An Art History Class Becomes an Impromptu Lesson on Body Image

“I have a soapbox,” I announced to the third grade class yesterday afternoon.  “It’s not really about art history, but I think it’s important.  Let me talk about this for a minute and then we’ll discuss Neoclassical and Romantic art.”

I went on to explain that the day before, as I was choosing which pictures to show the class, I’d looked at several by a Neoclassic painter named Ingres.  As I looked at his portraits and his female nudes, I thought to myself, women aren’t shaped like that. 

Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere
by Jean August Dominique Ingres, 1806
Source:  Wikimedia Commons

“Look at this picture,” I continued, holding up Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere.  Several kids noticed immediately that something was off.  “The woman’s neck is too long and too thin, and the nose is longer than a real woman’s nose.  The artist painted the woman in a way to make the whole painting pretty. He wasn’t trying to paint her like she really looked.   But let’s pretend for a minute that your teacher, Miss P., is a third grader in the 1800’s, and let’s pretend that she doesn’t know that this isn’t how the woman really looked.  Miss P.  just thinks the picture is very beautiful.  Miss P. wants to look just like the woman in the picture, so she can be beautiful too.  But she can’t, because her neck and nose aren’t long enough.  How do you think Miss P. is going to feel about herself after a while?

“There are lots of pictures in magazines and catalogues today that are like this painting:  The person in the picture isn’t real.  The person who made the magazine picture changed the way the person looked so that the whole picture looks pretty.  The problem is if somebody today thinks the person in the picture is real, and if they can’t look like the fake person in the picture, they feel bad about themselves.  But Miss P. is beautiful just because she’s Miss P., and all you girls are beautiful just because you’re you, and all you boys are handsome just because you’re you.”

I debated bringing this up in third grade because I volunteer to teach art history, not ethics.  And I debated putting this up on my blog because it doesn’t really fit the theme of history of Christianity.  I decided to, anyway, both times, because I can’t stop thinking about how I felt as I looked at those ill-proportioned pictures of women.  I’m not particularly bothered that Ingress painted women with an eye to the overall composition of the painting instead of an eye to what women really looked like.  Instead, I’m concerned because I’ve just realized that women have been “photoshopped” for a long time--much longer than I’d considered.

I have five kids, ages 14 to 5.  I’ve dealt with body image concerns from my daughters and my sons.  Yes, I think it’s ok to be in a ballet class even though you don’t think you’re shaped like what you think a ballerina is shaped like.  No, I don’t think it’s a problem that you’re little sister is as tall as you, though I understand why you’re angry when people think you’re twins.  No, I don’t think anyone notices that your eyes aren’t quite symmetrical, and I think that even if they did notice, it’s not important.   After looking at Ingres’ pictures, I understand better why my kids (and many adults) have such a hard time getting this.  We look at pictures that portray beauty in unrealistic ways.  And we’ve been doing it for over two hundred years, not just since the invention of photography and digitally altering images.

My kids, and all the kids in third grade, need something better than they get from Ingres.  They need to know that they’re children of God, and this alone makes them beautiful.  So yesterday I took time out of art history to teach this message to third graders as best as I could.  Next week I’ll present a similar lesson in family home evening.  I decided to post my soapbox on my blog, too, as some people who read my blog aren’t in my family or Miss P.’s third grade class.

We are children of God, and that is enough to make us beautiful.

2014 Church History Symposium part 1: A Small Leaf in the Forest of God’s Knowledge

Soviet army visor cap
Picture taken by Tom Abbott

I don’t remember much of international relations and politics during the Cold War.  I was too young.  Germans could legally cross the Berlin Wall beginning on my fifteenth birthday, and the USSR collapsed when I was seventeen.  I remember that when the Iron Curtain came down, it happened quickly, stunning the adults I knew.  I remember a teacher in my high school seminary musing that he had thought the Church would never be allowed to enter Eastern Europe while he lived, but now it seemed that it could happen after all.  Looking back, God had been working in Eastern Europe all along, using small means to create a miracle that would confound the wise.

Several of the sessions I attended at the Church History symposium March 6 and 7 addressed this theme, God’s ability to confound the wise people of the world.  President Uchtdorf, in his keynote address March 7, discussed how our wisdom may look like foolishness to God, whose foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of man.  He said God knows what we do not.  God is good and faithful and sometimes performs His work in ways that are incomprehensible to us.  God asks us to have faith.  Those who disregard the powers of Heaven will find themselves on the wrong side of history. 

My Piece of the Berlin Wall
Picture taken by Tom Abbott

As an example, President Uchtdorf retold the story about President Monson promising the Saints of the GDR that if they remained faithful they would enjoy every blessing available to people in in any other country (For this story as told by President Monson, see Thanks be to God, Ensign May 1989).  At the time President Monson gave the promise, President Uchtdorf couldn’t imagine it being fulfilled during President Uchtdorf’s lifetime.  The evidence of the world contradicted the word of an apostle.  Ten years later, when Sister Uchtdorf overheard a rumor that a temple was going to be built in East Germany, both she and President Uchtdorf dismissed it.  A few days afterward, however, the church announced the Freiburg temple. 

The previous day of the symposium, Thursday March 6, I listened to Clint Christensen tell another story about God leading the church and confounding the wise.  His presentation was entitled Ebony Grafted onto the Olive Tree:  The Global Impact of the 1978 Revelation.  During the 1970’s, Brother Christensen said, President Kimball felt it was time to preach the gospel in more countries.  He looked for ways to expand missionary work around the world.  One of the difficulties he encountered concerned how to take the gospel to Africa, the islands of the Caribbean, and Latin America, because so many of the men who live in these parts of the world are of African descent and at this time could not hold the priesthood.  Without local priesthood holders, the Church could not set up wards or stakes, call missionaries or patriarchs, or perform temple ordinances in these areas.  President Kimball prayed for inspiration.  How was he to take the gospel to the world?  The answer eventually came via the 1978 revelation on the priesthood.  Today people of African descent serve as patriarchs, stake presidents, mission presidents, temple presidents, and General Authorities.  During this presentation, I realized that President Kimball had not known how to take the gospel message to Africa, the Caribbean, or Latin America.  But God knew, and opened up a way (To read a version of this story as told by President Hinkley, see Priesthood Restoration, Ensign October 1988).

Accra Ghana temple
Source:  Lds.org

After the 1978 revelation opened doors in Africa, Church membership in Ghana grew rapidly.  This, combined with Cold War anti-American sentiment, led to the 1989 “freeze,” during which time the government of Ghana suspended all activity of the LDS church.  J.B. Haws discussed The Freeze and the Thaw:  Church and State in Ghana in his address which immediately followed Brother Christensen’s.  From his address I learned about yet another time when the wisdom of the world suggested that things were going badly for the Church.  God was working behind the scenes, however, and after eighteen months of the freeze, leaders of other congregations convinced the government of Ghana that Ghana needed freedom of religion.  God even turned the seeming setback into a blessing:  the increased media exposure of the LDS church during the freeze led to a sudden increase in church interest at the beginning of the thaw.

"We have only one leaf from the vast forest of knowledge"
-President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Picture from Lds.org

President Uchtdorf compared all human knowledge to one leaf in the forest of God’s wisdom.  He counseled:  There are times when things appear to be going badly for the truth of God.  Be patient.  Things will work out.  God will succeed.  The truth will spread throughout the earth.  Stay calm and carry on.  Things which appear impossible now may become commonplace in years to come. 

Or as my husband likes to say, “God is in control of the world.  Satan doesn’t win a round.” 

Note:  President Uchtdorf’s entire keynote address can be viewed on YouTube here.