What was the first substantial work of art in the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? If you ask Richard Bushman, considered by many as the dean of historians in Mormon studies, the answer centers around the church’s earliest temples. “The Saints, without means, in their time of poverty, put a huge amount of effort into the Kirtland temple,” Bushman told the Deseret News. “They carved those sunstones, moonstones and star stones because the temple deserved to be beautified and honored by art. If you put beauty at the center of our religious culture, that means it’s sort of essential. Our greatest work of Mormon art,…