"Lehi's Dream of the Tree of Life" Panel Completed

Lorenzo Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise" (1452) on the Florence Baptistery revolutionized Renaissance art. These 17-foot-tall gilded bronze doors feature deep-relief panels of Old Testament scenes and utilized advanced linear perspective and intricate layering. This created a three-dimensional, painterly effect in bronze where foreground figures are cast in high relief, almost fully detached, while background architecture is in shallow, delicate relief.

Inspired by this sculptural feat, artist Steven L. Neal embarked on a similar process for his 7x10 foot panel, "Lehi’s Dream of the Tree of Life." While Ghiberti’s individual panels contain up to eight planes of depth, Neal created and numbered 17 distinct planes for his work. The higher the number, the further out the plane would be, creating a high relief figure that would almost jump from the plane.

"Lehi's Dream of the Tree of Life" is now complete. Pictured here are images of both the "Gates of Paradise" and "Lehi’s Dream of the Tree of Life," illustrating the numbered planes and the finished panel.