Brigham Young museum readies exhibition of Christ paintings by Carl Bloch

If the Mormon church has a favorite artist, it may be 19th century Danish painter Carl Heinrich Bloch, whose florid depictions of the life of Jesus Christ are often featured in literature and other promotional material published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This month, Brigham Young University's Museum of Art in Utah will present "Carl Bloch: The Master's Hand," an exhibition featuring five of the artist's large altar paintings from churches in Denmark and Sweden. The show will have additional religious paintings and etchings by Bloch on loan from Danish institutions, said the museum.

"Carl Bloch" is set to run Nov. 12 through May 7 at the museum's location in Provo. Admission is free but visitors must register online for tickets.

Bloch, who died in 1890, was a Lutheran and his life pre-dated the rise of Mormonism around the world. His paintings of Christ are colorful representations that depict the Messiah with devotional respect and fervency. Among the works on display in the museum show will be Bloch's 1883 painting "Christ Healing the Sick at Bethesda," which the Mormon church acquired in 2001.

The Mormon church is believed to have started using Bloch's paintings during the 1950s. The museum said on its website that the church has reproduced Bloch's paintings in publications such as Improvement Era magazine, Ensign magazine and numerous official manuals.

Bloch studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Art as well as in Italy. In addition to religious-themed paintings, the artist created numerous portraits and landscape works. His work can be found in Lutheran churches and other religious institutions in Denmark.

The new exhibition at Brigham Young University is being heavily promoted by various media outlets run by the Mormon church. (The university is a private institution that is owned by the church.)

Adherents to the Mormon faith espouse a belief in Jesus Christ, but they generally view the Holy Bible as incomplete. The Book of Mormon, published in 1830 by Joseph Smith Jr., is the central text in the religion. Smith has said that he received the text written on holy plates from the angel Moroni.

-- David Ng

Photo (top): Carl Bloch's "Christ Healing the Sick at Bethesda." Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Photo (bottom): Matt Stone and Trey Parker. Credit: Michael Yarish / Comedy Central

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Comments

[Apocalypse now]

The Jesus believed in by Mormons is vastly different from the one believed in by Christians. Check out the differences for yourself. The Mormon Jesus is but one of three "gods" believed in by Mormonism, NOT the second Person of the Holy Trinity believed in by Christians. This is one reason that Mormonism is NOT regarded as being Christian in theology and Mormon baptisms are NOT regarded as Christian in effect.

[Shash Nahalin]

Mormons would have little issue with the Apostles Creed which predated the Nicenean Creed except no.9 of course.
1. I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
2. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
3. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
4. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
5. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again.
6. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
7. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Spirit,
9. the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,
10. the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body,
12. and life everlasting.

[Shash Nahalin]

Compare the first Articles of Faith of the Mormon church with the Apostles Creed:
1. We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.
2. We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression.
3. We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
4. We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
5. We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.
6. We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.
7. We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.

There are differences to be sure, but there are many common beliefs.

[Donald Frazell]

Islam does also, considering Jesus/Yeshua(Isa) to have been of virgin birth and the holiest of prophets. But that his divinity was a creation by his apostles for their own benefit. Jesus rose to heaven, but not crucified. There can only be one god, that of the Hebrew Tanakh, the Christian Old Testament, whether named El, YHWH, Jehovah or Allah.

The book of Mormon has native Americans as evil who killed the good white Americans who wrote the books, and Africans not much better. However, the LDS, unlike the polygamist cults still in the hills, has abandoned that pretty much, and even has some African and native American members, also heavily prosletyzes in Polynesia, especially Tonga.

The Book of Mormon makes the most primitive of the Old Testament look sane, as all religions have evolved. As has the LDS also, and no longer preaches to outsiders of its original message. Those who are stuck in the "literal" past and lose the message by sticking to words that no longer mean the same as they did then, after language evolution and transcribing into various languages use the words for their own benefit.

The languages pre 500BCE were like reading Beowulf in its original nordic verse. And have been filled out and shifted in meaning, as all languages have evolved, and therefore our understanding of the Abrahamic God. As it is tied to the Word, even though language is but an organic and evolution driven manmade construct, not of god or "pure" at all.

[John Dingler]

Religion exists to religionize pagans. That welfare program has done its job; All pagans have been religionized many times over. It has no more use. Time to shut down that program, but people keep attempting to resuscitate that carcass. They must have an inborn need to worship carcasses and dead things springing forth from it.

But if you want or need religion and faith in your life, you would do just as well to worship the Chocolate Eater Bunny but also do good works for your fellowman.

[Donald Frazell]

Religion has always existed, it is part of who WE are, and always will be. To ignore it or pretend to be above the all, a minigod, is why contempt art has no value to humanity. It ignores what is essentially human and inclusive of us, in its quest to seperate and be above 99%+ of us. Not.

All modern painters included some feel of godliness in their works, even a commie like Picasso. We would never have gotten to our incomplete state of now without it. It unifies, but must always adapt and grow in understanding as our knwoledge of the world and each other expands. Our sense of God must evolve, or whither and die, our cultures with it. For nothing can bring us together but the sense of Purpose and Meaning that God gives us.

God cannot be a slave to human words however, and this is where creative musical and visual arts have always come in to serve mankind. To feel with the eyes and ears, rather than be controlled by the a manmade and misinterpreted, evolving and mutating Word what God means to us. Art must be constantly involved in the spiritual to reveal new myths of who We are. It must communicate to all our brain and sensations, not just the small frontal lobe of contempt art, which attempts to enshrine itself in its arrogance, and ignorance. Cleverness is not true intelligence, which uses all of mind, body and soul unified to involve ourselves in our world.

Art must return to the only concept worth pursuing, God. What does that mean to us? How do we pursue godliness? what is our meaning and purpose in life? these are what counts, and keeps us together, fufilling arts role in our common human culture. The artscene has failed their roles miserably over the last 50 years, as it splinters for market share and career. Meism in the failed age of excess.

It is not about Me, it is always Us. Anselm Kiefer is the only artist who has done so, because he had been mislabeled as a conceptualist at first and so allowed in the Boys and Girls childcare club of the new Academicism. And the only Modern artist, the greatest by far since Rauschenberg. The rest like Diebenkorn and Tamayo, the last of the breed, have died off. Same with world culture musicians like Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Time to do you job artworld. It is not about you, it has always been about Us.

Save the spiritual Watts Towers(Nuestro Pueblo), tear down the sterile and self absorbed Ivories

[RAS, Anaheim]

Mormons are a highly successful cult.