Human Expressionism: The Human Figure And The Jewish Experience

For more than 2000 years, Jewish art managed to explore specific themes, while blending with local cultures and aesthetics. At the turn of the 20th century a significant number of Jewish artists were influenced by western culture whilst remaining faithful to their heritages. This book is dedicated to the various aspects of their artistic endeavors - most notably the representation of the human face, a theme very close to their hearts - that were influenced by their Jewish roots. Their take on this widely explored subject proved highly unusual: they used it to express love and sorrow, but also to fight nihilism. As the twentieth century saw the gradual vanishing of the human face in art and life alike, these Jewish artists kept on celebrating it and created a specific form of expressionism that is regarded by many as an attempt to hang on to whatever was left of humanity in a century that seemed utterly devoid of human values. This volume offers a brilliant re-reading of the representation of the human figure in the light of the Jewish experience, analyzing its appearance in the works of modernists such as Chagall, Freundlich, Lipchitz, Modigliani, Pissarro, Soutine, Zadkine and contemporary artists such as Lucian Freud, Alex Katz and Kitaj.