Walter Neurath Memorial Lectures Idolizing Pictures : Idolatry, Iconoclasm and Jewish Art

by JULIUS ANTHONY

• ISBN13: 9780500282625
• ISBN10: 0500282625
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-04-01
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc

Summary

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."Exodus 20.4. In this ground-breaking book Anthony Julius derives a Jewish aesthetic from the Second Commandment. The prohibition of idolatry in fact contains a positive program. It is both an injunction against idol worshipping and a call to idol breaking; it promotes a creative iconoclasm that uses irony to expose inflated claims about art. Examining works by artists such as Chagall and Shahn, Julius finds that much Jewish art does not meet this bracing criterion. But in the output of contemporary artists Komar and Melamid he identifies and celebrates an aesthetic that by irony subverts both artistic and political idolatry. Idolizing Pictures is a manifesto for Jewish art. 66 b/w illustrations.

Table of Contents

Ingres/Komar and Melamid	12	(12)
Idolatry	24	(4)
The Christian resolution	28	(5)
The Jewish resolution	33	(9)
Jewish aniconicism	42	(7)
Jewish iconicism	49	(9)
Komar and Melamid: a Jewish iconoclasm	58	(19)
Iconoclasms	77	(12)
More than one route?	89	(5)
Jewish creativity	94	(6)
Bibliographical essay	100	(17)
List of illustrations	117