In his article, Oman takes as a starting point some modifications to Carmack’s generalizations. Oman has spent his career studying and exhibiting Latter-day Saint art. The curator of the current exhibit of images of Christ at the Museum of Church History and Art in Salt Lake City and an art consultant for BYU Studies, Richard G. These images, he believes, reflect changes over time in the LDS culture’s emphasis on certain characteristics of Christ. A preservation librarian and art teacher, Carmack argues that broad cultural forces in American religions as well as Church educational agendas underlie the popularity of certain images. The result is an intimate-and profound-article, a testimony of the value of “taking up the gauntlet.”Ī century of images forms the backdrop for Noel Carmack’s ambitious article on the role of images of Christ in Latter-day Saint culture. We asked him to share with us his personal resolution and while doing so to discuss his painting Gethsemane, which is featured on our cover. Although best known as a painter of fantasy, Christensen has grappled for years with issues that unavoidably arise in painting the Savior.
The following four articles in this issue of BYU Studies address these core issues from the perspectives of a Latter-day Saint artist, a cultural historian, an art historian, and a religion professor. How should an artist depict Christ? Why do individual members have both strong attachments and aversions to certain images? What conscious principles, if any, stand behind the selection of images for use in official and unofficial LDS publications?
As members of a Christ-centered church and consumers of a proliferation of visual images, Latter-day Saints face the enigma of wanting to know their Savior but not having a detailed description of either his mortal or resurrected physical appearance.
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