Who is the most famous, the most revered sculptor by latter-day saints? Very few members can recall the name of Bertel Thorvaldsen, but almost all can recognize his very famous work. A contemporary of Joseph Smith, he was never destined to meet the prophet from New York. Yet, their works would become associated in the following century.

“Kommer Til Mig” is the actual name of the work of art that Latter-day Saints know as “The Christus.”

President Spencer W. Kimball said of him, “During one of our visits to Copenhagen, we were excited and inspired as we drank in the beauty of Thorvaldsen's Christ and the Twelve Apostles. We wondered if anyone, anytime, could produce a greater masterpiece.” (“The Gospel Vision of the Arts,” Ensign Magazine, July 1977, pg. 4.)

The Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen.

Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) was born in Denmark and baptized into the Danish Evangelical-Lutheran Church, but lived more than half of his life in Rome. There he was trained as a master sculptor by one of history's greatest, Antonio Canova.

When Canova died in 1822, Thorvaldsen became the undisputed master sculptor of his time and was in constant demand throughout Europe. He was closely associated with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and created the sepulchral monument for Pope Pius VII that is still displayed in the Vatican.

Thorvaldsen's masterpiece “Kommer Til Mig” (“Come To Me”) created for the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen, Denmark, has come to represent for several generations of Protestant Christians, the actual image of the Son of God, powerfully yet tenderly entreating all that visit there to come unto him.

When I visited there recently with my family, I purchased a book printed by the Thorvaldsen Museum from which I extracted this history and details of Thorvaldsen and “Kommer Til Mig” ( On the Statue of Christ by Thorvaldsen, by Anne-Mette Gravgaard and Eva Henschen, published by The Thorvaldsen Museum and The Church of Our Lady, Copenhage, 1997). In the final chapter were examples of the statue's wide appeal, including a photograph of our Visitor's Center at Temple Square in Utah.

An Unbeliever

Thorvaldsen created numerous sculptural works for the Catholic Church and Lutheran Church of Denmark, but he himself was not particularly religious. He found the Church in Rome too “tortuous and mystical” and never received communion from the Church into which he was christened.

He persisted in a long affair with a married woman, Anna Maria Magnani, who bore him two children, a sin by either church. When Thorvaldsen was asked how he could create the Christus without being a believer, it is reported that he replied, “I don't believe in the Greek gods either, but I can make them nevertheless.” How did Thorvaldsen come to sculpt the masterpiece “Kommer Til Mig,” and what was his inspiration?

Jason and the Golden Fleece were examples of Thorvaldsen's recreations of things he did not believe.

Young Bertel earned his living and began his apprenticeship in Rome by carving classic Greek and Roman statues for clients in Europe during the latter part of the neoclassical period. Everyone wanted a classical sculpture. He produced cookie-cutter marble statues until he made a breakthrough in 1806, creating his own version of Jason and the Golden Fleece. Notice the similar style and technique already mature thirty years before the creation of the Christus.

An ancient miniature of Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine and healing, was found in Thorvaldsen's own personal collection of sculpture. This work has some interesting similarities of the healing figure of Christ.

This Greek miniature of Asclepius, the father of medicine, was found in Thorvald's personal collection.

Undoubtedly the most influential figure was not sculpture at all, but a painting by one of his friends in Rome — the German painter Peter Cornelius. Cornelius belonged to the group who called themselves The Nazarenes. They idolized the great Italian painter Raphael. The similarity to his depiction of Christ is quite striking and absolutely cogent because this borrowed painting hung in Thorvaldsen's apartment in Rome for a number of years.

“The Five Wise and the Five Foolish Virgins” by Peter Cornelius belongs to the Dusseldorf Art Museum.

The actual depiction of the Savior's face seems to have been influenced by the tradition of the Mandylion Shroud, related to and perhaps the same as the Shroud of Turin, which Thorvaldsen may have seen.

The legend says that King Abgar of Edessa was very sick and sent a messenger to Christ asking to be healed by a miracle. Jesus pressed his face to a cloth, which was taken back to the king. According to the legend, the king was healed by the cloth. This cloth was preserved through the centuries in Constantinople until the Fourth Crusade in 1206, when it disappeared. This face has been canonized in Byzantine tradition and prescribes that Jesus be depicted with hair parted down the middle, a forked beard, and a long and prominent nose.

The face is also measured in nose lengths — the parted hairline, the forehead, the forked beard, the width of the face, and so on. Thus, Thorvaldsen used elements from the Eastern Church, the Western Church and Greek mythology. He once said, “If anyone says that my Christian statues are Greek, they will be correct, for it is the Greeks that give us the method by which we can work.”

The details are fuzzy of how exactly Thorvaldsen was given the commission for the Church of Our Lady. C.F. Hansen, the architect, first authorized the commission in 1815, almost twenty years before it was completed. Nothing was started on the commission until a visit back to native Denmark from Rome, in 1820. Then five working clay or plaster sketches were made in rapid succession and turned over Pietro Tenerani, Thorvaldsen's apprentice.

Pietro finished a wet clay version of the 3 1/2 meter final sculpture, which the master then finished in detail. From this, the original plaster (there can only be one) was made as the clay was destroyed. It wasn't until 1828 that the master marble carver Pietro Bienamé carved the final marble piece. Though Thorvaldsen was supposed to touch up the original, he never did. He only dictated alterations and returned to Rome.

The final statue was sent by ship to Copenhagen in May, 1833. Engineers had to knock out part of the wall of the already dedicated Church of Our Lady in order to get the statue inside. The Apostles had to wait for further payment before Thorvaldsen would complete them. When they were finally finished in 1848 (four years after Thorvaldsen's death), the niches already constructed for them proved to be too small so the Twelve Apostles stand outside of them in the chapel itself.

A “Silence“ sign was posted in the foyer, but our family didn't need it. The powerful simplicity of Christ and the Apostles commanded our reverence. There was a single pilgrim in the chapel kneeling on the bench before the Savior. It was quite a different atmosphere than Vigeland Park in Oslo, which I wrote about last month.

A little while later, a large group of Asians came in but left quickly. I guess there were fewer visitors there than Vigeland for the same reason there are fewer visitors at Temple Square than Disneyland. But for the Neal family it was a sacred experience. We shed tears. We felt the Spirit. We felt the peace of the Savior as we knelt in front of the depiction of the Lord and “Kommer til mig.”

It is difficult for me to believe that Bertel Thorvaldsen could have created this incredible experience without the help of the Almighty. As King Benjamin points out, the Lord “preserves us from day to day, lending us breath” (Mosiah 2:21) so that we can really do nothing without him.

Yet I want to believe what J.B. Dalhoff, the Danish Court Jeweler said of Thorvaldsen:

But it seems Dalhoff was the only one who believed it. Even the Archdeacon Tryde, who spoke at Thorvaldsen's funeral in the very church where his statue of the Christus resides, said of him: “Thorvaldsen was a great man, but he was lacking in one thing: Christianity.”

President Kimball wrote, “Take a da Vinci or a Michelangelo or a Shakespeare and give him a total knowledge of the plan of salvation of God and personal revelation and cleanse him, and then take a look at the statues he will carve and the murals he will paint and the masterpieces he will produce (Pg. 5, Ensign , Jul., 1977).”

So here is the colossal lesson for us aspiring Latter-day Saint artists: We have thousands, perhaps millions of inspired men and women in the Church — more spiritual than Bertel Thorvaldsen. Yet, sculpturally speaking, we have not created anything so sublime and perfect as his Christus.

Therefore, it would seem to me that the fulfillment of President Kimball's prediction is that we Latter-day Saints have to rely more on old-fashioned hard work. Sweat. Study. More work. And do this as the Spirit directs. Like President Kimball said, “Do it.” Don't just dream it.

For those who aren't going to create paintings, sculpture, or symphonies and operas of the Restoration, remember that the gospel takes a lot of time, serving and raising children. Those of us with the means need to commission gifted artists so that they can feed their children while the creative work of the Restoration is being composed, sculpted, and painted!

The author, carving a sculpture that will be known as “Other Sheep I Have.”

I felt something of that when I was carving my own marble statue of the Savior in Pietrasanta, Italy. It was the same feeling I recognized in Copenhagen. My statues are not worthy to “wash the feet” of Thorvaldsen's Christus, but I am spiritually motivated to do the work. I am optimistic of President Kimball's words. I am hopeful.