Saints at Devil’s Gate: Landscapes along the Mormon Trail / Laura Allred Hurtado, Bryon C. Andreasen; with artwork by John Burton, Josh Clare, and Bryan Mark Taylor. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2016. $24.95, through store.lds.org. Selected images and excerpts of text available online at history.lds.org.

Most Keepa readers are familiar with the Church Historian’s Press as the publisher of the ongoing Joseph Smith Papers series, and last year’s publication of The First Fifty Years of Relief Society. In addition to these scholarly text projects, the Church Historian also oversees work at the Church History Museum. Saints at Devil’s Gate is the Press’s first grand publication from the art museum end of things, a handsome volume documenting a current and major exhibition of artworks created especially for that display at the Church History Museum.

The title is misleading: The paintings in the exhibition are not limited to the short length of the trail near Devil’s Gate, Wyoming; the artwork records landscapes along the full length of the Mormon pioneer route, from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Valley. In an interview conducted by editor Laura Allred Hurtado with the artists, the reader learns that all four have ancestral ties to the Willie and Martin handcart companies, either as members of one of those companies or as rescuer, and all are particularly drawn to the events at Devil’s Gate. But if you, like me, find the story of the full trail, and the experiences of the vast majority of Mormon pioneers who emigrated by wagon, to be at least as interesting and inspirational as the two anomalous handcart companies, know that this is not a “handcart book” but a “pioneer trail book.”

The bulk of Saints at Devil’s Gate reproduces paintings created over the past five years by artists John Burton, Josh Clare , and Bryan Mark Taylor. Most images fill a ten-inch square page, with many extending onto the facing page. Those facing pages each include a small, simple map with a marker pointing to the location on the trail represented by that painting, as well as brief texts: quotations from the diaries or reminiscences of pioneers regarding that point on the trail, or a bit of historical context about the significance of a landmark, or an “artist’s perspective” or “curator’s response” regarding the artwork itself.

And oh! the artwork! The three artists have similar enough styles for their paintings to fit comfortably together from one image to the next, yet they are different enough that after only a few pages my untrained eye began to distinguish between the broad brushstrokes and suggestive patches of color in the painterly style of John Burton, and the more linear style of Bryan Mark Taylor (Josh Clare’s work falls somewhere between the two, helping to smooth the transitions and unify the whole collection).

The paintings reflect the landscapes of today’s Midwest and West, virtually always omitting any jarring trace of modern technology (phone lines, paved roads) and, refreshingly, without romanticizing the landscapes by the insertion of pioneer wagons or costumed models. Yet there are traces of humanity in these mostly wild landscapes – the ruts left by long-gone wagons, the suggestion of campfires in the distance of two or three paintings. The human figure is absent, but the paintings are filled with the life of the grasses and trees, the movement of streams, and the occasional appearance of a buffalo or jackrabbit.

The major landmarks are all here: the spire of Chimney Rock; the cut in the rock face at Devil’s Gate that lets the river flow through; Independence Rock, the shape of which foreshadows the Tabernacle. But despite these unforgettable landmarks, the real stars depicted in painting after painting are two: the streams that meant both life for the pioneers who camped along their banks but also hardship and sometimes fear for the work of crossing those rivers repeatedly; and the sky – always the enormity of the sky, in all lights and all weathers, emphasizing the aloneness and the vulnerability of the pilgrims so far from the aid of any but each other and their God.

Beyond the paintings and their accompanying bits of illuminating text, Saints at Devil’s Gate includes introductory essays by artist and curator regarding the development of the project, and a lengthy concluding interview of the artists focusing on their personal responses to the Mormon Trail and linking the pioneer experience to contemporary events.

This book is so different from the first projects of the Church Historian’s Press that I struggled for some time – long enough to seriously delay this review – over whether this book was an appropriate use of that Press. Yes, administratively the Church History Museum falls under the direction of the Church Historian, but this book is a modern, creative work owing its realization to the eyes and hearts and hands of the artists, not to the careful reconstruction, verification, and scholarly citation of textual sources that are the basis of most of what we recognize as history. The artists and curators do not have the same relationship to texts or the same understanding of source material as the historians with whom I associate – time and time again, when I expected an objective, analytical response to a question asked in the concluding interview, one or another of the artists would respond with a subjective, emotional, internal response. That subjective, personal interpretation appears as well in the “artist’s perspective” notes accompanying some of the images. It was not easy for me to understand what the artists meant, because their words violated my expectations of “history.”

But the more time spent with these paintings and with considering the artists’ words, the more I am willing to concede that this is history, and that the reproduction of visual arts can very well be an appropriate use of the Church Historian’s Press. The artists’ approach is not, after all, entirely different from my own response to history – while I appreciate the careful, logical, step-by-step explication of an historical argument, I also respond emotionally to the story of an early Latter-day Saint who clearly shares my experience with the Spirit. The painting that unexpectedly meant the most to me is one by Josh Clare of the crossing of the Elkhorn River – my great great grandmother died of measles at the Elkhorn encampment and lies there in an unmarked grave. Looking at this painting, I realized I had never seen an image of that place except in my mind’s eye; I now sense the wildness of that spot, far enough from Winter Quarters for the Saints to feel fairly well on their way, yet still so near the beginning of the trail that Louisa Barnes Pratt could write of my grandmother’s two daughters, “To make a lone grave by the way side at the beginning of our journey, caused our hearts to flow out with sympathy for the poor young girls, left to pursue the wearisome route over the deserts without a mother!” My response to this bit of history is personal, emotional, and subjective – how could I exclude the artists’ response as any less history-based than my own, especially when they have done what I cannot: Produce a tangible, visible, lasting record of some part of that experience?

The Saints at Devil’s Gate exhibition continues for the time being at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City. Latter-day Saints at a distance can view much of the exhibition online at history.lds.org.