JEWISH ART HISTORY THIS JANUARY
At THE DERFNER JUDAICA MUSEUM, Riverdale NY
This Five-Part Primer on Jewish Art Continues through January with Richard McBee
Join Richard McBee for any or all of this series of classes on Jewish art history. “Murals, Mosaics, and Manuscript Illumination (250 CE to 16th century)” on Jan. 5 will explore the very beginnings of Jewish art with the Dura Europos murals, the synagogue mosaic floors from Roman and Byzantine Palestine, and the Golden Age of Jewish illuminated manuscripts from the 11th to 15th centuries. Then on Jan. 12, “Books, Manuscripts, and the Dawn of Jewish Painting (16th to 20th century)” will trace how the invention of the printing press revolutionized Jewish life and literacy, especially the illustrated Haggadah, as well as, on a much more modest scale, the renewal of illuminated manuscripts in the 17th century. On Jan. 19, “Modernism and Israeli Art – The 20th Century” looks at how, as modernity revolutionized traditional Jewish life, Jewish artists explored the complexities of art, Judaism, and Zionism inPalestine and Europe. The last session on Jan. 26, “Contemporary Jewish Art (1950 - 2011),” often considered an oxymoron by secular and religious Jews alike, shows how Jewish art has slowly grown from practitioners in total denial about the Jewish content of their work to blossoming groups of artists proudly proclaiming the vibrant creativity of a new contemporary Jewish Art.
