A heavenly host presses in to herald the birth of Jesus Christ in this oil painting by Brian T. Kershisnik (BFA ’88). He created the massive—7-by-17-foot—work from January to October 2006, finishing it in time for the BYU Museum of Art (MOA) to display it as part of the exhibit Beholding Salvation: Images of Christ. The painting later hung in the LDS Church History Museum and other locations before an anonymous donor purchased it and gave it to the MOA.
“I wanted to do a painting that was mostly about angels,” says Kershisnik. “I thought about the births of my own children—it felt very much like those events were witnessed by angels. And what birth would have been more witnessed by angels than Jesus’ birth? . . . Maybe we got to be in this big crowd.”
Kershisnik answers children’s questions about the angels, midwives, and dogs in the video below.
