Sphinx
Representation of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, as a sphinx located in Gilgal Garden.
Gilgal Sculpture Garden is a small public city park, located at 749 East 500 South in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The park, which is filled with unusual symbolic statuary associated with Mormonism, notably to the Sphinx with Joseph Smith's head, was a labor of love designed and created by LDS businessman Thomas Battersby Child, Jr. (1888-1963) in his spare time. The park contains 12 original sculptures and over 70 stones engraved with scriptures, poems and literary texts. Gilgal Sculpture Garden is the only designated "visionary art environment" in the state of Utah.
The name "Gilgal" is sometimes translated to mean "circle of standing stones," an appropriate appellation for a sculpture garden. Gilgal is also the name of a city and a valley in The Book of Mormon, a sacred scripture in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. -- Courtesy Wikipedia
The Sphinx is the best-known sculpture in Gilgal Garden. It is also, Child wrote “the basis of thought or inspiration for all that is built around it.” The contrast of the unhewn stones arranged to suggest a crouching animal with the finely carved face of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith makes this a remarkable piece. Child carefully selected the huge quartzite stones to form the Sphinx’s body and hired sculptor Maurice Brooks to create the face using an oxyacetylene torch.
The Sphinx represents Child’s belief that the answers to life’s great questions cannot be discovered with the intellect, but only through faith. The sphinx is an ancient symbol of riddles and mystery. Joseph Smith’s face symbolizes Child’s conviction that the LDS Priesthood reveals to mankind the answers to life’s mysteries.
To see more of this quirky but fascinating sculpture garden check out my album here: www.flickr.com/photos/19779889@N00/albums/721777203075209...
Sphinx
Representation of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, as a sphinx located in Gilgal Garden.
Gilgal Sculpture Garden is a small public city park, located at 749 East 500 South in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The park, which is filled with unusual symbolic statuary associated with Mormonism, notably to the Sphinx with Joseph Smith's head, was a labor of love designed and created by LDS businessman Thomas Battersby Child, Jr. (1888-1963) in his spare time. The park contains 12 original sculptures and over 70 stones engraved with scriptures, poems and literary texts. Gilgal Sculpture Garden is the only designated "visionary art environment" in the state of Utah.
The name "Gilgal" is sometimes translated to mean "circle of standing stones," an appropriate appellation for a sculpture garden. Gilgal is also the name of a city and a valley in The Book of Mormon, a sacred scripture in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. -- Courtesy Wikipedia
The Sphinx is the best-known sculpture in Gilgal Garden. It is also, Child wrote “the basis of thought or inspiration for all that is built around it.” The contrast of the unhewn stones arranged to suggest a crouching animal with the finely carved face of LDS Church founder Joseph Smith makes this a remarkable piece. Child carefully selected the huge quartzite stones to form the Sphinx’s body and hired sculptor Maurice Brooks to create the face using an oxyacetylene torch.
The Sphinx represents Child’s belief that the answers to life’s great questions cannot be discovered with the intellect, but only through faith. The sphinx is an ancient symbol of riddles and mystery. Joseph Smith’s face symbolizes Child’s conviction that the LDS Priesthood reveals to mankind the answers to life’s mysteries.
To see more of this quirky but fascinating sculpture garden check out my album here: www.flickr.com/photos/19779889@N00/albums/721777203075209...