![]() ![]() But in the East End (as we in London so quaintly called what was known in New York as the East Side) there were still old-type Jews who refused such indulgence and even in our own circle, some pretentious art-connoisseurs made sure that the sculptures they owned were somewhat mutilated so that they would not present a perfect image. Enlightened Jews like us, who had progressed so far as to carry our handkerchiefs on the Sabbath, did not scruple to have our photographs taken. When I was a small boy-in the early years of this century-it was accepted that the old restrictions had weakened. Strictly Orthodox Jews had nothing to do with images, graven or otherwise, whether of man or beast. That Moses himself seems to have found a loophole in his own code when he ordered the manufacture of the Cherubim, as did Solomon after him (who added brazen oxen to support the great Temple laver) was beside the point: God knew what he was about. But the text does not say so and there can be no doubt that the manufacture of such “images,” whether of man, beast, fish, or fowl (let alone the heavenly bodies), was contrary to the express injunction of Mosaic Law. The most telling passage was as a matter of fact not in the Ten Commandments but in the elaboration of this point in Deuteronomy (4:16-18), which forbids in the most uncompromising terms the manufacture of “the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the heaven, the likeness of any thing that creepeth upon the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth.” The implication was of course that such likenesses should not be made for purposes of worship. There was a time not so long ago when it was generally held that the over-strict interpretation of one of the Commandments (the Second of them according to the Jewish traditional division, the Third according to the Christian) as well as of other passages of the Pentateuch, meant that representational art of any sort whatsoever was rigorously forbidden to strictly observant Jews. With this accumulation of material as well as of incidental illustrations of the subject (including over 50 in black and white in the introductory volume, culled from other sources), it is timely to reconsider the question of Jewish representational art in the Middle Ages, and the quite extraordinary light that is thrown on it by this remarkable publication. Jaffe on the illustrations, and Bezalel Narkiss on the iconography. 1 This perfectly-reproduced color facsimile is accompanied by an introductory volume with an essay by Meyer Schapiro and contributions by E. Mayer appeared a few years back half a dozen medieval Hebrew illuminated manuscripts have been published in facsimile and now there has appeared one of the most important and certainly the most perplexing of all-the so called Bird's Head Haggadah of the Bezalel National Art Museum in Jerusalem, edited by M. ![]() A substantial bibliography of Jewish art by the late L. ![]() The Study of what may most conveniently be termed Jewish art (though in some cases it is not Jewish, and in some it is not art), begun only a very short while ago, is now making rapid strides.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |