Jewish Art Primer

Murals and Mosaics in Antiquity Jewish Art: Any cultural production that utilizes Jewish subject matter and content drawn from; 1) all material found in Jewish sacred texts and those secular texts that explore Jewish social life and history, 2) Jewish history, from Antiquity to the…

Books to Papercuts Seldom has a people’s cultural expression changed in so short a period of time as the revolution that overtook the Jews with the invention of moveable type and the printed book. Johannes Guttenberg’s invention in the 1450’s quickly swept south and the…

The Past and Future Collide As the Enlightenment marched across Europe in the form of the Napoleonic conquests the effects on Jewish Art were unmistakable. Ghetto walls were breached and torn down exposing the Jewish population and its artists to a myriad of Christian and…

The New Age of Individuals Contemporary Jewish life has been dominated by the crisis of the Modern, shaping more than anything else the profiles of Jewish Art. Traditional society is challenged, pre-modern peoples are forced into colonial empires and nationalist aspirations spout across the globe.…

After the Catastrophe: Prelude The Holocaust, dominating Jewish Art for much of the late 20th century, is arguably the first form of Jewish Art to penetrate the mainstream cultural dialogue. The division between Jew and non-Jew in the arts begins to be erased. This unique…

Contemporary Jewish Art We have documented eighteen hundred years of Jewish Art production in the preceding five sections of the Jewish Art Primer. These artworks are rich and varied creative expressions of Jewish life found in mosaics, murals, manuscripts, illustrated Haggadahs, micrography, papercuts, graphic arts…