Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Symposium Explores Widespread Tree Of Life Motif

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

Scholars from various disciplines and institutions gathered in Brigham Young University’s Varsity Theater on 28 and 29 September 2006 to explore the pervasive and powerful tree of life motif as found in civilizations spanning the Far and Middle East to Mesoamerica and as expressed in Latter-day Saint scripture and art. The following report highlights the two presentations by visiting non–Latter-day Saint scholars and briefly summarizes the others.

Skinner Concludes Museum Of Art Lecture Series

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

On March 21 Andrew C. Skinner, executive director of the Maxwell Institute and professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, addressed the topic of “Crucifixion and Resurrection” in the Museum of Art lecture series on the life of Christ. Skinner began by saying that “the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth are the lynchpin of everything we believe and everything we do in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Mary And Elisabeth Topic Of Museum Of Art Lecture

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

As part of the ongoing Museum of Art lecture series on the life of Christ, S. Kent Brown, director of FARMS, addressed the topic “The Birth of the Savior” on January 17. Drawing from Luke 1 and 2 and studies on life among ancient Jews, he focused on Mary and Elisabeth, whose lives are only faintly sketched in the scriptures.

Fruits Of Maternal Love, Simona Ershova

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Digital Painting

Me Too, Cidney Winterton

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Mixed media, 24 x 36 inches

A Girl That Grows, Jinhee Nelson

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Copper print, intaglio

Excuses, Dana Lovell

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxc_etjxxk0

Women Of Life, Micaela Cors

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Watercolor

Attempting Cohesion, Angela Werner

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

Acrylic, 18” x 24”

New Book Features Scholarship On Tree Of Life

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The tree of life, an ancient and richly evocative symbol found in sacred art, architecture, and literature throughout the world, is the intriguing subject of a new book published by the Maxwell Institute and Deseret Book: The Tree of Life: From Eden to Eternity, edited by BYU professors John W. Welch and Donald W. Parry.

A Novel Idea, Chris Crowe

BYU Studies Quarterly

The following is a transcript of a forum address presented by Chris Crowe, recipient of the 2020 Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Award. Crowe is a professor of English at Brigham Young University and an author who writes books for the young-adult market. This forum assembly took place on May 25, 2021.

Latter-Day Saints And Images Of Christ’S Crucifixion, John Hilton Iii, Anthony Sweat, Josh Stratford

BYU Studies Quarterly

In his classic 1897 work The Ministry of Art, Frank Bristol proclaimed, “Art has glorified Christianity. It has set forth her doctrines, portrayed her saints, and even her very God and Savior. Limited only by the necessary restrictions of her powers, art has been a teacher of things divine.”¹ The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (herein referred to as “the Church”) also employs the power of visual art to portray its central doctrines and perpetuate its sacred history. Religious paintings adorn hallways and classrooms of Latter-day Saint meetinghouses, fill the walls of sacred temples, and accompany …

My Life In Art, Richard Lyman Bushman

BYU Studies Quarterly

My father, Ted Bushman, was an artist. He worked his way through BYU in the 1920s painting signs and drawing cartoons. Before he graduated, he worked as a fashion artist in Los Angeles for a short time. After he married my mother, he made his living as a freelance artist for Salt Lake department stores, especially Auerbach’s. When work dried up during the Depression, he took a position at Meier & Frank in Portland, Oregon, as a fashion artist for the store’s multipage newspaper ads. Gradually, he migrated to the management side and eventually took a position with an ad …

Visualizing The Vision, Anthony Sweat

BYU Studies Quarterly

When a teenage Joseph Smith entered the woods on his family farm to pray over his soul and inquire which church he should join, the vision that burst forth from heaven changed his life and laid a pathway for the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The First Vision is among the scenes of the Restoration most often depicted by artists. Portrayals of the First Vision were published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Ensign magazine 167 times between 1971 and 2019, nearly double the representations of any Restoration theme other than depictions of …

A Tale Of Triumph Amidst Tragedy: C-Section In Furini's The Birth Of Benjamin And The Death Of Rachel, Alexandra Carlile

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Women Of The Grand Tour: Travel, Space, And Representation Of Women In Eighteenth-Century Grand Tour Portraiture, Anne Totten, Dr. Martha Peacock

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Grand Tour was a quintessential part of eighteenth-century English culture. A trip that lasted from six months to three years, the purpose of this journey was for young men to supplement their education with exposure to the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance as well as Ancient Greece and Rome. While the Tour was traditionally traveled by young men, many women also took the journey to the “continent.” The purpose of this project is to explore the experience of eighteenth-century English female travelers during the Grand Tour through artist Pompeo Batoni’s portraits of female grand tourists, and to …

Societal Borderlands: Community Art Making As A Means To Turning Borders Into Points Of Interaction, Kindia Du Plessis Cutler, Daniel Barney, Pd.D.

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Social practice is a growing area in art that is seeking to expand what art is through what it does. Artists working in this way are more interested in the interactions and situations they might create than the things they produce. This project was a social practice artwork that was made up of a community art group that facilitated the collaboration and interaction of neighbors in Provo, UT. For three years, I have been leading this project in the form of a community art class that invites parents, their children, and others from around the city to create individual and …

Review: Standards For Foreign Language Learning: Preparing For The 21st Century, Larysa Stepanova, Elizabeth F. Geballe

Russian Language Journal

Although this textbook does not include many explanations of syntactic constructions practiced in exercises, students at this level likely already have other reference materials. Instructors may want to supplement a course with some review, depending on the overall level of the students. The book is of great interest to a targeted audience of readers – those who want to develop their Russian language skills beyond the Intermediate level and to enhance their understanding of Russian culture, particularly the arts. Being strongly communicative in nature, this textbook will be of great help to any instructor of the Russian language.

This final …

The Invisible Bluestocking: Naganuma Chieko’S Organic Cover Art

AWE (A Woman’s Experience)

No abstract provided.

Exploration Of The Feminist And Judaic Components In The Art Of Bracha L. Ettinger, Hannah Sandorf, Heather Jensen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Bracha L. Ettinger is considered by many contemporary art scholars as one of the most important living artists of our day that addresses cultural trauma transferal. The child of Jewish immigrants who escaped the Lodz Ghetto, Ettinger grew in Israel, becoming interested in the wealth of different cultural and religious perspectives that thrive in the city. She eventually left Israel to pursue a PhD in psychology in France and now teaches psychoanalysis at the European Graduate School, focusing on her own theories of the Matrixial Borderspace. Because of her many influences, her art is extraordinarily complex and rich with symbolic …

A Portrait Of Stanley: Preserving History Through Art, Amy Clegg, Robert Barrett

Journal of Undergraduate Research

A Portrait of Stanley: Preserving History Through Art was an idea born by two of my greatest passions. My love for painting, and my love for the outdoors. By the outdoors, I mean particularly the Sawtooth Wilderness that I have grown to know and love in Stanley, Idaho. My project’s purpose was to help preserve the history of Stanley, Idaho by painting a portrait of a historical figure that would be combined in educational displays to help encourage continued appreciation and care for this beautiful region.

The Art Of Death: Murder According To Poe, Hitchcock, And De Quincey, Jeanine Bee

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper examines the works of both Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock in light of Thomas De Quincey’s series of essays entitled “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” In his essays, De Quincey presents murder as an art form that can be criticized and appreciated just as any other fine art. While De Quincey’s essays faced some negative reaction when they were originally published, both Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock seem to have found something worthwhile in De Quincey’s ideas about the art of murder; Poe and Hitchcock both present murder as an art form …

Communication A Collaboration Between Theatre And Visual Artists, Kristin Perkins, Lindsay Livinston

Journal of Undergraduate Research

With my collaborators, Pearl Corry and Aloe Corry, I constructed installation, video, and visual art pieces and presented this art as part of an exhibit entitled Striking the Set. Our initial objective was to use collaboration between theatre and visual artists in order to encourage healthy communication within our community. As our project evolved we encountered many problems. While our final product was something we could all be proud of, the setbacks in our process proved to be the greatest learning experience. The final exhibit was attended by more than sixty people and explored the theatrical elements present in visual …

Review: Siblings In Tolstoy And Dostoevsky: The Path To Universal Brotherhood, Naya Lekht, William Nickell

Russian Language Journal

This is a fine book that makes a strong contribution to the study of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, while also demonstrating a framework that could be usefully applied to other literature of the period. It convincingly shows that sibling relations in the works of these two authors have been woefully underexamined, and it demonstrates that time and again, key scenes and ideas in their novels are structured around sisters and brothers. Reading from this perspective repeatedly brings new clarity not only to the scenes in question, but also to entire novels, and indeed, to the oeuvres to which they belong. The …

The Christus In Context: A Photo Essay, John W. Welch

BYU Studies Quarterly

Among the many good reasons to go to Copenhagen, Denmark, is to experience firsthand the famous Christus statue by Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844) in the Vor Frue Kirke (The Church of Our Lady), the Lutheran Cathedral of Copenhagen. While this classic sculpture of Christ, in stunning white Carrara marble, would be impressive in any setting, it is especially meaningful and emotive in its original architectural setting.

Beyeler, Ernst. Ernst Beyeler: A Passion For Art, Interviews With Christopher Mory, Melissa Renn

Swiss American Historical Society Review

First published in French in 2003, Ernst Beyeler: A Passion for Art (2011) consists of a series of interviews with the Swiss art collector and dealer Ernst Beyeler (1921-2010) conducted by the journalist and novelist Christopher Mory. Through these lively conversations, Beyeler gives the reader a glimpse into the European and American art worlds from the 1950s to the present, and the book is filled with fascinating anecdotes regarding some of the most famous artists, collectors, and dealers of the twentieth century.

Architectural Chastity Belts: The Window Motif As Instrument Of Discipline In Italian Fifteenth-Century Conduct Manuals And Art, Jennifer Megan Orendorf

Quidditas

Offering advice on a range of topics from the quotidian to the extraordinary, from superstition to scientific, fifteenth-century conduct manuals appealed to readers of all Italian social classes. This essay focuses specifically on manuals which prescribe behaviors for women, and investigates the reception of these precepts and the extent to which these notions informed and transformed women’s lives. Specifically, I examine one piece of advice which recurs throughout instructional literature during this time: the prescribed notion that women should remain far removed from their household windows for the sake of their honor, reputation and chastity. Widely read manuals, such as …

Seeking After The Good In Art, Drama, Film, And Literature, Travis T. Anderson

BYU Studies Quarterly

Not long ago, kids in tow, I burst in unannounced on my parents and found them absorbed in some ubiquitous TV sitcom. While we peeled off our coats and the kids started chasing each other around the house, I jokingly chided my mom for wasting her time on such mindless drivel. In reply, she playfully denounced my elitist taste and defended her show as “good, wholesome entertainment.” Well, it may indeed have been entertaining. And being a show that originally aired back in the early eighties and even then was aimed at an older demographic, it was relatively free of …

Between Patrons And Populace: Danish-American Sculptor Carl Rohl-Smith And The Iowa Soldiers' And Sailors' Monument In Des Moines, Aase Bak

The Bridge

Carl Rohl-Smith (1848-1900) received one of his most important commissions in America with the "Iowa Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument" (completed 1897). But his position became difficult as he had to navigate between the different interests of patrons and general public.

"A Danish artist cannot imagine the hardships that being an artist in a foreign land entails. Most of the decisions concerning art are made by the populace." Thus wrote Danish journalist Henrik Cavling (1858-1933) in his travel book Fra Amerika (From America) from 1897.1 He was talking about the Danish-American sculptor Carl Rohl-Smith and the problems he encountered when he …

Gunnar Johansen: The Gentlemanly Dane, Solon Pierce

The Bridge

It is about three score and five years ago now since a certain Dane came to Dane County, Wisconsin-a decisive step, he later recounted on many occasions, "that I have never regretted." To this native Midwestern observer, it was a perfect fit. There was something homespun and authentic in the nature of the man -a sense that he was cut from the same cloth.