Mormonism and the arts

[_aussieguy55]

I am interested if a Mormon student attending for example some some French art school would be considered not living the standards of the LDS church if they were involved in doing a painting of a nude, with the nude model being of the oppositie sex of the student. It seems LDS place great importance on the body, but have certain rules about its method of display.

[_aussieguy55]

I am interested if a Mormon student attending for example some some French art school would be considered not living the standards of the LDS church if they were involved in doing a painting of a nude, with the nude model being of the oppositie sex of the student. It seems LDS place great importance on the body, but have certain rules about its method of display.

[_Droopy]

Interesting topic. Really.

Worth a serious discussion somewhere.

Yes...other than here.

[_Droopy]

The impact extends into matters of taste, too, and not just creation. If you've got General Authorities telling people that they shouldn't watch R-rated movies, it's going to affect people's ability to understand aesthetics in a full and rich way.

Yes. The cultural deprivation of not being able to watch Bad Santa, Basic Instinct, or Saw just leaps out at you.

[Guest]

I'm far from uncritical on the topic of Mormonism and the arts, and it's a topic that interests me very much. I don't think the situation is as bad as some here seek to portray, but I'm not even remotely content with it, either.

There has been, and continues to be, some good Mormon art, and a lot of very bad Mormon art, in all categories.

One thing that has long concerned me, at least since I was a youth, is the state of LDS popular music, which still seems to be stuck in the Elton John/Carpenters/Whitney Housten Wind Beneath my Wings seventies/eighties top 40 soft rock style from which it has not been able to extract itself for probably three decades.

Watch any of the LDS videos or DVDs such as Our Heavenly Father's Plan or any similar production, and listen to the original music written for these films. Its the same, relentlessly clichéd, formatted pop soft rock style that has dominated LDS music and Christian music since my teenage years.

Perhaps the Osmonds are indicative of a trend that begin early on and has set in like a hard curing resin, but what has the Church produced within genres like Jazz, jazz fusion, new age/meditation/space, contemporary Celtic, folk, or other such genres where each and every song or composition doesn't sound like the last ten thousand times you heard You Light up my Life or Greatest Love of All?

[_Droopy]

Is that because in order to be a good artist you have to push boundaries, and boundary pushing is a no-no for active Mormons? Would an artistic mind find Mormonism too constraining?

Thoughts?

I'm not sure I can agree with this. Nor am I sure I can not. I would offer that protestant denominations and LDS don't have much of an artistic footprint anywhere. I find no great literature in particular, and certainly no visual art that is compelling. OTH, the Catholic church has given us amazing, grand, significant, and poignant art - all- most? - with out necessarily pushing boundaries.

In other words, Hoops, the primary purpose of art is political activism and kulturkampf. If you're not Andy Warhol or Andre Serrano, don't call yourself an artist.

[_Droopy]

Seriously. The musical compositions -- actually, now that I think about it, there have been three -- were serious pieces of a distinctly modern kind written by a classically-trained academic composer, a Latter-day Saint, who holds a Ph.D. in composition from a university on the American east coast.

Sorry, I didn't see this post before I chimed in, and although I didn't mention classical music in my brief list, that's one other very important musical form for me, and here is at least one doing something outside the overarching pop soft rock mode.

[_Morley]

The impact extends into matters of taste, too, and not just creation. If you've got General Authorities telling people that they shouldn't watch R-rated movies, it's going to affect people's ability to understand aesthetics in a full and rich way.

Yes. The cultural deprivation of not being able to watch Bad Santa, Basic Instinct, or Saw just leaps out at you.

Sure, or The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Schindler's List, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Silence of the Lambs, The Wild Bunch, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, L.A. Confidential, Inglourious Basterds, Unforgiven, The King's Speech, Fargo, Slumdog Millionaire, The Deer Hunter, Good Will Hunting, Network, Mystic River, Rain Man....

[_Droopy]

Sure, or The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Schindler's List, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Silence of the Lambs, The Wild Bunch, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, L.A. Confidential, Inglourious Basterds, Unforgiven, The King's Speech, Fargo, Slumdog Millionaire, The Deer Hunter, Good Will Hunting, Network, Mystic River, Rain Man....

And?

[_Polygamy-Porter]

Interesting topic. Really.

Worth a serious discussion somewhere.

Yes...other than here.

Late to the game again Loran.

Just rollin outta bed?