Resurrection

Jewish national symbolism. Judaism emphasises the close connection between faith and daily life. A religious Jew must say 100 prayers and blessings every day, so that every action and event is a special moment, a ritual, a symbol in the daily flow of time. Over the centuries, daily life filled with ritual actions, and symbolic images shaped the mindset of the Jewish community and formed Jewish sacral art, laden with symbols, where each element had a symbolic meaning and several elements together told a story, complementing or even changing each other’s meanings. This world-view was naturally reflected in secular art as well: Jewish art is defined by its symbolism, its multi-dimensional character, and its fantasy.

In the 1950s, Israel saw the formation of Jewish national symbolism, a new trend in art, which combined the experience of the Holocaust, religious perception, traditional symbolic language, and modern artistic expression. This trend was especially evident in the Surrealist works by Samuel Bak. In his canvas Resurrection, the artist looks through a keyhole at the no-longer-existing city of his childhood, the destroyed Jerusalem of Lithuania. The owners of the keys embedded in the rocks will never return to unlock the doors. This is how Bak depicted the destruction of Lithuania’s Jewish community, the catastrophe that befell not only him personally but also the entire civilisation. However, the painting is not nihilistic. In crucial historic moments, Bak offers hope: perhaps one of the keys will unlock the door to the lost city of his childhood, and the resurrection will take place.

Text author Vilma Gradinskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album STORIES OF LITVAK ART (2023). Compiler and author Vilma Gradinskaitė

Jewish national symbolism. Judaism emphasises the close connection between faith and daily life. A religious Jew must say 100 prayers and blessings every day, so that every action and event is a special moment, a ritual, a symbol in the daily flow of time. Over the centuries, daily life filled with ritual actions, and symbolic images shaped the mindset of the Jewish community and formed Jewish sacral art, laden with symbols, where each element had a symbolic meaning and several elements together told a story, complementing or even changing each other’s meanings. This world-view was naturally reflected in secular art as well: Jewish art is defined by its symbolism, its multi-dimensional character, and its fantasy.

In the 1950s, Israel saw the formation of Jewish national symbolism, a new trend in art, which combined the experience of the Holocaust, religious perception, traditional symbolic language, and modern artistic expression. This trend was especially evident in the Surrealist works by Samuel Bak. In his canvas Resurrection, the artist looks through a keyhole at the no-longer-existing city of his childhood, the destroyed Jerusalem of Lithuania. The owners of the keys embedded in the rocks will never return to unlock the doors. This is how Bak depicted the destruction of Lithuania’s Jewish community, the catastrophe that befell not only him personally but also the entire civilisation. However, the painting is not nihilistic. In crucial historic moments, Bak offers hope: perhaps one of the keys will unlock the door to the lost city of his childhood, and the resurrection will take place.

Text author Vilma Gradinskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album STORIES OF LITVAK ART (2023). Compiler and author Vilma Gradinskaitė