Natalie Myers

NATALIE MYERS Mark Rothko The First Jewish Artist If we are to define Jewish art as simply the art created by Jews, perhaps the earliest piece of Jewish art can be found in God’s command to Bezalel, a Biblical Jewish artisan, in which God enlisted Bezalel to construct the Tabernacle. There is an intricately detailed depiction of the work of the Jews who constructed the First Temple in Jerusalem which was overlaid with gold and adorned with cherubim. The Talmud creates the image of Herod’s Second Temple with the line, “He who has not seen the Temple in its full construction has never seen a glorious building in his life” (Tractate Succot 51b). The First Jewish Artist Jewish art has thrived in the years since the exile, both in the land of Israel and in the diaspora, including Dura Europos and Beit Alpha synagogues, in spite of the destruction of the Second Temple and enduring 2,000 years of exile. In Syria’s Dura Europos, the synagogue holds well-preserved third century frescoes, works that were painted on wet plaster and then dried, which depict people in biblical scenes. The First "VIEW OF HEROD'S TEMPLE FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES" DURA EUROPA SYNAGOGUE Jewish Artist The Middle Ages & the Renaissance Under Islamic rule in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, the majority of Jewish artwork was saved for synagogues and illustrated manuscripts, in part because of the geography of Jews in those periods. In countries with heavy Muslim influence, literal depictions of the human form were not widely accepted and, as a result, the artwork of this era had significantly fewer renderings of human forms than in Jewish communities of Northern Europe. The Middle Ages & the Renaissance Jewish education can be seen as another factor contributing to the smaller scope of Jewish art because Jews were more knowledgeable about stories from the Tanakh, and so there was less of a need to teach them through pictures in the way that Christians were doing with the large number of its followers who were illiterate. Encyclopedia Judaica explains this phenomenon by saying, “For the Jews, with their high degree of literacy due to their almost universal system of education and their familiarity with the scripture story, this was superfluous”. The Middle Ages & the Renaissance The majority of Jewish art from this time took the form of illuminated manuscripts like the 15th century Kennicott Bible, which was filled with images of King David, Jonah, and Balaam, and Bibles originating in Yemen, which did not contain human renderings. Hiddur mitzvah, the concept of adorning a commandment and the tools utilized in performing it in beauty, led to the creation of truly remarkable Jewish ritual objects and judaica such as Torah crowns and finials, Havdalah spice boxes, and kiddush cups. The Middle Ages & the Renaissance KENNICOTT BIBLE Western Europe With the increase of acceptance of Jews throughout the world in the late 19th and early 20th century, Jewish artists were allowed to create their art with less restriction. As a result, there were a number of Jewish artists who became familiar figures not only in the Jewish community but in the general art world as well, such as Camille Pissaro, Amedeo Modigliani, and Chaim Soutine. Western Europe The impressionist painter, Camille Pissaro, experienced financial difficulty in his attempts to color within the lines of the impressionist art form. Modigliani, an Italian Jewish painter who relocated to paris, created a style of painting which was reminiscent of African masks, with elongated faces. A contemporary of Modigliani, Chaim Soutine was also a painter located in Paris and, in 1917, he painted a portrait of his friend, Modigliani. Western Europe "The Hay Cart" Camille Pissarro In the Land of Israel With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jewish art was able to grow and expand to new dimensions. A number of young Jews from Europe moved to Israel before the state was established, and their connection to the land heightened their creations. After making aliyah and moving to Israel, one of these young Jews, Reuben Rubin, who was a student at the Bezalel Art School in Jerusalem, began to paint his love of the land with romanticized visions of ancient and modern Israel. In the Land of Israel Another artist, Anna Ticho, created detailed pencil and charcoal drawings of the Judean hills, beautiful portraits of her husband’s patients at his ophthalmology clinic, and subdued watercolors of the surrounding plants and animals. Mikhail Gorman embraced the modern emigrant experience in his paintings by incorporating native Russian text into his work, and Israeli native, Yaakov Agam, produced three dimensional artwork that was significant in its connection to the Op-Art movement and also its bewitching utilization of mystical texts and Kabbalah for inspiration. In the Land of Israel "Old Olive Tree" Anna Ticho Modern Memory Modern Jewish artists have centered their work around the memory of pogroms, war, persecution, and Biblical retellings. Felix Nussbaum, a Polish painter who perished in Auschwitz with his wife, a fellow artist, created pieces that reflected the overwhelming fear of the time period, such as his 1943 work, “Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card”. Modern Memory Mark Rothko takes a similar approach in his art, and, in the contemporary period, thousands of years after the Israelites wandered the desert, many critics view Rothko’s creations of blocks of color on large canvases as a contemporary rendition of the tabernacle. In this vein, Rothko, and other Jewish artists alike, serve to generate a sanctuary that is both a place of worship and also a moving place that is reminiscent of the lasting reality of wandering that has been experienced by Jews throughout history. Modern Memory Despite the fact that his work, with large sections of washed colors, aligned with the critics’ definition of the Color Field style, Rothko never labeled himself in that way. He viewed color as nothing more than a tool that could be used to achieve a greater purpose and believed that the fields of color in his paintings were spiritual planes that allowed us, as viewers, to connect with our human emotions at the deepest level because color was evocative of emotion. Since the intention of the paintings was that they would appeal to the viewers emotions, the aim of Rothko’s work was to create unique meanings for each individual viewer. When Rothko made No. 2, Green, Red and Blue, he was painting in lighter tones but, as his mental state deteriorated, that was reflected in his art through the implementation of darker tones made up of blacks, blues, and greys. Modern Memory “No. 2, Green, Red and Blue” Mark Rothko In Jewish Perspectives Rothko is particularly interested in creating "a consummated experience between picture and onlooker" which is a goal that was not shared by many of his contemporaries and is markedly Jewish in nature. Rothko had received a rigorous Orthodox Jewish education before immigrating to the United States at 10 years old. As a result of this intensive schooling, Rothko stands out among the other painter contemporaries as having the strongest Jewish education. In Jewish Perspectives Despite having that strong Jewish foundation, his Jewish commitments, whatever they may be, were not explicitly clear in his paintings. Although he was well aware of the history of suffering, he managed to work his more personal reactions to current events into a more universal feeling by incorporating ideas from ancient Greek tragedy. Through this, the conflict between the validation of a work of art and the meaning of a work of art is reflected. Rothko described art as, "an adventure into an unknown world", and he expressed a hesitation to tell people "how the pictures should be looked at and what to look for. While on the surface this may seem an obliging and helpful thing to do, the real result is the paralysis of the mind and the imagination". In Jewish Perspectives Still, a number of interpretations have arisen that contradict Rothko's statements. There is a belief held by some that we, as viewers, are not obligated to believe the artist in their explanation and that they don't have to have the last word. With this understanding, some have argued that the layered pools of color, that were often murky in nature, can be seen as "brooding Hebraic" paintings. This understanding fails to acknowledge the potentially antisemitic implications of these comments, even when they are given with positive intentions. In Jewish Perspectives A Jewishly educated scholar with a focus on contemporary artists and their relation to Judaism, Matthew Baigell, has said that because Rothko grew up in "an era of rampant anti-Semitism in America and because of his desire to appear as a modern artist without parochial attachments, Rothko simply could not proclaim connections with ancient Israelite memories or archetypes, but could do with ancient Greek ones, instead. It was an old Jewish habit, but for Rothko the trials of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon substituted for the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem.” In Jewish Perspectives It is undeniable that Rothko's writing and speech addressed tragedy and the tragic. Rothko, not unlike the majority of Jews at his time, was significantly impacted by having seen the events of the 1930s in Europe followed by the devastation of the Holocaust. If we are to recognize that the Holocaust was a point of suffering for Rothko, both while it was occurring and in the period that followed, it is easy to see his work from the early and mid 1940s, at which point it still contained legible imagery, as a response that he, as a Jewish artist, had to the Holocaust.

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