In March 2000, many of the authors of this volume participated in an LDS Arts Festival held in New York City. Richard Lyman Bushman delivered the keynote address on that occasion, and his introduction to Silent Notes Taken is based on those remarks.

Richard Lyman Bushman is one of the nation's distinguished historians and authors. His books, The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (Vintage Books), Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (University of Illinois Press), and many others volumes, reveal a merged dual life: a career of academic excellence at the highest level--he is Gouveneur Morris Professor of History Emeritis at Columbia University--and an unblinking quest for spiritual truth. In his essay, "Would Joseph Smith Attend the New York Stake Arts Festival?" he is both historian and gospel scholar. First, he hypothetically argues whether Joseph Smith liked art. Bushman puts the prophet Joseph Smith in historical context:

"In Joseph's own day, the Hudson River painters were men of acknowledged belief who struggled to capture divinity in their paintings. They pointed toward God, for example, not by bringing the perspective lines together in their landscapes but by focusing on a bright point that leads through the picture into infinite space beyond. The sincerity of this art is surely a recommendation for art in the service of religion. Would not Joseph Smith have reacted favorably to these efforts and added them to his own faith?

"Joseph was eclectic by nature. He spoke repeatedly against having a creed that sets bounds to religion. He wanted his religion to be open to every form of truth, to be accepting and seeking. That is the spirit of the thirteenth article of faith. The statement supports art not because that the word 'lovely' appears there, but because the entire article implies a search for the worthy, an openness to all forms of goodness. True religious art seems to fall into that category."

But for Bushman, the initial question of Joseph Smith liking or disliking art is a parlor game; a probing debate of larger truths awaits--what is the relationship of the beautiful to the eternal?

"For Joseph Smith, the key word was not 'beauty' but 'glory.' Moses chose God over Satan in the first book of Moses because God is glorious and Satan is not. 'Where is thy glory,' he asked Satan in the confrontation, 'that I should worship thee.' Satan was darkness; God was glory. God's works, Moses is told when he first sees God, reveal his glory. 'No man can behold all my works, except he behold all my glory.'"