Which Church has the best artwork?

[Ingledsva]

Is it just me or do the Latter-day Saints have the best artwork?

Eastern Orthodox. I brought back several reproductions from Russia. Beautiful works.

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[Katzpur]

This BYU article mentions Harry Anderson was counciled not to paint the angels with wings.
https://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFLibrary/44.2BarrettBlack db2cfcac-4103-4680-bd03-29117961ff6f.pdf

He undoubtedly met with the Church leadership and asked what they had in mind for the painting. They probably just mentioned that they would like him to depict the angels without wings. So he painted the angels without wings. Big deal.

Unfortunately I can't find a much more official source than that. All I have is second hand information that in the original painting all of the Angels had wings and Christ had a shorter hair cut, so the church hired Grant Romney Clawson to edit out the wings and lengthen Christ's hair.

Okay, I assume we're talking about this picture now...

The original painting (by Harry Anderson) is owned by the LDS Church It measures 14 feet by 40 inches. It has not been altered in any way, shape or form by anyone. The Church would never ask one artist to modify the art of another artist they had commissioned and paid to do a work of art. That kind of thing is unheard of.

In the lobby of the Church Office Building in downtown Salt Lake City is a mural, an exact copy of the original (with respect to what actually appears in the original). The mural, however, measures 66 feet by 16 feet. If you compare the two, the ratios are not the same. In other words, the mural is longer in comparison to its height than the original painting is. So, to the right and left of where Christ and the eleven Apostles are standing, it just includes more of the surrounding countryside than the original. Harry Anderson did not paint the mural. Grant Romney Clawson did so, at the request of the Church and with the approval of Harry Anderson. Christ's hair is exactly the same length in the mural as in the original. (Shorter hair would have been kind of "creepy," but I guess Anderson was okay with making it "non-creepy" if, in fact, the length of Christ's hair was ever even an issue.) Every last detail of the original painting is preserved (count the petals on the flowers ). Here's a picture of the mural:

As to why Clawson was asked to do the mural instead of Anderson, I don't know. I do know that he lived in Salt Lake City, whereas Anderson did not. It took him 9 months to complete, though, so that may have been a factor. Also, Clawson was in his mid 40s when he did the mural. Anderson was by then nearly 80.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

No the hair and the wings were on the Christ in the clouds painting, at least according to all of the rumors I have heard, but unfortunately that whole conversation is still in rumorville so it isn't going to take us very far.

Now I am not saying at all that other religions can not produce good work. As you brought up Harry Anderson did some great work.
And if I am not mistaken this painting that I posted earlier is a Catholic painting. Certainly my favorite of all the Catholic paintings I have ever seen.
]

and I am pretty sure the famous christus statue in a gazillion different Temple visitors centers throughout the world is a Catholic sculpture.

President Monson quotes all the time from C.S. Lewis and he wasn't LDS.

I am just stating that I like how the church tends the filter out the creepy paintings that we use in the church and I like how the church chooses to represent Christ.
I have never seen artwork hanging in another church that has made me feel more comfortable. I am not at all claiming that the comfortable feeling I get when I am at church comes entirely from the artwork, I am just saying I like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint's choice of artwork, and the way they graphically represent Christ more than any other church. Plus I think they make the most visually appealing artwork.

 

[Katzpur]

No the hair and the wings were on the Christ in the clouds painting, at least according to all of the rumors I have heard, but unfortunately that whole conversation is still in rumorville so it isn't going to take us very far.

No, your side of the conversation is still in rumorville. I'm done.

 

[DanielR]

definately Eastern Orthodox, they also have the prettiest churches IMHO

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

definately Eastern Orthodox, they also have the prettiest churches IMHO

Would you mind posting some pix of your favorites?

 

[Shiranui117]

I hope DanielR comes back and shares some of his personal favorites, but while we wait...

Here's the Svetitskhoveli (It is required to say that three times fast ) Cathedral in Georgia (the country, mind you!), which was built about a thousand years ago:

St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kronstadt

The same cathedral, on the inside looking up

St. Nicholas Serbian Orthodox Church in Hamilton, Ontario:

An interesting story about when St. Vladimir of Kiev was deciding which religion he should convert Kievan Rus' to, during the 980's AD:

"There is a story in the Russian Primary Chronicle of how Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, while still a pagan, desired to know which was the true religion, and therefore sent his followers to visit the various countries of the world in turn. They went first to the Moslem Bulgars of the Volga , but observing that these when they prayed gazed around them like men possessed, the Russians continued on their way dissatisfied. ‘There is no joy among them,’ they reported to Vladimir , ‘but mournfulness and a great smell; and there is nothing good about their system.’ Traveling next to Germany and Rome , they found the worship more satisfactory, but complained that here too it was without beauty. Finally they journeyed to Constantinople , and here at last, as they attended the Divine Liturgy in the great Church of the Holy Wisdom, they discovered what they desired. ‘We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among men, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.’"

Needless to say, St. Vladimir chose Orthodoxy!

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

Those are beautiful looking churches. I particularly like the picture in the middle.

You know I am lacking an Orthodox opinion, would you like to come and participate on my thread?
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/religious-debates/146037-our-life-earth-adam-eve-agency.html

I just want you to come and read over the passage in my opening post and highlight anything you see there that you disagree with.

I now have a Jehovah's Witnesses perspective on the passage and would love to see the contrast between perspectives.

 

[painted wolf]

I think the LDS Jesus looks like a cleaned up Grizzy Adams. (no offense)
Way to white bread for a middle eastern Jew.

Now my "church" truly has the best art... it has inspired people from the dawn of time.

wa:do

 

[Shiranui117]

^ "How manifold are Your works, O Lord, in wisdom have You made them all!" Absolutely beautiful, painted wolf!

 

[Katzpur]

Someone posted this on another forum I am active on: Panoramic View of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. The Cathedral itself is beautiful and this website really shows it off.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

Someone posted this on another forum I am active on: Panoramic View of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. The Cathedral itself is beautiful and this website really shows it off.

That is pretty neat looking.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

I think the LDS Jesus looks like a cleaned up Grizzy Adams. (no offense)
Way to white bread for a middle eastern Jew.

Now my "church" truly has the best art... it has inspired people from the dawn of time.

wa:do

The outdoors are very beautiful and fantastic art, but I would hardly call it a church. Did not the Incas, Myans, Aztecs, and Pagans in general worship the outdoors and do some pretty vile things (human sacrifice, cannibalism etc.)? I would say they were about as outdoorsie as you can get.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

The outdoors are very beautiful and fantastic art, but I would hardly call it a church. Did not the Incas, Myans, Aztecs, and Pagans in general worship the outdoors and do some pretty vile things (human sacrifice, cannibalism etc.)? I would say they were about as outdoorsie as you can get.

I don't think of the Mayans, Inca, or Aztecs as outdoor worshipers. They built huge Places to worship. (IE Mayan Pyramids) Many Pagans were extremely peaceful. You act as if all Pagans are just one group. It is also important to remember that there were probably 22 million people in central America at the time of conquest. 100 years later there were less then a million, because of sickness and war. One of the great genocide's of all time. The beauty of those churches were little help to the people.

 

[Shiranui117]

Someone posted this on another forum I am active on: Panoramic View of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. The Cathedral itself is beautiful and this website really shows it off.

Now, if only all Catholic churches still had beauty... Many of them are "four bare walls and a sermon" type churches.

 

[Katzpur]

Now, if only all Catholic churches still had beauty... Many of them are "four bare walls and a sermon" type churches.

There is an interesting story behind this cathedral. It was built in 1909. Most people are surprised to know that there were even enough Catholics in the Salt Lake City area to warrant a cathedral back then. But mining and railroading were in their heyday and Salt Lake City actually had a fairly substantial Catholic population.

Anyway, I went in the cathedral for the first time back in 1963, right after Kennedy was shot. I was fifteen years old and his death gave me a temporary interest in all things related to him (except for politics ). I went in with two friends. We found it beautiful, but at that time it did not look a think like the picture in my link. The walls were essentially black. There was no artwork on them and you could hardly tell that the stained glass windows even had any color. It was, in spite of its beauty, a very depressing building. It was hard for me to imagine going there to worship.

What I didn't realize until years later was that the building had been heated for years and years with coal. The soot had completely blanketed the walls and ceiling of the building. Between 1991 and 1993, they did a $10 million renovation. Since the cathedral has such a long history in the city, a lot of non-Catholic sources contributed funds. The LDS (Mormon) Church donated something in the neighborhood of $1 million. Well, you can do a lot of sprucing up with $10 million! The picture in the link shows what I saw when I went in the building in 1994. Talk about jaw-dropping! One final note: As part of their rededication services for the building, they had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform. Cool, huh?

 

[Shiranui117]

There is an interesting story behind this cathedral. It was built in 1909. Most people are surprised to know that there were even enough Catholics in the Salt Lake City area to warrant a cathedral back then. But mining and railroading were in their heyday and Salt Lake City actually had a fairly substantial Catholic population.

Anyway, I went in the cathedral for the first time back in 1963, right after Kennedy was shot. I was fifteen years old and his death gave me a temporary interest in all things related to him (except for politics ). I went in with two friends. We found it beautiful, but at that time it did not look a think like the picture in my link. The walls were essentially black. There was no artwork on them and you could hardly tell that the stained glass windows even had any color. It was, in spite of its beauty, a very depressing building. It was hard for me to imagine going there to worship.

What I didn't realize until years later was that the building had been heated for years and years with coal. The soot had completely blanketed the walls and ceiling of the building. Between 1991 and 1993, they did a $10 million renovation. Since the cathedral has such a long history in the city, a lot of non-Catholic sources contributed funds. The LDS (Mormon) Church donated something in the neighborhood of $1 million. Well, you can do a lot of sprucing up with $10 million! The picture in the link shows what I saw when I went in the building in 1994. Talk about jaw-dropping!

Yes, the same kind of thing happened a lot to Orthodox icons in the old world that were hundreds and hundreds of years old; even today, our censers use charcoal to burn the incense--so much incense, in fact, that the inside of the church generally has a nice, light haze of incense by the time services are done! In Russia during the early 1900's, before the Soviets ripped the country apart, they restored several icons that dated back to the 1400's, which at first had become darkened by incense smoke, then had been painted over. Some icons even had gold or silver plates with likenesses of Jesus or the Saint placed over them to protect them, only allowing the hands and faces to be visible, like this:

The commissions painstakingly peeled back all these layers of paint and soot until the original image was revealed.

One final note: As part of their rededication services for the building, they had the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform. Cool, huh?

Yes, very nice to see the inter-religious support

 

[ChristineES]

The outdoors are very beautiful and fantastic art, but I would hardly call it a church. Did not the Incas, Myans, Aztecs, and Pagans in general worship the outdoors and do some pretty vile things (human sacrifice, cannibalism etc.)? I would say they were about as outdoorsie as you can get.

God's creations would be the best place for Church. I can see God better in a beautiful spot like those pictured than any building built by a man.

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

I don't think of the Mayans, Inca, or Aztecs as outdoor worshipers. They built huge Places to worship. (IE Mayan Pyramids) Many Pagans were extremely peaceful. You act as if all Pagans are just one group. It is also important to remember that there were probably 22 million people in central America at the time of conquest. 100 years later there were less then a million, because of sickness and war. One of the great genocide's of all time. The beauty of those churches were little help to the people.

Help the people, by ripping the beating hearts out of innocent women???
You do not believe they worshiped the sun God and offered human sacrifices to keep the sun coming up every morning? What about head hunters and all these cannibalistic natives, do they build large buildings where they do their rituals, or do they do these things outside?

 

[Flat Earth Kyle]

God's creations would be the best place for Church. I can see God better in a beautiful spot like those pictured than any building built by a man.

I think Abraham's alter of unhewn stones says a lot about the way God wants to be worshiped. The same thing goes for the tabernacle carried through the wilderness, as well as the ancient Jewish Temples and synagogs.