While reflecting on her faith, Latter-day Saint artist Morgan Casteel realized that many pivotal moments in gaining her testimony and connecting to heaven took place in nature.
This recognition sparked an idea to illustrate four gardens encompassing significant moments where God made Himself known to man: the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Gethsemane, the Garden Tomb, and the Sacred Grove.
“Very few times in my life have I felt like God came and gave me an idea for my art,” Morgan says. “But the Gardens of God series I will 1,000 percent always believe came straight from Him.”
While these scenes don’t depict Christ Himself, Morgan believes that landscape art can communicate the Savior’s love and presence in special ways. Her goal is to help transport viewers to sacred settings, inspire feelings of awe for God’s creations, and assure them of His love.
Envisioning the Empty Tomb
For The Garden Tomb, Morgan aimed to portray specific feelings about His Atonement rather than an exact historical likeness. “Out of all of the paintings in this collection, the color palette on The Garden Tomb is the most limited,” she says. “I was solely trying to capture a feeling of hope, peace, and His love. I wanted it to feel calm and comforting to invite viewers into the piece and encourage them to envision themselves there.”
Morgan designed the painting to keep the eye centered on the tomb. “I wanted the focal point to be the light, His light, that was illuminating the entrance to the tomb,” she explains. “That is why you will see that the stone seems brighter near the door than anywhere else.”
She also incorporated flowers into the painting to allude to the new life and hope that is possible through Christ:
“Because of Him, we have the promise of renewal and rebirth—we don’t have to stay as we are. We are allowed to change. We can become something better.
“Nature is such a beautiful example of that. Even flowers and trees have times where they rest, times where they’re desolate, times where all the leaves fall off and they shrivel up into nothing. But they always reseed, rebloom, and come back stronger. I think that is such a beautiful symbol and metaphor for our own lives and what they can be with the Savior.”
Morgan sought to capture the emotions that people in scripture might have felt discovering the empty tomb. “The hope, trust, and faith that would ignite in people is unparalleled,” she says.
We, too, can find hope in the image of the empty tomb and learn valuable lessons about receiving the gift of Christ’s Atonement.
“In times when we feel like we’re in the depths of despair, left in the dark, when we don’t know how to move forward, or we’re unsure of what the trajectory of our life is going to look like, we can remember that Christ overcame all of that and that the tomb is empty!” Morgan says. “Because of Him, we don’t have to feel like we’re in the darkness. We can trust in His light and love, and we can let that fill and direct our lives.”
Because of Him, we have the promise of renewal and rebirth.
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the March/April issue of LDS Living magazine. The theme for the issue was making Easter a sacred season to bring you closer to the Savior.
Rejoice in His Resurrection
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