Review
Title: Repicturing the Restoration: New Art to Expand our Understanding
Author: Anthony Sweat
Publisher: BYU Religious Studies Center, Deseret Book
Genre: Nonfiction
Year Published: 2020
Number of Pages: 252
Binding: Hardbound
ISBN13: 978-1944394981
Price: $29.99
Reviewed by Michelle Magnusson for the Association for Mormon Letters
I read the Book of Mormon for several years before I ever met a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was a few more years before I saw any art depicting the events of the Book of Mormon or early Church history, aside from when the missionaries learned I both loved pioneers and had never seen the film Legacy. (That’s a story for another time. Let’s just say I’m glad I’d already fallen in love with the scriptures…) When I was exposed to LDS art, it was primarily in the Gospel Essentials manual and what I call the “standard wall works” that can be found in any building. For me, this left a lot to be desired in terms of depth and diversity. It stayed far, far away from the controversial topics friends and family were sharing with me about the Church. Many creative works popular at the time seemed contrived to me, designed to manufacture certain emotions in search of strengthening a testimony. I struggled to find a spiritual visual feast in my new faith and continued to identify with the symbolically resplendent older works of centuries of Christians.
In the twenty years since, I’ve deliberately sought out art that speaks to me and speaks to the richness of the restored gospel that I love. I have discovered many favorites and adorned my walls with beautiful scenes that uplift me and remind me of covenants I’ve made. I confess that a part of my soul still cries out for depictions of women, of the diversity that I know was present in the early church and during the Restoration, and for art reflecting the lesser-known stories of history that showed the faithful without shying away from flaws. Repicturing the Restoration by Anthony Sweat is a huge step in the right direction.
As a historian and educator, the format of the book spoke to my soul. Anthony Sweat melds his career as an Associate Professor of Church History and Doctrine at Brigham Young University with his fine art expertise. The book opens with a basic art analysis lesson for laypeople, addressing the challenges of painting history, and how we as viewers experience historical events through art so powerfully that it becomes a part of our internal historical narrative (i.e. Washington’s Prayer at Valley Forge). It’s clear he takes seriously the responsibility held by artists as they embed certain understandings deep into our minds, to the point of what he calls “source amnesia”. He addresses realism versus abstraction as a tool for artists to convey historical or religious meaning. I appreciated a short discussion about symbolism in religious work.
Sweat situates his art and the book in the present pivotal point in how Church history is approached by the Church as an institution and its members. The Gospel Topics Essays, the Joseph Smith Papers Project, changes to global curricula, and the new Saints series all reflect a more nuanced approach to Church history that contextualizes, where possible, difficult topics in Church history. His book adds to the richness that comes from addressing history with a more transparent approach. While previous iterations of Church curricula often omitted problematic portions of history, the new approach tackles them much more forthrightly, with an attempt to add context in ways that reduce folklore or traditional problematic explanations. Rather than glossing over elements, he brings them into the light for discussion. Readers who might feel uncomfortable by more direct approaches to history will likely be able to walk the path he lays out, weaving together official sources, well-known LDS scholars, and even Lin-Manuel Miranda.
The book is divided into three sections: New York and Pennsylvania features ten works, Ohio and Missouri eight, and Illinois eight more. The pieces themselves depict the First Vision, translation, priesthood events, ordinances, and many other Restoration topics. Within each chapter, there is a main piece or series of smaller depictions. Sweat outlines a timeline of the events depicted, related sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, a narrative background to add context, and analysis of smaller details in the larger work. “An Application” centers the concepts explored in the work in our present-day and practice and provides valuable thoughts on why this history matters both to the Restoration and also to us in our own lives. This section doesn’t shy away from focusing on how to engage with history that has traditionally been considered difficult. “An Analysis” offers several thoughtful, rich questions that feel equally askable in youth or adult Sunday School, in family study, or during personal devotion. Each chapter closes with additional notes and sources cited, which feature LDS and non-LDS sources.
The book concludes with suggestions for promoting a vital future for Latter-day Saint art as well as a feature peeling back the curtain to show his personal process of creating a new piece. A detailed index promotes revisiting components when preparing lessons or personal devotional study.
A really nice touch was the QR code at the front of the book to download images from Repicturing the Restoration for home use or classroom teaching.
The book promises to enrich the 2021 Doctrine and Covenants course of Come, Follow Me study. I only wish I had access to it sooner, after a decade of serving as Young Women’s President and several more years teaching youth Sunday School. As a person who has developed a reputation for respectfully pushing the edges of “appropriate” Sunday School discourse to promote a richer, more inclusive, and spiritually edifying conversation, I’m excited to have a tool published by Deseret Book as a resource. Repicturing the Restoration makes this work easier by gathering many pieces into the same place with a trusted name.
Sweat made an effort to include several depictions of women’s participation in the Restoration and one instance of a Black man. He also addresses the skin tone of deity and angels head-on in his art and accompanying narrative. As always, I’d love to see more. It is obvious there is an effort to cover well-known stories but also a distinct focus on smaller moments in the lives of early leaders. I would hope for a second volume continuing this tradition and including more of the journaled moments recorded by women and others that for so many years have remained hidden treasures.
This offering adds to our concept of LDS history in images without taking away from older works. It calls for more without diminishing past traditions or other artists. It pushes viewer readers to a deeper understanding of gospel principles, one that holds space even for more controversial pieces, without undermining or feeling tawdry. Sweat gently pulls back a curtain onto a historical moment with his art and then holds up a candle for the learner to explore the light and the dark in a safer space.
The book itself is a larger, display-sized edition that would make a lovely gift or teaching tool. It’s meaty enough in art and text to be a powerful study aid to the Doctrine and Covenants. Hopefully, it will be among the first of many new works seamlessly melding textual sources and visual representations of both the sacred and ordinary.