Judaism Arts and Artistic Expression
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Comparing music and theater to visual arts, there was definitely much of a decline. There is a less of visual arts in Jewish tradition. Many Rabbinical authorities believed the Second Commandment refrained visual art. Jewish artists were very rare until the beginning of late 18th century. Despite the fact of facts by religious communities of art being used for fanatic purposes, sacred art was recorded in the Tanakh.
The sacred art recorded in the Tanakh dates back from the Middle Ages and the Antiquities of the Jews. In BCE, Jewish religious art depicted scenes such as the Mediterranean. During this time, the walls inside of synagogues were painted with such scenery. Jews had created a number of luxury and lavish pieces of art. Synagogues in Israel and Palestine are decorated with mosaic floors. This showed signs of the Zodiac. It would also depict some Kabbalistic literature. With the age of Enlightenment in Europe, Jewish artists left the ghetto to become artists and flourish worldwide. In their visual arts, Jewish artists displayed very different relationships with their Jewish identities, and some Jewish artists did not incorporate their Jewish culture into their artistic work at all. With the rise of such artists came the question of what constitutes or essentially defines "Jewish art," a question that is still continously debated today. Some artists, such as Marc Chagall, are truly influenced by their Jewish heritage for their work. For others, such as Camille Pissaro, Judaism completely irrelevant to their work. Regardless of how one might define what Jewish art actually is, Jewish artists--painters, sculptors, and others have flourished throughout North America, Europe, and Israel. |