Description
Book SynopsisSynthesizes evidence from medieval Jewish philosophy, mysticism, poetry, biblical commentaries, travelogues, and law, concluding that premodern Jewish intellectuals held a positive, liberal understanding of the Second Commandment and did, in fact, articulate a certain Jewish aesthetic.
Trade Review"The research for this work reflects a great and careful scholarly effort...Highly recommended."--Choice "Bland has shown that the whole question of whether Jews are 'rtless' is a construction of modern thought, and has little to do with pre-modern Jews... An excellent counterweight to the vast literature that claims that Jews and Judaism are visually handicapped."--Steven Fine, Baltimore Hebrew University and the University of Cincinnati, for CAA.Reviews "A highly recommended building-block text for further study into the relationship between Judaism and visual art."--Religious Studies Review "Bland's carefully researched book offers an erudite riposte to post-Kantian aesthetic theory and an unusually useful account of the image in Medieval and Renaissance Jewish culture... [It] unsettles many received ideas and unearths many buried texts that change our notions of Jewish visual culture."--Adam Bresnick, Times Literary Supplement "Bland does an excellent job of convincing us ... of the high status of visual production in ancient, medieval and early modern Jewish societies."--Pamela Kachurin, The Art Book
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction 3 One Modern Denials and Affirmations of Jewish Art: Germanophone Origins and Themes 13 Two Anglo-American Variations 37 Three The Premodern Consensus 59 Four The Well-Tempered Medieval Sensorium 71 Five Medieval Beauty and Cultural Relativism 92 Six Twelfth-Century Pilgrims, Golden Calves, and Religious Polemics 109 Seven The Power and Regulation of Images in Late Medieval Jewish Society 141 Notes 155 Bibliograpby 201 Index 229
