Most paintings that depict the martyrdom of Joseph Smith are either highly stylized (with dark, foreboding colors and intense shadows) or deeply sorrowful. Paintings like these fail to show the Prophet in the true light of his circumstances; they fail to show the courage he exemplified as death was literally at the door.
But I recently discovered what I believe to be the best painting of Joseph Smith’s martyrdom.
“Against the Christian Door” by Andrew Knaupp, takes place in the upstairs bedroom of Carthage Jail on June 27, 1844. The painting shows Joseph, Hyrum, Willard Richards and John Taylor holding the door of the bedroom shut, in order to keep out a mob of over 100 men.
“Facing your own death,” said Knaupp “is one thing. Facing the death of your brother at the hand of a mob is another. People talk about the idea that their whole life flashes before their eyes when their own death is about to happen…if Joseph’s life is flashing before his eyes…he’s seeing Hyrum through that whole life. From the time they were little kids, before his First Vision or anything. And through all of those difficult times, he sees Hyrum.”
Knaupp’s artistry is keenly attuned to historical accuracy. He spent months gathering historical data, photographs, information, sources and setting up the photo shoots for his models. From the death masks to their clothing, to their height, their weight, the time of day, the weather and even the diffusion of the light, Andrew Knaupp’s research was meticulous.
“I was trying to capture, as close as I could, what it might have actually looked like,” said Knaupp. “What they really wore, how they really would have stood, how tall they were, what their clothes looked like, what they canes would have looked like, what the door would have looked like, so that it might transport the viewer to that moment.”
“I can’t think of someone better that the Prophet would want to have been with, in those final moments, than his brother Hyrum.”
As a side note, there is an interesting detail about the door of Carthage Jail itself. Knaupp wrote, “The door of the jailers bedroom was a Christian Door, which is an architectural term used to describe the design of the door itself. This design was created to be a reminder to a Christian of their beliefs through the symbols of the cross and the open Bible, which were represented by the negative shape between panels on the top of the door, and the panels themselves at the bottom. It is ironic that Christian men in the mob were shooting through a Christian Door to kill men who had devoted their lives to the cause of Christ, and who died as Christian martyrs.”