Kenneth Hartvigsen: Experiencing Art in an Intimate Way

Kenneth Hartvigsen has thought a lot about the power art possesses. He is a believer that it has the ability to help us unite, understand one another, and feel a greater connection to the Creator. On this week’s episode, Kenneth, an art curator at Brigham Young University, takes us inside his thought process surrounding art so we can “experience” one of Carl Bloch’s most famous paintings, “Christ Healing the Sick at the Pool of Bethesda.”

1:56- “Something To Feel”

5:06- The Great Unifier 

8:11- An Embodied Experience

14:43- The Church’s Commitment To Art

18:29- Seeking To Understand

26:56- Back To Bethesda 

37:07- Art and Empathy

42:39- Sacred Even When Not Religious

46:29- What Does It Mean To Be All In the Gospel of Jesus Christ? 

“Looking at art of any subject can be sacred in the sense that what I am looking at is somebody else’s deep desire to better understand what they’re doing here and to respond to things they’ve experienced—things that have been exciting for them, things that have been sad for them, things that they’re confused about or things they deeply believe but in any of those cases I feel like it’s an opportunity to sort of look into the eyes of a fellow traveler here in this complicated part of our existence and to try to see their spiritual progress."

Learn More about Christ Healing the Sick at the Pool of Bethesda” and "Monumental Matters and other BYU exhibits- https://moa.byu.edu/exhibitions-2/current-exhibitions/

Bethesda-https://moa.byu.edu/past-exhibitions-archive/past-exhibitions-2001/carl-bloch-chirst-healing-the-sick-at-bethesda/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.