When Joseph Smith read the written text of James 1:5, he followed the trail of letters to a quiet grove on the family farm. On an early spring morning, he had an experience so rich it overflowed the capacity of his mortal senses. More than once, Joseph wrote down what happened in that grove. Each attempt, while useful in its context, couldn’t fully capture the meaning of the events of that day.
The meaning of a religious experience is always more than can be conveyed through words. What other forms do we have to describe our encounters with God? In our own young religious tradition, we have examples of artists, musicians, playwrights, and filmmakers who have made use of their particular forms to offer their own religious experiences and interpretations.
This kind of artistry engages all our senses to create a powerfully instructive experience of divinity. Our religious art is a potent source of theology, in part because it is a shared experience of new ways of seeing, hearing, and imagining life. When together we behold God in these new ways, as we do in our temple worship and regular meetings, we enter a sacred space of communion.
What image in the distinct tradition of Latter-day Saint art best represents the visual expression of our theology? Wayfare asked this question of several artists and scholars. What follows is a collection of essays exploring this question. Each author has thought deeply on how Latter-day Saint art has both interpreted and expanded our beliefs. Join us as we experience a theology beyond words, a theology of color, composition, and light.
Find the full collection here, or click on an individual essay below.
Reflections on J. Kirk Richards's "Breath of Life"
I’m not convinced that Latter-day Saints can ever have true and traditional theologians. We can theologize—and I do believe that is what we’re doing when we “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). But members are a part of an institution, a church,
Stilling the Storm
The degree to which I still identify with Mormonism and Mormon theology has become increasingly fraught in the past decade. But the visual arts sometimes pull me back, not only as reminders of the faith tradition I once loved but also as expressions of the complications within that tradition that I still find evocative and compelling—even from a post-re…
The Texture of God's Unseen Presence
I have always felt there was something haunting and exhilarating in Dale Thompson Fletcher’s work An Artist Called of God (Big Black). This painting had caught my attention in the past, but my interest was recently renewed thanks to the discussion of the work that appears i…
Crying From the Dust, an Artist Listens
At first glance, the image looks like a spooky Halloween scene. Under a star-filled night sky, a girl hears whispers rising from underground. She kneels, pressing her ear to the earth to listen more clearly. Obscured from her view, a wide-eyed skeleton lies directly below her. He wri…
Hands of Fellowship
On the east façade of the old Manti Tabernacle is a sculpted pair of clasped hands. Their grip appears firm if not a little too stiff to be lifelike. The hands extend from an identical set of short cuffs and billowy sleeves. On a Sunday morning, they might be the hands of two friends meeting before church. Neither has anything to prove. Theirs is an eas…
Reflections on "Untitled" by J. Kirk Richards
J. Kirk Richards’s Untitled (Cristo Series) asks a lot of the viewer. The title itself feels like an unfinished sentence—an ellipsis instead of a period. Precisely because of their apparent incomplete state, the dozens of paintings of Christ in varying hues and sizes compel the viewer to ent…
The Next One
I am grateful for the artists of the past who shared the message of the gospel of Christ. Every work of art matters—even those that might not resonate with contemporary beliefs or practices—because they ask us to consider the eternal expanse of the gospel and how we might live it more fully. They inspire the next generation to continue making, thinking,…