“LDS Artwork Revisited”

“LDS Artwork Revisited” 2017-03-05T12:08:55-07:00

 

Mary pauses in Dutch Cappadocia enroute from jerusalem to the outskirts of Alexandria.
Here’s a shocker: Joachim Patinir’s “The Rest on The Flight into Egypt,” painted somewhere 1515-1524 and now hanging in Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, may not be entirely accurate, historically speaking. Mary may, for example, not have dressed in the manner of northern European Renaissance noblewomen. Furthermore, the landscape along the Mediterranean coast of the Gaza Strip, the Negev Desert, and the Sinai Peninsula is, umm, neither quite so green nor so marked by prominent granite formations, and the Wadi al-Arish is . . . smaller.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)

 

A number of critics have found fault with the artwork that routinely appears in LDS Church magazines, visitor centers, and so forth.  Although finding fault appears to be their favorite pastime, they sometimes have a legitimate complaint in this regard.  (They push it too far, of course, when they allege some vast conspiracy to mislead members and investigators — but pushing things too far is another of the favored tools in their limited arsenal, so that’s scarcely surprising.)

 

Anyway, in this interview, which is available on the website of the Interpreter Foundation, Professor Anthony Sweat discusses art and history in the Church:

 

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/lds-perspectives-podcast-lds-artwork-revisited-with-anthony-sweat/

 

Posted from Monterey, California

 

 


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