Jewish Art [Hardcover]

Gabrielle Sed-Rajna (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1997

Containing nearly eight hundred illustrations, including 272 in full color, a lavish survey traces the history of Jewish art from its origins two millennia before Christ up to the twentieth century, covering the fine arts, textiles, and decorative objects."

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The Asian sources of Jewish art, its historical development through the emergence of rabbinic Judaism, Jewish art in the West, and Jewish artists are among the topics covered in this examination of the development of Jewish art by Sed-Rajna, honorary director of research at France's National Council for Social Research. The section "Books: The Community Recounted," for instance, looks at the development of books, particularly illustrated ones, within distinct socioeconomic environments. Thus, one sees Jewish art as part of the larger culture. The writing is clear and concise, the generous and beautifully reproduced illustrations are carefully labeled, the glossary is helpful, and the bibliography is complete. An important contribution to the subject, this volume complements Grace Cohen Grossman's Jewish Art (LJ 1/96), which examined aspects of art, e.g., manuscripts, the Sabbath, and holidays. An important contribution for all art libraries.?Martin Chasin, Adult Inst., Bridgeport, Conn.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In this gorgeously illustrated volume, Sed-Rajna and her team of historians, archaeologists, and art and architecture experts guide readers through nearly 4,000 years of Jewish culture and art, reaping the harvest of recent archaeological finds and new, insightful scholarship. Perpetually persecuted and on the move, Jews built synagogues wherever they settled, incorporating the aesthetics of Hellenistic and oriental culture into their wood and stone carvings, mosaics, and frescoes. Prohibited from practicing many crafts, including gold-and silversmithing, in medieval Europe, Jewish artists channeled their creative and spiritual energies into portable treasures, particularly handwritten and illustrated books; but when European Jewish communities were stable, Jewish artists and artisans created glorious ceremonial objects, paintings, and sculpture, and, naturally, built magnificent synagogues. As Sed-Rajna and company proceed through the centuries, moving from the astonishingly fresh paintings of the Dura-Europos synagogue, built on the bank of the Euphrates in the third century, to modern and contemporary artists, the vitality and resiliency of the Jewish tradition flowers beneath our rapt gaze. Donna Seaman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (February 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810935147
• ISBN-13: 978-0810935143
• Product Dimensions: 12.5 x 10.1 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,398,647 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jewish Art in all its glory, April 24, 2000

By 

Evan M. Zuesse (Adelaide, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jewish Art (Hardcover)

There are quite a few coffee table books on the market that focus on one or another aspect of Jewish art, e.g., calligraphy, medieval illuminated manuscripts, synagogue architecture, ritual objects, paintings especially in the modern period, and so on. Some are more than coffee table books, with scholarly articles of real value. But none that I have seen can even come close to the breadth, scholarly depth and excellence of this volume. Even the number and very high quality of the color plates make this work stand out. In fact, the irresistable impulse of every first reader will just be to page through the over 900 actual large-size pages (635 of text) of this volume for hours, savouring the extraordinary beauty, richness and detail of the 272 full page color plates, which wonderfully reproduce pages from medieval illuminated manuscripts, interiors of synagogues, mosaic floors of antiquity, Torah crowns, chanukah lamps, paintings from the third century C.E. on to the present, and much else. The reproductions are intense and vivid, fully up to the best standard of the Abrams publishing house (famous for the high quality of its art books), and just by themselves make this book a valuable purchase. But there are also 523 black-and-white illustrations to document the full range of every category of art, and to support the articles. The articles themselves survey the entire history of Jewish art, and are written at a high level of scholarship while remaining clear and lucid. They make consistently enjoyable and informative reading. They reveal that simply by focussing on art, much else in Jewish history is revealed in a new light. The editor presents a sane and useful definition of Jewish art in the opening pages, which allows her to include discussion of, and reproduction of, beautiful Renaissance Torah manuscripts or modern synagogues that were the products in part of non-Jewish masters. But it becomes clear from this book that a great deal in non-Jewish art had its origins in fully Jewish circles. Influences went both ways. It is not maintained that there is only one set of artistic conventions that define something as "Jewish" in world view, for, as is pointed out, the art of no major civilization can be understood in any static fashion. Yet there are thematic continuities running through the whole sweep of Jewish art, which spans millenia. Certainly no one will be able to maintain any further that there is very little to talk about in connection with Jewish art, and the old cliche that Rabbinic Jewish beliefs prohibited all depiction of the human figure is obviously disproven here, even for the late Talmudic period. The reader will come to appreciate that discovering the full richness of Jewish art is like discovering a whole lost continent, unjustly ignored and well deserving extended exploration. There is a very full discussion of the archaeology of the synagogue, and the significance of the artistic symbols depicted in them, with an especially valuable and interesting, lengthly analysis of the Dura Europas synagogue of the third century C.E. This article, like all of the others, draws upon wide scholarship, and discusses various current theories to understand the world view behind the remarkable art of that synagogue. There is also an excellent survey of the later history and evolution of the synagogue, with architectural plans of the lay-out of outstanding synagogues, and valuable photographs of eastern European synagogues that no longer exist. The lengthly consideration of modern paintings, with outstanding reproductions, is also very valuable. The five authors of the various articles are leading authorities in their respective fields in France and Israel (the book is translated from the original French edition of 1995). Since Cecil Roth, ed., Jewish Art, in 1961, there has been no comprehensive scholarly review of the total sweep of Jewish art; this volume therefore fills a big gap in our current understanding of Jewish civilization. It is unreservedly recommended.