https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/12/29/latter-day-saints-alter-nativity/

This may be available as it indicates it is a "gift" article

A painting from the 1600's was altered to make Mary more modest.
It was available to download from a website of TSSC until attention was drawn to the changes.

It never ceases to amaze me how the mormon thought police keep doing stupid stuff like this, but they do.

it may be stupid but the image - scene is supposed to be about Christ's birth, isn't it?

With weird people being so vocal - expressive, cleavage was an unnecessary, unappropreate distraction.

That “cleavage” gave the baby life, and was a strong connection between mother and child. There’s nothing inappropriate about it.

on the legal - ethical side,ChurchCo had no business altering someone else's artwork, your point about the mindset of Big Brother censors is valid; that's classic manipulation.

I disagree.
The copyright on this painting is long since expired, and the original is in the public domain.
One right in copyright is Derivative Works. Since all of the "bundle of rights" in copyright are expired, Derivative Works are allowed.
In Europe, there is a copyright right called "Moral Rights" which may have first existed since 1928 at the Berne Convention. This goes more to derogatory treatment of the original work, so if covering Mary's cleavage was derogatory to the the original, maybe there would be a case.

Not to mention that one way to grow your nest egg is to be as ridiculously cheap and money-grubbing as possible. They saved money doing it this way and that’s literally the bottom line directing the church.

Mormons proving once again they have their minds in the gutter while everyone else just sees a loving mother.

They are so obsessed with sex.

And, altering another's art is a criminal. The Mormons were always singing Lennon's "Imagine" at their weddings when I used to go and of course changing "no religion too" to "lover religion" too. If you don't like the art, don't buy and don't look. Period.

and above all, don't publish - use someone else's work without prrmission, honoring it, giving attribution & compensation.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> And, altering another's art is a criminal. The
> Mormons were always singing Lennon's "Imagine" at
> their weddings when I used to go and of course
> changing "no religion too" to "lover religion"
> too. If you don't like the art, don't buy and
> don't look. Period.

Just a reminder... when John Lennon sang "Imagine there's no possessions" he had Rolls Royces and refrigerated closets for his clothing. He wanted his fans to get rid of their possessions but not his.

This is my favorite version of the song, probably some others here unironically.
https://youtu.be/Cg1ISl2u5Lg

Cute. I get the point being made but the parody is a little on the lame side. John being filthy rich with all the trappings aside, and, and just looking at the lyrics as art . . .

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Livin' for today"

---No promotion of communism there. Just a suggestion that religion is divisive. So the lyrics of the parody for that part are not really parody.



"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace"

______ Just suggesting all being on the same team and getting along. Don't really see the parody as parody. Just borrowed the tune to promote his own interpretation based on, well ... what? A way to make some bucks?


You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

---Nice. A little on the syrupy side for me, but nice. Not a ballad for Putin there at all.


Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

---Advocating sharing. Nothing more. Why does that lead to harsh communism?


"You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us"


And see that the parody was lame.


I'm not crazy on the song myself, I just hate people changing other peoples art. I'm all for parodies though, but they need to be clever takes on the original and not whatever that one was.

I prefer to focus only on the message which is absolutely valid and universal.

Imagining something is the point. No one is being told to get rid of everything. If their imagination takes them to that, fine. If not, also fine.

Focusing on the message always works for me.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Mormons proving once again they have their minds
> in the gutter while everyone else just sees a
> loving mother.
>
> They are so obsessed with sex.
>
> And, altering another's art is a criminal. The
> Mormons were always singing Lennon's "Imagine" at
> their weddings when I used to go and of course
> changing "no religion too" to "lover religion"
> too. If you don't like the art, don't buy and
> don't look. Period.

Reminds me of when I was in college at USU in the early 1990s. I always loved the song "Brown Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison. One day I was in what was basically an LDS aligned book/music store (Hastings was the name if I remember correctly) in Logan and came across a tape with that song. So I bought it, and wore it out over a couple of years. A few years later, I am living in Florida and "Brown Eyed Girl" comes on the radio as I am driving. I turn it up and start singing along as I knew it by heart. That is until an unknown line about "making love in the green grass, behind the stadium..." pops up. Wait...what? Where did that line come? Long story short, this place had edited the music it put on the cassette tapes, cutting out lines that it deemed offensive, and passing it off as the original. 30 years later, and I am still angry about that.

Groan! That's hilarious...and ridiculous!

They must have worked hard to edit such a prominent line in the song.

That song was one of my favorites as a teen. I liked that naughty line and hoped my parents would never hear it.

I wrote another thread to discuss the church's mantra of living in the world but not of the world. There was a point when members could enjoy fashions, culture, art and pop culture with the simple acknowledgement that not everything fits inside the rigid Mormon "standards" box.

Then at some point ~1986 or 1987, church members took it upon themselves to butcher music, tv and films. Instead of the simple acknowledgement that songs may have lyrics that would embarrass church leaders, apparently the song has to be sanitized in order to be one's possession.

Keep in mind that I was raked over the coals for bringing a "Budweiser" controlled brand of potato chips to a youth activity. There was nothing wrong with the chips other than the brand had a tiny, printed line: American Eagle, a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch.

Yep. Wow.

It's creepy how people will gang up to police each other. It's not hard to see how a "moral police" mentality arises. I'm convinced Mormons would go along with stoning and burning people in the name of righteousness if they were taught to do so.

"There was a point when members could enjoy fashions, culture, art and pop culture with the simple acknowledgement that not everything fits inside the rigid Mormon "standards" box."

Exactly


That is the church I grew up in--in an old country ward. I was sad that when the church changed my family changed right along with it.

TRUTH!

I am guessing the Mormons do not sing the seasonal carol "In the Bleak Midwinter?" It mentions a breastful of milk and, in that same stanza, the ass at the creche. Horrors.

Fascinated in the Midwest Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am guessing the Mormons do not sing the seasonal
> carol "In the Bleak Midwinter?" It mentions a
> breastful of milk and, in that same stanza, the
> ass at the creche. Horrors.


Sang that in communion service this morning!

I saw this on social media last week and meant to verify and bring it here. I'm glad you posted about it. It's appalling yet laughably ridiculous.

If only Mormons cared about honesty, plagiarism and inclusiveness as much as they do a glimpse of cleavage.

Hmmm. Maybe all the great museums of the world should send out a memo warning about risks that Mormon employees or board members might pose and use this an an example. Can you imagine them hiding and covering up nasty bits on all the great masters given the chance?

This isn't a one time thing. They did it to Rodin's sculptures at BYU. I took an art history class at BYU that was heavily censored. Imagine my surprise when I went to the actual museums the professor had discussed.

Let's go be uplifted by seeing Baby Jesus and his mother Mary. Argh, my eyes!

Yeah, that only happens when boobs are all you think about.

Well, 17th century artists didn’t have the gospel. Plus, a scene like that could make Joseph Smith do naughty things.

There were also two cherubs looking on at the mother and child. They were photoshopped out of the image.

The article mentions another instance where the church used an image that had two adult angels, but they edited out the angel wings that were in the original painting.

Yes, the cherubs are also missing, presumably because cherubs typically have wings, and their positioning in the original is in keeping with them typically hovering or flying above.

The Angels' visit is a significant detail in the Biblical version of the Christmas story.

There are two other detail changes in the mormonized version which I don't think the article mentions:

1) The cloth in which the baby is wrapped has been changed from lavender/blue to white.
2) The baby is much whiter (and presumably delightsome-er).

There will probably be some forthcoming explanatory gobbledegook about how this is much more accurate than the original, that a girl of t̶h̶i̶r̶t̶e̶e̶n̶ almost 14 wouldn't have had such large breasts and that mothers of that time would have been more modest than depicted in the original painting.

Yep, they are definitely made more white (bright white). This implies whiteness is directly proportional to righteousness. Smirk. I wonder if they even realize it.

Making the baby whiter is every bit as offensive as covering up the (modest) cleavage.

I can only see this for a second each time I go there, because the paywall jumps in so fast. But I can see it long enough to appreciate the bowdlerism.

Could someone explain to me (I'm not exmo, only related to some scary TBMs) about angels and wings? Are those forbidden?

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2014/12/angels-we-have-heard?lang=eng


In order to give the impression that he had special esoteric knowledge, Joseph Smith basically used to just make up details that conflicted with traditional Christianity. (And Joseph's Myth was born.)

Thank you, Gordon B Stinky, for the link.

Wow, so much to know about angels! And aren't they busy little beings, winged or not!

They could have just hired their own artist to paint a painting as they wanted to see it. Heaven knows they have the money to pay the best. But NO. They copy everything just like Joseph Smith taught them to do.

Not and original thought among the how ever many of them there are.

They likely got a volunteer to use his or her talents to effect the changes and then thanked him or her with a sincere, “thank you, the lord appreciates your service…”

Leave it to the sex obsessed MORmONS to edit out perfectly natural and innocent hint of cleavage, along with the attending angels.
It’s like covering up Rodin’s sculptures to hide his exquisitely sculpted statue au natural. The Mormon belief that, the ‘Natural Man’ is the enemy of God, is insane. God created his “Children” in their natural state as his enemy? Seems like kind of a dumb doctrine.

Maybe the lord blessed them with protein shakes and steroids?

Maybe Arnold Frieberg "studied" Tom of Finland's style.

Note: don't look up Tom of Finland's art on a work computer.

Never heard of Touko Valio Laaksonen ("Tom Of Finland") until now, thanks for the information. Always wondered where the "Village People" style came from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_of_Finland

Wow. Tom of Finland looks suspiciously like. . .

Does anyone know if caffiend had a twin?

There was also a shawl over Mary's shoulder that was moved up an inch or two so that not even a hint of bare shoulder showed.

Somebody in the COB has issues.

I think it's terribly wrong to alter someone else's work of art. The Mormons need to come up with their own art. Shame on the people who did this, and those who authorized it.

Well aren't all the Mormon artists busy cleaning the bathrooms in their churches?

Imaginary characters can have all the cleavage you want.

Not even God could resist Jessica Rabbit. Sorry, Roger.

Almost as if there were some kind of link between babies and breasts that they maybe don't understand. A non-sexual one.

-Overreactions to the consumption of coffee in the workplace

-Constant tantrums about their standards not being respected

-Stories about prom dresses being banned and denied entry at school dances

-Photoshopping yearbook pictures

This story made the Daily Mail. Interesting but sometime factually wrong comments in the reader response column.

mary was a virgin ~



plz hab some respect OPie ~




thx ~

There are thousands of paintings of the Madonna and Child, painted from the middle ages through the renaissance and baroque. Many do not show Mary's cleavage. Why didn't the Mormon church select one of those instead of altering a painting? Better yet, why didn't they just create their own painting? Oh yeah. Only the Catholic church adorns its cathedrals and chapels with crosses, paintings and statues. The Mormon church doesn't allow such artwork in their chapels so they take from others - especially "the whore of all the earth" Catholic church that commissioned most (and probably the one LDS Inc. altered) of the paintings of Mary and Jesus.

LDS Inc. just can't seem to do anything right. They should have stuck with being a "peculiar people" instead of trying to appear mainstream Christian.

.

The most important thing is to look Christian. If you can fake that, you got it made.

With apologies to Jean Giraudoux, author of "The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made."

They’re so much superior to everyone else; they should paint their own works, instead of defacing that of others. Why would they want something heathens had produced?

Because painting their own work requires creativity and thought, which Mormonism tries to crush in members when possible.

I’ll be aure to send it out next year to my favorite Mormon. Lol.

I cannot see the image without paying $15 to the Salt Lake Tribune, which I really don't care to do. Can someone make a screen shot and link it somewhere accessible? I want to share with my husband, who has blood TBM relatives (and no end of trauma as a result).

Of interest to us particularly is how the infant miraculously lightened, and how the angels disappeared.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mormon-church-condemned-for-photoshopping-painting-of-virgin-mary-to-cover-her-bust-and-shoulders/ar-AA15QpdT

or here

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11588083/Mormon-Church-condemned-photoshopping-painting-Virgin-Mary-cover-bust-shoulders.html

I have never in my life seen or heard the phrase 'Jesus'genitals' nor thought about them.

Thanks Mormons. Sheesh.

Thanks for the links...

They do beg the question "why not just do your own damn art?"

Another observation is that Mary looks so much younger and more child-like with her cleavage covered up. Maybe that's the look the Mormon church was after. Warren Jeffs would approve.

…modest is hottest?

heartbroken Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Another observation is that Mary looks so much
> younger and more child-like with her cleavage
> covered up. Maybe that's the look the Mormon
> church was after.

That's sick. And tragically accurate.

I wish more significant Matters got more attention (I sometimes fail myself at this);

ChurchCo successfully derails attention to weightier matters (Matthew 23:24), while they ignore and/or dilute core values, let’s avoid that…

All in favor, signify by the usual sign!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2023 12:13PM by GNPE.