{"id":42851,"date":"2022-04-16T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-16T14:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=42851"},"modified":"2025-05-26T08:18:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T14:18:14","slug":"spiritually-moving-great-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2022\/04\/spiritually-moving-great-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritually Moving “Great Art”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t really get art. I couldn\u2019t tell you whether a painting was done by a renaissance master or the local community college art teacher. While some of this is probably due to sort of an emperor\u2019s new clothes style tastemaking<\/a> by elites, I\u2019ll concede that some of it may be due to my tastes being lowbrow.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That being said, below are the handful of works of \u201cgreat art\u201d that move me spiritually, even if Picasso or Degas don’t really do anything for me<\/span>. These aren\u2019t all the works of art that move me spiritually\u2013like I mentioned earlier this week I especially love the Church\u2019s International Art competition for this reason\u2013but are specifically the \u201cgreat works\u201d that do so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Agnus Dei<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Especially appropriate for Holy Week, <\/span>Agnus Dei<\/span><\/i> simply shows a bound lamb, but the calm expression on that lamb\u2019s face reminds me of a point an MTC teacher made about her sheep-butchering father. When it comes time to slit the sheep\u2019s throat, the lamb doesn\u2019t fight, it just kind of looks at you with big eyes as you get the knife out and keep it calm right before the knife goes in. I couldn\u2019t tell you why, but the image and the expression combined is a powerful depiction of the sentiment behind the Atonement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Creation of Adam<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A lot of church art from this time is rather dark, focusing on the pains of martyrdom and the battle against evil; in contrast,\u00a0 <\/span>The Creation of Adam <\/span><\/i>depicts a kind of Frierberg-esque righteous masculinity and the glory of creation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Calling of St. Matthew<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve mentioned before that artistically I\u2019m not a fan of smiling Jesus<\/a>; I think a lot of depictions that take that approach make him look goofy, but to each their own. Carravagio\u2019s Christ has a subtle, non-didactic power. The halo is barely visible; his face isn\u2019t directly lit, with the lighting instead directed towards St. Matthew, except here even the identity of St Matthew is ambiguous. While the most obvious option is the bearded man seemingly pointing to himself, some scholars have suggested that Matthew is the man outside the light with his head slouched. I kind of like this second option more.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, Christ as the second Adam is subtly communicated, easily missable if you\u2019re not paying attention, by the fact that Christ\u2019s hand is an almost carbon copy of Adam\u2019s hand in the Sistine Chapel painting above.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gothic Architecture<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to not be wowed by Gothic architecture, especially if you\u2019re a young missionary in Europe whose previous exposure to large religious edifices was limited to the Salt Lake Temple (as impressive as that is in its own right). It becomes all the more impressive when you get the back-story about these edifices being built by people often on the edge of starvation. Gothic architecture relied on new technological advents to increase the size of the windows without destabilizing the structure, thereby allowing more light in order to better convey a sense of Heaven. Interestingly, the motif of generating even brighter lights to represent the celestial presence finds its logical endpoint in the celestial rooms of Latter-day Saint temples, which I imagine are some of the brightest holy spaces among world religions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t really get art. I couldn\u2019t tell you whether a painting was done by a renaissance master or the local community college art teacher. While some of this is probably due to sort of an emperor\u2019s new clothes style tastemaking by elites, I\u2019ll concede that some of it may be due to my tastes being lowbrow.\u00a0 That being said, below are the handful of works of \u201cgreat art\u201d that move me spiritually, even if Picasso or Degas don’t really do anything for me. These aren\u2019t all the works of art that move me spiritually\u2013like I mentioned earlier this week I especially love the Church\u2019s International Art competition for this reason\u2013but are specifically the \u201cgreat works\u201d that do so.\u00a0 Agnus Dei Especially appropriate for Holy Week, Agnus Dei simply shows a bound lamb, but the calm expression on that lamb\u2019s face reminds me of a point an MTC teacher made about her sheep-butchering father. When it comes time to slit the sheep\u2019s throat, the lamb doesn\u2019t fight, it just kind of looks at you with big eyes as you get the knife out and keep it calm right before the knife goes in. I couldn\u2019t tell you why, but the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10403,"featured_media":42852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-images"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Francisco_de_Zurbaran_006.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10403"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42851"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50109,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42851\/revisions\/50109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}