Art-Historical Writing and Aesthetics in Hellenistic Judaism (15 min)
Presenters
Kristen Seaman, University of Oregon
Abstract
Since T.B.L. Webster’s Hellenistic
Poetry and Art, scholars have paid much attention to the relationship of
art and literature in the Hellenistic world, but they have all but ignored
Jewish aesthetics. Yet many Jews spoke Greek, wrote literature in Greek, and
were active participants in the Greek intellectual life of the Hellenistic
world that followed Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Persian Empire in the
late fourth century B.C.E. Moreover, Jewish art and architecture constituted a
noteworthy part of Hellenistic visual culture, Hellenistic Jewish authors wrote
art history and criticism, and Hellenistic Jewish literature is generally
attentive to visuality. Therefore in this paper, through close analyses of
artworks, sites, and texts, I explore Hellenistic Jewish writing that deals
with art and visuality, from Alexander’s death in 323 B.C.E. to the destruction
of the Second Temple in 70 C.E., with the goal of developing a more inclusive
and complete understanding of Hellenistic aesthetics. I begin by determining
how Hellenistic Jewish authors learned art appreciation. Next, I turn to an
exploration of art history and art-criticism in Hellenistic Jewish authors.
Most notably, I find that Philo, an Alexandrian intellectual, is especially
familiar with art-making and viewing as well as with the aesthetic discourses
about them that we find in other extant Hellenistic literature. Finally, I
investigate visuality in Hellenistic Jewish literature such as Ezekiel’s
Exagoge, Joseph and Aseneth, and the Letter of Aristeas. I discover that Jewish
intellectuals have the same interests in the relationship of word and image as
other Hellenistic authors, but their writing primarily concerns Jewish art and
architecture, figures from the Hebrew Bible, and other Jewish subjects. Thus I
argue that Hellenistic Jewish authors employ Greek rhetorical techniques and
construct visuality in their Greek literature as ways of asserting both their
Jewish and their Greek cultural identities.
AIA-8H