Carl Bloch

We had a neat opportunity today to visit the Carl Bloch exhibit at the BYU art museum. He was a 19th century Danish artist who painted a series about the life of Christ. These paintings are loved and used a lot by the Mormon church. I've seen them in church foyers, used in lessons, and we probably have some in our gospel art prints binder. The originals are owned by the Lutheran church in Denmark and are spread out all over Denmark and a few in Sweden as alter paintings in their churches. Here are some of my favorites:

“God helps me—that’s what I think, and then I am calm.” ~Carl Heinrich Bloch

One of my favorites was The Daughter of Jairus. The mother sits by her daughter’s bedside, despairing—a tear runs down her cheek. She does not notice that Christ has appeared in the doorway. The sun is rising behind him, illuminating him and foreshadowing the marvelous and miraculous event that is about to occur.

The Savior in Gethsemane

The Nativity (I love most traditional paintings of the Nativity)

The Spirit was strong and there were people from different faiths there which was neat. Scott played his usual art museum games with the boys using clues to find certain paintings and asked them lots of questions to help teach them. Heather came with us, but was a little bored because she went with some friends a different time. Laura was at softball practice.