Hailing Turner’s Pestilence: Is The Artist’s Fifth Plague of Egypt Really A Typo?
In an instance of form following content, Joseph Mallord William Turner's "The Fifth Plague of Egypt" was recently exiled from its home at the Indianapolis Museum of Art for the exhibit "J.M.W. Turner," which was organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Dallas Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, in association with London's Tate Britain. According to the wall texts from both the exhibit and the painting's permanent home in Indianapolis, the title Turner selected for his biblical study features one of art history's greatest typos.
Crossing Borders: Masterpieces from the Bodleian Library
In the eyes of the ram lies the artist’s commentary on the Rosh Hashanah piyyut “The King Girded with Strength.” From the Tripartite Mahzor (German 14th century), this illumination simultaneously echoes the piyyut’s praise of God’s awesome power and expresses the terror of actually being a sacrifice to God. The ram is but a reflection of Isaac. It is all in the eyes.
Jewish Women Artists – Commentators on Contemporary Jewish Life
Everybody reads comics. From the New York Times to the Post there is hardly any periodical published that doesn’t sometimes feature a cartoon or comic; some kind of drawn image with text to entertain or provide commentary. Even the Jewish Press. When most people think of comics they immediately think of fictional comic books that kids read or the comic strips in the daily newspapers for adults.
Gleizer’s Paintings: From The Heart Of The Beast
Mikhail Gleizer was born at the end of the Second World War in the Soviet Ukraine under the reign of the dictator Joseph Stalin.
Moshe Hammer: Art as Prayer, Prayer as Art
True genius is a rare commodity.
Five years ago, 26-year-old Moshe Hammer, z"l, a Lubavitch artist who frequently worked through the night, stepped outside for a walk in Los Angeles, to clear his head and recharge his creative batteries. As was his custom, Moshe rambled miles from his apartment in the Fairfax district.
Prosecuting Auschwitz
"I had the bad luck to get tangled up in this horror. The crimes did not occur because it was my will," a man in a dark suit with a striped tie says, matter-of-factly.
Ozeri’s Bukharan Conversation
Look someone in the eye, and you immediately begin a narrative.
Kestenbaum Auction Includes Several Hebrew Books With Decidedly un-Hebraic Iconography
The title page to a 1610 edition of 12th-century poet and legal scholar, Eliezer ben Nathan's "Even Ha'ezer" ("Stone of Salvation," per I Samuel 7:12) features a woodcut that looks fairly standard at first glance. Two pillars flank the central alignment of the Hebrew text, and two birds perch atop the columns. Beneath the pillars are two lions and two hands, configured in the manner of the priestly blessing, with a gap between the joined index and middle fingers and the ring and small fingers. This combination of hands and lions constitutes the printing mark of Moses ben Bezalel Katz of Prague, who was a Kohen.
One Last Adventure For A Dozen Seniors
These eleven nursing home residents and their accompanying staff from the Connecticut nursing home could represent any of us or our own loved ones...
Gelernter’s Kings of Israel
The recent works of David Gelernter, artist, author and professor of computer science at Yale University, compel us to listen and really see. His statements in the gallery video are riveting and his images, especially the Kings of Israel series are revelatory. It is in the dialectic between these two distinct approaches that we can understand his insight into the past and be guided into a present appreciation of Jewish Art.
Art That Produces, Not Consumes
The current show at the Yeshiva University Museum is bizarrely titled.
Jewish Community vs. Spinoza: David Ives’ New Jerusalem
"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion," wrote the political philosopher John Stuart Mill in his 1859 treatise On Liberty, "mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
Illustrating The Postmodernist’s Bible: Nature in John Bradford’s Art
Some painters enslave themselves to detailed landscapes, patiently tracking every tree branch and grass blade in an effort to transcribe and document everything.
The Jewish Chagall: Marc Chagall Retrospective At The San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art
In his autobiography, My Life, Marc Chagall (1887-1985) recounts a pogrom he witnessed in Russia in 1917.
Yitzy Bald’s Newest Album: CANTATA – A Hartzig Acapella
In the early 1990s, he was on staff at Camp Agudah. One of his responsibilities was arranging and overseeing the adult harmony group in the camp’s annual Cantata play. Then he started writing original songs for the cantatas.
Leonard Everett Fisher’s Challenge
Just look at the expression on Yonah's face. It combines fear and incomprehension at his terrible punishment of floating in the belly of the great fish. So too Noah peering out of the ark, perched on the edge of understanding that there might be a future for mankind. Both works point to the genius of Leonard Everett Fisher as an artist and interpreter of biblical narrative.
Forward-Looking Photographs
The smile is as unmistakable as the pointed white beard, long flowing side curls, black hat, robe and thick white socks.
Fighting Anti-Semitism In Life And Death: Two New Films On Daniel Pearl And Simon...
"Your powers are weak, old man," Darth Vader tells Obi-Wan Kenobi as the young Luke anxiously watches the ensuing battle from a distance.
Shalom Y’All: The Southern Jewish Experience
Imagining the tempting aroma of pecan pie and fresh challah, the age-old rhythms of Southern Jewry unfold before our eyes in the seductively handsome exhibition of photographs, Shalom Y'all, currently at the Jewish Museum of Florida in Miami Beach.
Frydlender’s Constructions
What is Frydlender up to? Barry Frydlender, the prominent Israeli photographer, is currently privileged with simultaneous exhibitions at the Tel Aviv Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Simcha Leiner – ‘Kol HaKavod’
It’s Leiner’s fourth solo album, and it’s packed with what has made him a household name in the Jewish music world. Perhaps the album’s most unique aspect, though, is its production.
Ma’ayan: Zalman’s Suite
Yisgadal v'yisgadash sh'mai rabba b'alma dee v'ra chir'usay.
For many Jews there comes a time when we will say these words every day, many times a day, for 11 months as part of the process of mourning a parent. We bravely declare, "May His great Name grow exalted and sanctified in the world that He created as He willed." Over and over we repeat this plea, this affirmation of the greatness of God who took away our loved one. Our loss becomes the occasion for us to proclaim the glory of God's name found in His creation, the very world around us.
Jewish Women Artists Talk About Their Work (Part Three)
Israeli Trees, The Four Corners Of Jewish Art, Kabbalistic Shells, And Tender Heaviness
A Jewish Art Salon Exhibit
In many ways, it should be a no-brainer for readers of The Jewish Press to make the decision to visit the latest Jewish Art Salon exhibit, Seduced by the Sacred, or, if the trek to Hartford is prohibitive, to immerse themselves in the works online. After all, most readers of this publication are surely already seduced by the sacred - however problematic the definition of both terms may be - and, particularly if they are regular readers of this column, they will be intrigued by the question of new Jewish art.
‘Nossig’s Antics’ – A New Play By Lazarre Seymour Simckes
"Are you Alfred Nossig?" the waiter asked the middle-aged man at the table.
Moses’ Spies in Art
Growing up, I used to enjoy reading S. Weissman's Little Midrash Says (published 1986) and carefully studying Siegmund Forst's illustrations of the weekly Torah portion. At the time, I had no idea how many of Forst's drawings were derived from earlier traditions of biblical illustration (many of them Christian), but I was particularly struck by the moral readability of the narratives. It was always a cinch to figure out who was a good character and who was evil; you could read it on their faces. The heroes were always smiling widely and the villains looked ugly and angry at the world.
Why Are Artists So Fascinated By The Branch Over The Prophet Yonah’s Head?
It's easy to understand why artists have painted the navi Yonah early and often. There is no character more interesting than the man who, though blessed with the gift of prophecy, failed to grasp the responsibility he was charged with, literally turned his back on his divine mission and ran away, only to be devoured alive by a fish. After what must have seemed an eternity to the son of Amitai-in reality just three days and three nights-the fish, obeying a Divine commandment, vomited Yonah onto dry land.
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Ukraine
Hasidic-based film "Talking to God" wins international film festival awards. A discussion with the director.
The Purim Narrative At The Pardo Palace
Located about nine miles north of Madrid, the Palacio Real de El Pardo (Pardo Palace) dates back to the early 15th century. Devastated by a March 13, 1604 fire that claimed many works from its priceless art collection, the Pardo Palace and its vast gardens were used as a hunting ground by the Spanish monarchs.
The Adventure of a Jewish Photographer: Miriam M?rsel Nathan’s Photo-Paintings
In Italo Calvino's short story "The Adventure of a Photographer," part of his collection Difficult Loves (1985), the "non-photographer" and bachelor Antonino Paraggi, finds himself increasingly alienated from his married friends who go out with their families and cameras each Sunday and "come back as happy as hunters with bulging game bags," their photographic catch of the day.