When we picture the visual history of the early Church, we often envision the sprawling, theatrical scenes of the Mormon Panorama. But who was the man wielding the brush? Carl Christian Anton (C. C. A.) Christensen was more than a mere folk artist; he was a Danish immigrant who abandoned a promising European academic career due to millennial fervor, crossed the plains with a handcart, and eventually fused old-world training with the gritty realities of frontier life. A fascinating new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, features art historian and biographer Jennifer Champoux, who unpacks Christensen’s legacy as one of the first formally trained painters among the Utah pioneers. Champoux explores how Christensen synthesized the aesthetics of the Danish Golden Age with uniquely Latter-day Saint theology to heroize the common pioneer and cement a visual identity for a persecuted people.
Millenarian Fervor and the Royal Academy
C. C. A. Christensen was born into a poor family in Copenhagen in 1831, eventually living at a poorhouse boarding school. Despite his humble beginnings, he gained admittance to the prestigious Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. However, as Champoux points out, Christensen’s conversion to the Restored Gospel completely derailed his academic trajectory. Filled with “millenarian fervor,” he prioritized Church service and missionary work over his advanced art courses. Christensen mused in his journal about this sacrifice:
“My prospective success as an artist-painter seemed suddenly to be swallowed up or ruined forever, as we looked for the end of the world in a very few years.”
Instead of painting in comfortable European studios, he spent years serving multiple missions in Scandinavia, enduring severe persecution, beatings, and even jail time in Norway.
Heroizing the Common Pioneer
When Christensen finally immigrated to Utah, he found himself uniquely positioned as one of the first formally trained artists in the territory. Rather than focusing exclusively on grand ecclesiastical portraits of Church leaders, Christensen applied the ideals of the Danish Golden Age, which emphasized “heroizing the common man.”
Champoux notes that in works like Home! Sweet Home! (1875), Christensen elevated the everyday industry and grit of pioneer life. His paintings are filled with intimate, gritty details of the overland trail: families collecting buffalo chips for fuel on the plains, young children sent to walk ahead of the wagons to avoid choking on dust, and a blind woman bravely testing a river’s depth at a crossing.
Painting New Scripture
Christensen didn’t just paint pioneer history; he was instrumental in creating a visual language for the Book of Mormon. Champoux highlights his 1890 series on the life of Nephi as a masterclass in synthesis. By drawing on “traditional academic painting, the Danish Golden Age’s emphasis on naturalism, and French Orientalism’s preoccupation with historical detail,” Christensen was able to successfully combine traditional European iconography with the innovative theology of the Restoration, allowing him to “paint new scripture in a new world.”
The Mormon Panorama
Christensen’s most famous contribution to Latter-day Saint culture is undoubtedly the Mormon Panorama. Begun around 1877, this monumental project consisted of 23 scenes sewn together into a massive canvas scroll. It was wound horizontally and unrolled scene-by-scene in front of audiences—an immersive, 19th-century cinematic experience.
The panorama traced the Church’s history from New York to Utah, emphasizing both the brutal persecution the Saints suffered at the hands of their American neighbors and the providential protection of God in the wilderness. Champoux notes that this theatrical storytelling was specifically designed to make the trauma and triumph of early Church history “comprehensible for posterity.”
For more of Champoux’s insights on how C. C. A. Christensen‘s personal experience with plural marriage manifested in his artwork, his early missionary journals, and how art not only reflects culture but actively creates it (along with some examples of his artwork), head on over to the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, to read the full interview.
Leave a Reply