Idolizing Pictures: Idolatry, Iconoclasm, and Jewish Art (Walter Neurath Memorial Lectures) - Softcover

Julius, Anthony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0500282625 ISBN 13: 9780500282625

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, 2001

Synopsis

"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.

About this title

About the Author

Anthony Julius is an eminent barrister and the author of several other books, notably T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form, which was published to great acclaim and controversy.

From Publishers Weekly

British lawyer Julius, whose firm Mishcon De Reya represents the Queen, and who recently argued a high-profile libel case involving notorious Holocaust denier David Irving, also consistently slugs it out in the arts: his T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form has provoked more discussion than any book on Eliot in the last 30 or so years, and he does a lot of reviewing in the U.K. This short book, based on lectures given in London, weighs in on a different medium, taking on "Idolatry," "Jewish Iconicism," "Iconoclasms" and "Jewish Creativity" in the visual arts. Unfortunately, these studies read like a hastily assembled lawyer's brief in which preferences are stated but arguments are not fleshed out. Marc Chagall's iconographical innovations, for example, are found to be "an unhappy amalgam," while modernist Barnett Newman is dismissed from consideration as a Jewish artist without a full hearing. Stately pronouncements turn out not to mean much, like "Holocaust art is at the edge of the modern Jewish art of witness." A bibliographical essay at the end of the book substitutes for footnotes, though Chaim Potok's middle-brow novel My Name Is Asher Lev is recommended as a source for understanding how Jewish artists are treated "in their own communities." Julius's Eliot book remains important, but this sophomore effort can do little but ride in on its predecessor's gown. (Apr. 30)Forecast: Since this book is not in Julius's perceived field of expertise, it won't get much attention from the English department academics waiting for a follow-up. For larger art history and Jewish studies collections at university libraries, however, it's a good bet on the strength of Julius's name.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0500282625
• ISBN 13: 9780500282625
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 120