Judaism and the Visual Image

Name: Judaism and the Visual Image
Author: Melissa Raphael
ISBN: 9780826494986

by Melissa Raphael (2009)

Read Free Sample Buy on Amazon Audible Free Trial

About this book

It is now widely agreed that the biblical Second Commandment neither limits Jewish art to the production of ceremonial artifacts nor to abstract or distorted images. Raphael goes further and argues that while creation and revelation are inherently aesthetic moments both for God and the world, the assumption that Jewish religious tradition is nonetheless mediated in words, not pictures, has left Jewish art with no significant role to play in Jewish theology and ethics. Despite a substantial body of literature on the history and diversity of Jewish art, almost nothing has been published on the role of the visual image in Jewish theology, historiography, and gender studies. In conversation with modern Jewish theology, Jewish historians' recent re-evaluation of the role of the visual in Jewish culture, and with the growing body of Christian theological aesthetics, Raphael engages several areas of contemporary debate relevant to students, scholars and the general reader. Arguing that the creation story in Genesis 1 mandates a Jewish theology of image, Raphael asks how and why images of Jewish women as religious subjects appear to be doubly suppressed by the Second Commandment and absent from modern Jewish culture, when images of observant male Jews have become legitimate, even iconic, representations of Jewish holiness. Against a tide of scholarly opinion that argues against the aestheticization of the Holocaust, she further suggests that ‘devout beholding’ of images of holocaustal suffering can correct post-Holocaust theologies of divine absence that have been skewed by the sub-theological aesthetics of the sublime. Raphael concludes by proposing that the relationship between God and Israel ultimately composes itself into a unitary dance or moving image by which God’s presence in the world can be represented to witness.

Setting / LocationGlobal

Story EraModern Era

Protagonist / CoreJudaism and the Visual Image Lead Character

Themes & Moods

Art & Photography Aesthetics Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in art Images Jewish art and symbolism Jews in art Modern Era

Readers who enjoyed this also loved

Joodse riten en symbolen

S. Ph. de Vries

Voor iedereen met een warme belangstelling voor de joodse traditie is Joodse riten en symbolen een bron van informatie. Deze klassieker verscheen voor het eerst in 1927, vijf jaar later volgde er een tweede deel. Zo groeide Joodse riten en symbolen uit tot hét standaardwerk voor de kennis omtrent de gebruiken en voorschriften van het dagelijkse joodse leven. Een uitgebreide en herziene editie in één band werd uitgegeven in 1968 en stond onder redactie van de zoon van rabbijn De Vries. Deze uitgave is sindsdien steeds herdrukt en heeft generaties lezers weten te boeien. Wie de grote poëtische kracht van de joodse traditie wil leren kennen vindt in Joodse riten en symbolen een schitterende gids. (Singel Uitgeverijen)

Style

Gottfried Semper

"The enduring influence of the architect Gottfried Semper (1803-79) derives less from his monumental buildings in Dresden, Zurich, and Vienna than from his Style in the Technical and Tectonic Arts (1860-63). Semper's landmark survey of the motives giving rise to the technical arts (textiles, ceramics, carpentry, masonry) explores the symbolic and material preconditions of style. An extended inquiry into the inner principles of artistic form, this work radically altered the intellectual field for aesthetics and art history and stands as a vital document in the consolidation of modern architectural theory."--BOOK JACKET.

Mise-en-scène

John Gibbs

Gibbs presents a detailed exploration of classics such as Rebel Without a Cause and Lone Star. The book is an invaluable tool in understanding the expression of visual style, and an unrivalled text for the understanding of interpretative methodologies.

Formbildung und Formbegriff

Markus Klammer [and 3 others] (Hg

Die Bildtheorie hat sich jüngst dem Begriff der Form zugewandt. Der interdisziplinäre Band verfolgt das Ziel, den vielfältigen Zusammenhängen von Form und Bild nachzugehen und ihre historischen, theoretischen und methodischen Voraussetzungen zu beleuchten. 0Das semantische Feld von Formbildung und Formbegriff umreisst einen Gegenstandsbereich, der eine doppelte Herangehensweise nahelegt: eine Untersuchung der theoretischen Implikationen von Formbegriffen der Moderne einerseits und eine historische Analyse spezifischer künstlerischer Positionen andererseits. Hat doch die Bildung konkreter Formen Auswirkungen auf deren begriffliche Reflexion. Der Terminus 'Form' bedeutet ebenso emphatisch Grundform, auf das Wesentliche reduzierte Form, wie er die konkrete anschauliche Form in ihrer Gewordenheit, sinnlichen Fülle und Einbettung in kulturelle und kommunikative Zusammenhänge meint.