Revision as of 12:25, 21 January 2008

What's Art Got To Do With It?

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

- Alfred North Whitehead, Dialogues (1954)

One of the strangest attacks on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is an assault—of all things—on the Church's art. Now and again, one hears criticism about the representational images which the Church uses in lesson manuals and magazines to illustrate some of the foundational events of Church history.^[2]

Artist's rendition of Joseph and Oliver translating the Book of Mormon.^[1]

A common complaint is that Church materials usually show Joseph translating the Book of Mormon by looking at the golden plates, such as in the photo shown here.

Here critics charge a clear case of duplicity—Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith are shown translating the Book of Mormon.

But, as the critics are quick to point out, there are potential historical errors in this image:

1. Oliver Cowdery did not see the plates as Joseph worked with them.
2. For much of the translation of the extant Book of Mormon text, Joseph did not have the plates in front of him—they were often hidden outside the home during the translation.
3. Joseph used a seer stone to translate the plates; he usually did this by placing the stone in his hat to exclude light, and dictating to his scribe.

What's the Church Trying to Hide?

So, are the Church's artistic department or artists merely tools in a slick propaganda campaign? Is the Church trying to "hide" how Joseph really translated the plates?

If the Church is trying to hide these facts, it does a poor job of it.

The manner of the translation is described repeatedly, for example, in the Church's official magazine for English-speaking adults, the Ensign. Richard Lloyd Anderson discussed the "stone in the hat" matter in 1977,^[3] and Elder Russell M. Nelson quoted David Whitmer's account to new mission presidents in 1992.^[4]

The details of the translation are not certain, and the witnesses do not all agree in every particular. However, Joseph's seer stone in the hat was also discussed by, among others: B.H. Roberts in his New Witnesses for God (1895)^[5] and Comprehensive History of the Church (1912),^[6] The Improvement Era (1939),^[7] BYU Studies (1984, 1990)^[8] the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies (1993),^[9] and the FARMS Review (1994).^[10] LDS authors Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig J. Ostler mentioned the matter in 2000.^[11]

Elder Neal A. Maxwell went so far as to use Joseph's hat as a parable; this is hardly the act of someone trying to "hide the truth":

Jacob censured the "stiffnecked" Jews for "looking beyond the mark" (Jacob 4꞉14). We are looking beyond the mark today, for example, if we are more interested in the physical dimensions of the cross than in what Jesus achieved thereon; or when we neglect Alma's words on faith because we are too fascinated by the light-shielding hat reportedly used by Joseph Smith during some of the translating of the Book of Mormon. To neglect substance while focusing on process is another form of unsubmissively looking beyond the mark.^[12]

Critics who attack the Church based on its artwork should perhaps take Elder Maxwell's caution to heart.

Why doesn't the art match?

Why, then, does the art not match details which have been repeatedly spelled out in LDS publications?

The simplest answer may be that artists simply don't always get such matters right. The critics' caricature to the contrary, not every aspect of such things is "correlated." Robert J. Matthews of BYU was interviewed by the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, and described the difficulties in getting art "right":

JBMS: Do you think there are things that artists could do in portraying the Book of Mormon?

RJM: Possibly. To me it would be particularly helpful if they could illustrate what scholars have done. When I was on the Correlation Committee [of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints], there were groups producing scripture films. They would send to us for approval the text of the words that were to be spoken. We would read the text and decide whether we liked it or not. They would never send us the artwork for clearance. But when you see the artwork, that makes all the difference in the world. It was always too late then. I decided at that point that it is so difficult to create a motion picture, or any illustration, and not convey more than should be conveyed. If you paint a man or woman, they have to have clothes on. And the minute you paint that clothing, you have said something either right or wrong. It would be a marvelous help if there were artists who could illustrate things that researchers and archaeologists had discovered…

I think people get the main thrust. But sometimes there are things that shouldn't be in pictures because we don't know how to accurately depict them…I think that unwittingly we might make mistakes if we illustrate children's materials based only on the text of the Book of Mormon.^[13]

Modern audiences—especially those looking to find fault—have, in a sense, been spoiled by photography. We are accustomed to having images describe how things "really" were. We would be outraged if someone doctored a photo to change its content. This largely unconscious tendency may lead us to expect too much of artists, whose gifts and talents may lie in areas unrelated to textual criticism and the fine details of Church history.

Even this does not tell the whole story. "Every artist," said Henry Ward Beecher, "dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."^[14] This is perhaps nowhere more true than in religious art, where the goal is not so much to convey facts or historical detail, as it is to convey a religious message and sentiment. A picture often is worth a thousand words, and artists often seek to have their audience identify personally with the subject. The goal of religious art is not to alienate the viewer, but to draw him or her in.

Non-LDS art and the Nativity

The critics would benefit from even a cursory tour through religious art. Let us consider, for example, one of the most well-known stories in Christendom: the Nativity of Christ. How have religious artists portrayed this scene?

A personal favourite of mine is Belgian painter Pierre Bruegel the Elder. In his "Census of Bethlehem," (1569), he turns Bethlehem into a Renaissance Belgian village!

The snow is the first tip-off that all is not historically accurate, but the skaters on the pond, the clothing, and the houses are all wrong. Was Bruegel trying to perpetuate a fraud? Or, did he have something else in mind?

An Italian work from the 13th century gives us "The Nativity with Six Dominican Monks," (1275).

Yet, there were surely no monks at the Nativity, and the Dominican order would not be formed until the early 13th century. Was this merely an attempt to "back-date" the order's creation, giving them more prestige?

Renaissance Italian Madonna

Even details of no religious consequence are fair game for our artists to get "wrong." Giovanni Bellini's portrait of Mary might seem innocuous enough, until one spots the European castle on the portrait's right, and the thriving Renaissance town on the left.

Non-European cultures

Other cultures follow the same pattern. Korean and Indian artists portray the birth in Bethlehem in their own culture and dress. Are we to believe (as with Bruegel the Elder) that the artists hope we will be tricked into believing that Jesus' birth took place in a snow-drenched Korean countryside, while shepherds in Indian costume greeted a sari-wearing Mary with no need for a stable at all under the warm Indian sky?

African example

For a final example, consider an African rendition of the Nativity, which shows Mary in traditional African costume. All have African features:

CAPTION

Surely this goes beyond the bounds of acceptable artistic license? Isn't it possible that a somewhat naïve African villager might think that Jesus was born in Nairobi, instead of Palestine?

As the director of Catholic schools in Yaounde, Cameroon argues:

It is urgent and necessary for us to proclaim and to express the message, the life and the whole person of Jesus-Christ in an African artistic language…Many people of different cultures have done it before us and will do it in the future, without betraying the historical Christ, from whom all authentic Christianity arises. We must not restrict ourselves to the historical and cultural forms of a particular people or period.^[15]

The goal of religious art is primarily to convey a message. It uses the historical reality of religious events as a means, not an end.

Religious art—in all traditions—is intended, above all, to draw the worshipper into a separate world, where mundane things and events become charged with eternal import. Some dictated words or a baby in a stable become more real, more vital when they are connected recognizably to one's own world, time, and place.

This cannot happen, however, if the image's novelty provides too much of a challenge to the viewer's culture or expectations. And the critics know this. They are counting on it.

What message does the translation painting convey?

What religious message(s) does the Del Parson translation picture convey?

Artist's rendition of Joseph and Oliver translating the Book of Mormon.

1. The translation was carried out openly—Joseph had no opportunity to hide notes or books. This was confirmed by Elizabeth Ann Cowdery and Emma Smith.^[16]
2. The plates had a physical reality, and Oliver Cowdery was convinced of this reality. Unlike some of the other Three Witnesses, who spoke only of seeing the angel and the plates, Oliver Cowdery insisted that "I beheld with my eyes and handled with my hands the gold plates from which it was translated. I also beheld the Interpreters. That book is true…I wrote it myself as it fell from the lips of the Prophet."^[17]
3. The translation was not a weird, esoteric exercise.

It is, I suspect, this last point that makes the critics cry "foul." They don't want the seer stone in the hat to be well-known because this actually makes it harder for Joseph to cheat. They aren't even worried about historical accuracy—they're happy to downplay the impressive witness testimonies of the plates' reality. Nor is a seer stone in a hat intrinsically less plausible than a Urim and Thummim with breastplate.

No, what the critics want is to make the translation alienating. They want it to seem bizarre, even eerie. They hope that a historical truth in visual form will allow them to slip a bigger lie by us.

They want a portrait of the translation that will convey something to a modern audience that it never portrayed to the participants—that the Book of Mormon was uninspired and uninspiring.

Come to think of it, perhaps this attack isn't so strange after all.

Endnotes

1. [note] Note: Most of the images used in this paper are centuries old, and so are in the public domain. I have tried to indicate the creator each of these works of art. No challenge to copyright is intended by their inclusion here for scholarly purposes and illustration. Click each photo for title and author information.
2. [note]  Del Parson, "Translating the Book of Mormon," © Intellectual Reserve, 1997. off-site
3. [note] Richard Lloyd Anderson, "By the Gift and Power of God," Ensign (September 1977): 83. off-site
4. [note]  Russell M. Nelson, "A Treasured Testament," Ensign (July 1993): 61. off-site
5. [note] Brigham H. Roberts, "NAME," in New Witnesses for God, 3 Vols., (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1909[1895, 1903]), 1:131–136. ISBN 0962254541.
6. [note] Brigham H. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1965), 1:130–131. GospeLink
7. [note] Francis W. Kirkham, "The Manner of Translating The BOOK of MORMON," Improvement Era (1939), ?.
8. [note] Dean C. Jessee, "New Documents and Mormon Beginnings," Brigham Young University Studies 24 no. 4 (Fall 1984), 397–428.; Royal Skousen, "Towards a Critical Edition of the Book of Mormon," Brigham Young University Studies 30 no. 1 (Winter 1990), 51–52.
9. [note] Stephen D. Ricks, "Translation of the Book of Mormon: Interpreting the Evidence," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 2/2 (1993). [201–206] link
10. [note] Matthew Roper, "A Black Hole That's Not So Black (Review of Answering Mormon Scholars: A Response to Criticism of the Book, vol. 1 by Jerald and Sandra Tanner)," FARMS Review of Books 6/2 (1994): 156–203. off-site
11. [note] Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig J. Ostler, Revelations of the Restoration (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 2000), commentary on D&C 9.
12. [note] Neal A. Maxwell, Not My Will, But Thine (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1988), 26.
13. [note] Anonymous, "A Conversation with Robert J. Matthews," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 12/2 (2003). [88–92] link
14. [note] Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887.
15. [note] P. Pondy, "Why an African Christ?" jesusmafa.com. off-site
16. [note] Cowdery: “Joseph never had a curtain drawn between him and his scribe” [John W. Welch and Tim Rathbone, “The Translation of the Book of Mormon: Basic Historical Information,” F.A.R.M.S. report WRR–86, 25.] Emma: Joseph translated "hour after hour with nothing between us." [Joseph Smith III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Advocate 2 (October 1879).]
17. [note] Reuben Miller Journal (21 Oct. 1848), LDS Church Historian's Office; Richard L. Anderson, "Reuben Miller, Recorder of Oliver Cowdery’s Reaffirmations," Brigham Young University Studies 8 no. 3 (Spring 1968), 278.

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