BYU-Idaho art professor Brian Call recently received a commission from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to create a new painting. This painting, created for the Church’s Easter and General Conference weekend celebration, is a scene of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.

The commission

“About five months ago, I got a message from [the Church],” Call said. “They said they were inviting some people to send in some samples, something for Easter, something about the Savior.”

Call, an adjunct faculty who specializes in drawing classes, sent about four sketches for consideration.

He heard back about a month later.

“I got a message that they wanted to visit on a video call for a while,” Call said. “I thought, ‘Oh, if they want to talk for a half-hour, then they probably picked one.’ And they did. I knew if they picked one, I knew which one it would be and it was the Garden of Gethsemane.”

Call wasn’t the only artist to receive such a commission. Two other artists--Stacy Weitz Minch and Jeremy Winborg--were selected to paint depictions of the triumphal entry and Christ in the Americas, respectively.

“They were supposed to just pick one but they ended up picking three, so they had three different artists they reached out to to do something,” Call said.

Call acknowledged that Gethsemane was an "important scene" and he wanted to get it right.

“I’ve always liked this one,” Call said. “It’s an intimidating subject to tackle and I’ve done some sketches of it and a few smaller paintings of it in the past, but nothing on this scale.”

Call said that he initially didn't realize what this was for.

“I realized it was a lot bigger deal than I thought it was going to be,” Call said. “[It] scared me just a little bit, made me a little bit nervous because everyone’s going to see it, so I immediately went back to my sketch and started fixing it.”

Fellow adjunct art professor McKay Fife has been teaching at BYUI for a little over a year. Call was one of Fife’s teachers when he was a BYUI student.

Fife said that Call receiving this commission was “fitting.”

“He is someone who has such a gentle but intentional way of teaching whatever he paints,” said Fife. “I was delighted and not shocked at all that he got this commission. He deserves it because of the artist he is.”

The process

According to Call, the process took about four months. During the creation process, the Church would visit to photograph and film Call as he painted.

The original--a three-foot-by-four-foot oil painting on linen--gets to remain with Call. The Church has already made prints for reproduction.

Fife pointed out that the painting was somber, but also “simple and beautiful.”

“He kind of wanted to intentionally have it look a little somber and a little sad, but ultimately hopeful,” Fife said. “And I think he nailed that.”

Fife mentioned that President D. Todd Christofferson used this painting in his Sunday afternoon talk in General Conference. Fife said he thought that was "pretty cool."

The Church currently uses a painting by Harry Anderson to depict this scene. This iconic image has been the classic Gethsemane depiction for decades, but Call said Church leaders wanted a new depiction.

“Harry Anderson, he’s one of my all-time heroes and he is really, really good,” Call said. “Great illustrator from the 50s, fantastic artist and his images are spectacular. But they told me that the prophet was just kind of looking for something new.”

Call has been an illustrator for over 20 years now, and said he was looking to try something else.

“The last few years I’ve been wanting to kind of shift a little bit and do a little bit more fine art stuff,” Call said. “I’ve always wanted to paint for the temples and do some of that stuff.”

According to Call, he received spiritual guidance during the process. Call said that he was able to see Heavenly Father “moving things around.”

“It was really fun to see Heavenly Father work with me on this one,” Call said. “It was easy to see His hand through the whole process from the beginning to the end. As I was painting, I’d paint it wrong and then He would help me fix it."