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Tony Sweat

I had a religion professor at BYU whose undergraduate degree was fine arts, his focus was painting. He wanted to do this as his life's work, but he soon found that his life was being directed in a different path and he went back to school to become a seminary teacher and then a professor at BYU. Luckily for us, he didn't stop painting. His art began to focus on church history. One of my favorite pieces that he has done is of the prophet Jospeh Smith and a one of the people who scribed for him in a room doing the translation of the Book of Mormon. This picture is significant because it is really the only historically accurate artistic interpretation of how most of the Book of Mormon was translated.
The Gift and Power of God, by Tony Sweat
Tony uses models for his painting and I believe he uses them both in live sessions and from photographs he's taken from the live sessions. His work is often narrative and fills an important nitsch in the Mormon art world: As close as possible, historically accurate depictions of important Mormon doctrine and history.

The thing I find most interesting about Tony's work is that he was almost led and placed in a position that gave him the opportunity let his work have a voice in the Mormon community. He has had work featured in books and magazines that discuss the Church's history and the history of the Book of Mormon. Currently he and some other scholars are working on cataloging Mormon art work and placing it into categories based on how historically accurate they are. One example might be the artwork by Arnold Friberg entitled "Helaman Leads an Army of 2060 Ammonite Youth". It's a well-known work among Mormons, it depicts Helaman on a horse leading an army of muscular and very sun-tanned men. I'm sure this is just the artists interpretation of the story, but it is misleading and often is the picture that most think of when they picture the story in their minds. In the Book of Mormon, it never says that Helaman was on a horse (he might have been, since the Book of Mormon mentions horses a few times) and the boys were young "stripling" warriors.  According to the 1828 dictionary, stripling means a tall slender youth in the state of adolescence. So, although this work definitely makes people feel proud of these strong brave men, it actually isn't very accurate to the information that is given in the Book of Mormon.

Tony (Anthony) Sweat is married to his childhood sweatheart (har har) and has 7 kids. Something I admire about him is that between family, teaching, speaking engagements, and writing books, he still finds time to paint. His painting has a purpose and his work is important. I want my kids to grow up knowing history as accurately as possible because the artwork they are shown at church match the real story. A lot of confusion could be avoided just by portraying the scenes as truthfully as possible.
The Ordination of Q. Walker Lewis
 

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