Landscape show starts Monday

"The true function of art," quipped noted newspaperman H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), "is to edit nature and so make it coherent and lovely. The artist is sort of impassioned proofreader, blue-penciling the bad spelling of God."

Mencken's irreverence aside, it's true that the best artists modify reality to fit their personal vision, and an excellent example of personal vision is this year's Deseret Morning News/Days of '47 Landscape Art Show "Color of the Land."

All 100 works — selected from 273 entries — are bold, individual statements. Exhibition visitors will have the opportunity to consider, study and thoroughly enjoy each work of art Monday through Friday in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building's Bonneville and Nauvoo rooms.

This year's jurors, Sandy Brunvand, Karen Horne and Jared Sanders, spent many hours studying each piece and debating its merits. Their final selections make for the most varied exhibition since the show's revival in 1999.

Doug Braithwaite won this year's $5,000 Purchase Award with "A Work in Progress" (oil on board). Rendered in his trademark style, Braithwaite gives viewers a slice of a stream, surrounding brush, red rock hills and a piercing blue sky. His composition is very strong, and his use of lighting and color makes for a splendid painting.

The $1,000 first-place award went to Clay Wagstaff for "The Circle (Dove Creek #10)" (oil on board). Wagstaff's use of glazes is inspirational. The technical virtuosity of his draftsmanship is also strong, but his harmonious muted colors make for a study in serenity.

H. Shane Ross picked up the $800 second-place award for his Dixonesque work "Tridell Evening" (oil on canvas). This is a wonderful painting with flawless composition and consonant color. It will surely be one of the favorites of the exhibition.

Third place, worth $600, went to Maureen O'Hara Ure for her mystical landscape "The Afternoon" (mixed media on board). The details on the surface of this piece tantalize; it is a land we have never visited, but with which we eventually become entrenched.