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| OIL ON PAPER |
| 16-1/2" x 22-3/4" |
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Instructions:
Move the mouse around the left image to see different parts of the image.
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| Gift from F. Ed and Judy Bennett, Salt Lake City |
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The noted Salt Lake photographer, art dealer, and framer, Charles R. Savage exhibited in his Art Bazaar window a chromo-lithograph of a picture by an Eastern artist, Archibald Willard. The reproduction was of Willard's oil, "Deacon Jones' Experience." This work would influence two creative Utahns. Both Nathaniel Spens, a pioneer painter, and John Lyon, an early Utah poet, saw the print as a source of inspiration.
Lyon, the Mormon poet, was inspired by Bret Hart's poem after Willard's picture, to write a doggerel "Hodge, the Revivalist" which deals with a new convert's first attempts to hold family prayer:
The boys laughed loud to see at pray'r such fun, While father groaned, and swore an oath or two, The cat kept scratching where she'd safety won Above the reach of Snap, who growled and grew More furious barking as at Puss he run, Till all the family were in a stew,
Nor could continued longer their devotion
With such unholy feelings and commotion...
Spens also saw the chromolithographic print about the same time and choose to copy it in most of its particulars. The original was sold at Sotheby's Parke-Bernet in New York in 1978 and demonstrates Archibald Willard's technical prowess, which far outshone Spens' amateurish naive style. The oil had a mate painted by Spens. It depicted the peaceful scene just before the chaos errupted. It was probably an original conception of the artist. |
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