Angels have appeared in works of art since early Christian art, and they have been a popular subject for Byzantine and European paintings and sculpture.
Judaism is an Abrahamic monotheistic ethnic religion that comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which was established between God and the Israelites, their ancestors. The religion is considered one of the earliest monotheistic religions in the world.
A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It has a place for prayer where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, choir performances, and children's plays. They also have rooms for study, social halls, administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious and Hebrew studies, and many places to sit and congregate. They often display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork alongside items of Jewish historical significance or history about the synagogue itself.
John Singer Sargent was an American expatriate artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian-era luxury. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. His oeuvre documents worldwide travel, from Venice to the Tyrol, Corfu, Capri, Spain, the Middle East, Montana, Maine, and Florida.
Copley Square is a public square in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, bounded by Boylston Street, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. The square is named for painter John Singleton Copley. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to its many cultural institutions, some of which remain today.
The Dura-Europos synagogue was an ancient Jewish former synagogue discovered in 1932 at Dura-Europos, Syria. The former synagogue contained a forecourt and house of assembly with painted walls depicting people and animals, and a Torah shrine in the western wall facing Jerusalem. It was built backing on to the city wall, which was important in its survival. The last phase of construction was dated by an Aramaic inscription to 244 CE, making it one of the oldest synagogues in the world. It was unique among the many ancient synagogues that have emerged from archaeological excavations as the structure was preserved virtually intact, and it had extensive figurative wall-paintings, which came as a considerable surprise to scholars. These paintings are now displayed in the National Museum of Damascus.
Claude Joseph Goldsmid Montefiore, also Goldsmid–Montefiore or just Goldsmid Montefiore (1858–1938) was the intellectual founder of Anglo-Liberal Judaism and the founding president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic literature and New Testament. He was a significant figure in the contexts of modern Jewish religious thought, Jewish-Christian relations, and Anglo-Jewish socio-politics, and educator. Montefiore was President of the Anglo-Jewish Association and an influential anti-Zionist leader, who co-founded the anti-Zionist League of British Jews in 1917.
Aniconism is the cultural absence of artistic representations (icons) of the natural and supernatural worlds, or it is the absence of representations of certain figures in religions. The prohibition of material representations may only extend to a specific supreme deity, or it can encompass an entire pantheon, it can also include depictions of a prophet, saints, or sages, or even depictions of living beings and anything in existence generally. It is generally codified by religious traditions and as such, it becomes a taboo. When it is enforced by the physical destruction of images, aniconism becomes iconoclasm.
Aniconism in Judaism refers to the idea that Judaism forbids the creation of "graven images," commonly understood to mean the prohibition of idolatry and idol worship. While Judaism is a logocentric religion, Jews were not under a blanket ban on visual art, despite common assumptions to the contrary, and throughout Jewish history and the history of Jewish art, created architectural designs and decorations of synagogues, decorative funerary monuments, illuminated manuscripts, embroidery and other decorative or artistic religious items.
The B'nai Yosef Synagogue is an Orthodox Jewish synagogue located at 1616 Ocean Parkway and Avenue P in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States. The congregation practices in the Sephardi rite. The synagogue is considered "America's busiest synagogue for Middle and near-Eastern Jews", with over 30 prayer services daily.
John Elliott was an artist, illustrator, and muralist. Born in Lincolnshire, England, he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian under Carolus-Duran. In 1878, he went to Rome to study with José Villegas Cordero and there met his future wife, Maud Howe, Pulitzer-prize-winning American writer and the daughter of Julia Ward Howe, the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Elliott is known for his epic Symbolist murals including working alongside his friend and colleague John Singer Sargent to provide murals for the Boston Public library, as well as creating a mural in the National Museum
The Ades Synagogue, also known as the Great Synagogue Ades of the Glorious Aleppo Community, is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue, located at 1 Beer Sheba Street, in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel. Established in 1901 by Syrian immigrants, the synagogue is considered to be the center of Syrian Hazzanut in Israel.
A religious image is a work of visual art that is representational and has a religious purpose, subject or connection. All major historical religions have made some use of religious images, although their use is strictly controlled and often controversial in many religions, especially Abrahamic ones. General terms associated with religious images include cult image, a term for images, especially in sculpture which are or have been claimed to be the object of religious worship in their own right, and icon strictly a term for Eastern Orthodox religious images, but often used more widely, in and outside the area of religion.
The Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme is the largest French museum of Jewish art and history. It is located in the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan in the Marais district in Paris.
Beth Alpha is an ancient former Jewish synagogue, located at the foot of the northern slopes of the Gilboa mountains near Beit She'an, in the Northern District of Israel. The synagogue was completed in the sixth-century CE and is now part of Bet Alfa Synagogue National Park and managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
Ecclesia and Synagoga, or Ecclesia et Synagoga in Latin, meaning "Church and Synagogue", are a pair of figures personifying the Church and the Jewish synagogue, that is to say Judaism, found in medieval Christian art. They often appear sculpted as large figures on either side of a church portal, as in the most famous examples, those at Strasbourg Cathedral. They may also be found standing on either side of the cross in scenes of the Crucifixion, especially in Romanesque art, and less frequently in a variety of other contexts.
The McKim Building is the main branch of the Boston Public Library at Copley Square in Boston, Massachusetts. The building, described upon its 1895 opening as a "palace for the people", contains the library's research collection, exhibition rooms, and administrative offices. The building includes lavish decorations, a children's room, and a central courtyard surrounded by an arcaded gallery in the manner of a Renaissance cloister. The library regularly displays its rare works, often in exhibits that will combine works on paper, rare books, and works of art. Several galleries in the third floor of the McKim building are maintained for exhibits.
Egyptians Raising Water from the Nile is an 1890–1891 painting by John Singer Sargent. It is part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, United States.
A ceiling painted with stars frequently occurs as a design motif in a cathedral or Christian church, and replicates the Earth's sky at night. Ceilings painted with stars are often found in these buildings because of symbolic associations of stars in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In religious buildings, this decorative feature is often white or gold stars on a blue background. As well as being a decorative technique, star-painted ceilings are also associated with astrology. It has been used as a way to accurately depict the night sky such as in planetariums. Ceilings painted with stars are also a decorative feature sometimes found in houses, particularly in children's rooms.
Sally M. Promey is an American art historian. She worked in the faculty of Northwestern University and University of Maryland, College Park, where she was chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology, before becoming Caroline Washburn Professor of Religion and Visual Culture at Yale Divinity School. A 2002 elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and 2005 Guggenheim Fellow, she specializes in relations between American religion and art, and she has authored books like Spiritual Spectacles (1993) and Painting Religion in Public (1999) and edited volumes like The Visual Culture of American Religions (2001) and Sensational Religion (2014).
