[First Presidency letter]
[W]e have [had] the two rooms [in the Salt Lake temple] measured which we have decided to have artistically decorated, and enclose herewith the plans of the same. They are what we call the Garden and Telestial Rooms. By sending these to you and giving you our ideas of the character of the rooms, and that which is to be represented therein, we thought you would have an excellent opportunity at Paris to get up suitable designs for them, even better, probably, than you could at home, because of the advantages which an art center like Paris furnishes in the way of suggestions, etc. The walls of the Garden ought to represent as well as can be done, the garden of Eden in the condition in which it was when the Lord placed our first parents therein, as described in the scriptures, filled with the most beautiful vegetation, and with animals of every kind dwelling together without enmity. * We would like the designs to be as beautiful as it is possible to obtain. The Telestial Room is the dark and dreary world into which Adam and Eve are driven out of the Garden after their transgression. It is the world under the curse. All is changed, for it is a world in which sin has made its appearance. Animals have become ravenous; they prey upon each other, and even the fowls of the air have partaken of the spirit of antagonism. The earth has become cursed for man's sake. Thorns and thistles and noxious weeds have sprung up, and the whole face of nature shows the effect of the change * These are the scenes to be depicted upon the walls of this room. There are no human figures upon the walls of either the Garden or the Telestial world; the scenes are confined to the vegetable and animal kingdoms. It may be practical for several of you to work in each room. * We see no serious reason why several should not work in the same room, working of course at different details and upon different walls. * Our experience in the Logan temple is not very encouraging for painting on the walls. The work which was first done there had all to be done over again, the paint having peeled off in consequence of the walls having become damp through defective guttering in the roof of the building. * [You will want to] cover the wall with canvass, and paint on the canvass. Will you please examine into this question thoroughly[?]
[Source: Wilford Woodruff, George Q. Cannon, and Joseph F. Smith to John W. Clawson, Lorus Pratt, John B. Fairbanks, Henry Evans, and Herman Haag, Jan. 26, 1892, in Anderson, Devery; The Development of LDS Temple Worship, 1846-2000: A Documentary History, http://amzn.to/TempleWorship]
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