Carl Bloch

For the past couple of months BYU has featured and exhibit of Carl Bloch’s art work. If may be like me and never had even heard the name Carl Bloch, but like me you would recognize his work. People in church had been talking about it, and I really wanted to go. We were finally able to arrange an FHE night with the Whitmore’s and went to see the show.

Karl and Carl…

We chose not to get headsets and iPads for the exhibit, and to just enjoy the paintings, which I think was a good option for us.

As you walk in you are overcome the the size of them. They were all huge, life size paintings. They were breathtaking. Even though I was so familiar with so many of them, they were so beautiful in real life. I don’t want to sound silly, but they glowed, and shined. The copies I had seen all my life were nothing to the loveliness of actually being in front of an original.

These were some of my favorites:

Christ and the Young Child

The child is holding a palm frond. A symbol of freedom. Freedom from death and sin.

This is one I have seem many times before. I love it because it show the moment that Peter realizes that he has denied his Lord just as predicted. There is shame on his face, but of what we are not sure.

Peter’s Denial

But in this etching, it is clear, he is ashamed of himself.

Bloch did many paintings of things with out religious themes. One of the best, in my opinion, was this one of his parents. My parents had a statue of the Christus just like that one.