Art through Jewish Time
In the Jewish historical experience art is used to transform time and space. The foundation of Jewish time are the cycles of the seasons and the life cycles of our individual lives.
Judaism calls our attention to the need to observe these cycles with their impact on our physical and emotional beings. Jews have created rituals and ritual items (“klai kodesh”-holy instruments) with which to observe these cycles.
These cycles do occur in linear or historic time, and the rituals and ritual items tend to reflect that. The design of ritual items has been influenced by the cultural surroundings experienced by Jews in particular civilizations and historic time frames.
Thus the significant attention given to ritual items in any discussion of Jewish Art, with these items at times being synonymous with “Jewish Art.”
On a broader scale, the synagogues which replaced the biblical Temple are also subjects of Jewish Art as it has evolved over the centuries.
Click on this link to visit a synagogue’s ritual items tour: https://visualmidrash.com/midrashvisual/midcentury-modernism-and-yaakov-agam-2/
To label this area as “from Bezalel to Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design” is to trace the development of Jewish ritual art and sacred spaces from the biblical designated artist Bezalel (Exodus 31:1-6, 36 to 39) to the founding of the Bezalel Academy in 1906.
Organized art activity in the country began in 1906, the year Professor Boris Schatz (1867-1932) arrived from Bulgaria and founded the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem, according to a plan approved at the 1905 Zionist Congress to encourage talented young Jews to study art in the Land of Israel. By 1910, the school had 32 different departments, a student body of 500, and a ready market for its works throughout the Jewish world.
In addition to painters and sculptors, the country’s artistic life now comprises a host of talented craftspeople (ceramicists, silver and goldsmiths, weavers, calligraphers, glass blowers, etc.), many of whom specialize in modern interpretations of traditional Jewish ceremonial objects.