JEWISH ART IN THE 20th CENTURY

During the Summer of 2015 I have been on sabbatical and pursuing interests in art.  One outcome is an extended essay that I have written on the subject: 'Jewish art in the 20th Century'.  The Synopsis is below.  

Synopsis of 'Jewish art in the 20th Century'

The survival of the Jewish Diaspora, and the Jewish belief that ‘Jews are the memory of the nations’, gave to Jewish artists in the 20^th Century a purpose and a meaning in painting.  Jewish artists also acted as prophet and as peacemaker to the nations.  Chagall is noteworthy in this respect.

Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust meant that many Jewish artists in the 20^th Century were either displaced migrants learning to be American, or were imprisoned and put to death by Nazi Germany, or they found themselves compelled to witness to the Holocaust as it took place or to find meaning in the Holocaust subsequently.  Newman in particular sought post-Holocaust meaning in the USA.

In the post Holocaust era, identity was the primary theme for Jewish artists, but because of the great displacement of populations that took place in the 20^th Century, and the sense that ‘God is dead’, Jewish concerns about identity also spoke to all peoples. 

We cannot say that Rothko’s mature style colour-field paintings were a direct specific response to the Holocaust.  Rothko’s concern since at least the early 1930s had been the fragmentation that afflicted individuals and society as a whole.  He wanted to achieve paintings that would be new ‘anecdotes of the spirit’ which would provide ‘resolution of an eternally familiar need’.  With his mature style he was successful in this. 

The Jew’s status as ‘outsider’ stimulated artistic creativity.  The displacement and uncertainty about identity meant that the Jewish artist ‘had a great schooling in grief’.  The creativity that was thus generated contributed fundamentally to 20^th Century art.  Particular Jewish artists in this regard were Epstein, Weber, Soutine, Chagall, Rothko, Guston, Newman and R B Kitaj.

At various points in the 20^th Century Jewish art engaged directly with Christianity.  Much of 20^th Century art that used Christian iconography was too literal and too derivative to be effective.  Notable artists who were effective in producing Christian art were Roualt, Spencer, Sutherland, Epstein and Chagall: the last two of these were Jewish.

Jewish artists of the late 20^th Century challenged Christians.  Bak is a Holocaust survivor artist who continues to do this.  Since the Holocaust, Jew and Christian are both at ‘a corrupted place of our shared humanity that leaves us even more uneasy before the divine’.