Children - Lesson 2: the child art historian

Child

Hi. Did you know that you can use the same questions you used in the last lesson about heirlooms to discover more about any art work or object? Art Historians are like detectives. Get ready to uncover some mysteries.

Adult/Teacher

Hello. If you think about it, many young children have never had the experience of looking at an art work and being asked questions about it and the artist. Let’s change that. Using the questions from the previous lesson, you can turn Art History into a game of detective work.

Art History

In the first lesson of this unit, we learned about investigating heirlooms. Now, let’s take the painting shown below and pose the same Art History questions to your child that you asked about the family heirloom. Young children might not be able to search the answers to the questions, but older children—especially techno-savvy children—will be able to research answers for themselves and teach you about the painting. [Note: You’ll notice that there are some logical and excellent questions that are not included here. For example, we’re not asking what the painting means, whether it is a good painting or a bad one, what value it has, how it measures up to other paintings in skill, or what lessons it can teach us. Those are the questions that Art Criticism and Aesthetics seek to answer. In practice, we use many of these tools at once, but for our purposes of developing specific study skills, we will focus on the Art History questions, below.]

Are you ready? Go!

Read the following questions (bold) and allow the child to respond and search for an answer to each one. Don’t read the provided answers aloud. Note that they are the same questions used to identify an heirloom in the previous lesson, and they can be used to explore any art work or object’s history. Encourage the child to find answers for himself or herself. (Some clues can be found in the information above about the artist and the painting.) As needed, share the answers provided to give the child as complete a response as possible.

• What do I see? The painting is titled Mormon Bids Farewell to a Once Great Nation. It illustrates an imagined scene, not described in the Book of Mormon, in which Mormon, the reluctant commander of the Nephite armies, beholds the destruction of his people with his son, Moroni.

• Who made it? Arnold Friberg (American, 1913-2010). He was an illustrator of western scenes, calendar art, patriotic works such as George Washington in The Prayer at Valley Forge (1975), advertisements, royal portraits, and religious works.

• What was the person like? Friberg’s parents were Scandinavian, and they immigrated to the United States before he was born. When he was seven years old, his parents joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and he followed their example when he turned eight. He drew as a child, and at the age of 14 enrolled in a correspondence school for commercial artists. After high school, Friberg studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Then as a professional, he illustrated calendars for the Northwest Paper Company. In New York, he studied at the Grand Central School of Art. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Friberg married and moved to San Francisco where he continued his illustration career.

• Do you know what the person looked like? You can find a photograph of the artist at work on Wikipedia, here.

• Where did it come from? After relocating to Utah in 1950, Friberg was commissioned to commemorate, with a painting, the first LDS pioneer Sunday School class. This led to interest by Adele Cannon Howells, the Church’s Primary President, to embark upon a commission of Friberg for a dozen paintings of Book of Mormon subjects for the use of The Children’s Friend, the Church’s magazine for children. Mormon Bids Farewell to His People is the last of the series.

• When was it made? The first eight paintings were completed in the early 1950s. Then Friberg took a break to move to Hollywood. When he returned, he completed this painting.

• Whom was it made for? The series was not commissioned by the Church, but by President Howells privately, at a price of $1,000 per painting. The night that she died, Howells arranged for the sale of her property in order to pay for the project. She passed away without having seen any of the works, even sketches. The next Primary President, LaVern Watts Parmley, saw the commission through. Later, Howell’s family donated the paintings to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

• What do you think its purpose was? The commission was for the 50th anniversary of The Children’s Friend, in 1952. Howells’ plan was to reprint a painting each month on the cover of the magazine. The project took much longer than anticipated. After completing the first eight paintings, Friberg moved to Hollywood, California (in 1953) for three years to work for film director Cecil B. DeMille on Paramount’s film, The Ten Commandments. The artist was hesitant to accept DeMille’s offer, but President David O. McKay said, “The Ten Commandments [project] can’t wait. They’re making it. The Book of Mormon can wait. Do the Ten Commandments.” [1] Friberg’s job as chief artist-designer was to create previsualization paintings for the epic film starring Charlton Heston. These included costume designs for the lead characters. Friberg shared an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design, Color, in 1957. Then, he returned to Salt Lake City, completed the remaining four Book of Mormon paintings, and continued his career.

• What tools were used to make it? Friberg created a painting by first making dozens of pencil sketches. These included rough early compositions as well as exploratory studies of figures, gestures, color studies, and other various elements. The artist also worked from photographs of posed models.

• What is it made out of? Oil paint on canvas.

• Have you seen other objects like it before? The Friberg illustrations are among the most recognizable images in the Church’s history because they were included in the softcover editions of the Book of Mormon, printed in the tens of millions of copies. As a result of their ubiquity, Friberg’s style influenced many artists in the Church, particularly in the mid-20th century.

• How did people respond to it or use it? Adele Cannon Howells’ hope was that children, seeing the Book of Mormon images, would find in them scriptural heroes. Regarding the exaggerated physiques, Friberg said, “The muscularity in my paintings is only an expression of the spirit within. When I paint Nephi, I’m painting the interior, the greatness, the largeness of spirit. Who knows what he looked like? I’m painting a man who looks like he could actually do what Nephi did.” [2] The paintings have been displayed in multiple locations. They now reside in the Book of Mormon gallery at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

• What else would you like to know about it? To paint the works, Friberg sought out Church leaders in hopes that they would offer historical, doctrinal, and archeological details that he could use. He found instead lacking consensus of details like their clothing, physical features, or the landscape. Friberg determined, “And with that variation grew a personal frustration in attempting to paint another’s visual interpretation of scripture when he had thoughts of his own.” [3] He was drawn to illustrate the heroes of the Book of Mormon, rather than its teachings or sermons.

Did you learn something new? Now, here’s the great thing: You can select any art work or object and use these same questions as tools to learn more about it.

[1] “Setting a Standard in LDS Art: Four Illustrators of the Mid-Twentieth Century,” by Robert T. Barrett and Susan Easton Black, BYU Studies 44, no. 2 (2005), pp. 25-95. https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/volume-442-2005

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.