear down the groves and the wooden fertility goddesses that so plagued the Israelites, trying to teach his children to worship a living God and not an image? What of the conscientious artist who sees the need to instruct and to testify but fears the potential to blaspheme? I imagine this is a discussion that will continue for years, especially as people from less pictoral traditions, or, more compellingly, those from very idolatrous traditions who were asked by the missionaries to remove shrines and statues from their houses, swell the ranks of worldwide church membership? It’s an issue that still lies at the heart of our visual aesthetic.
But I think, in our noble Dutch tradition, some of us are still approaching it very deftly.