Jewish Arts (excerpted)
By: Richard McBee

Biblical Art

Contemporary Jewish Art, utilizing the Torah as its subject matter, is created less frequently than might be expected. The vast richness of Biblical narratives, along with 2,000 years of commentary and midrashim, has yet to attract more than a few artists to mine its treasures. This artistic hesitation may be the result of a misplaced sense that these subjects are simply too sacred to adequately approach. This exposes a sad ignorance of Jewish art history recounted here. It is as if many contemporary Jewish artists have bifurcated lives. The Torah and its literature are shut in the religion box, while their artistic lives are segregated in their studio. The two interests seldom talk to one another. Janet Shafner, John Bradford and I are three artists who are the exceptions to this trend, and have devoted much of our work to the Biblical narratives.
 

Janet Shafner has worked for close to 20 years juxtaposing the Talmudic and the Biblical in dramatic paintings that range from Adam and Eve to Mordechai and Esther. Among Shafner’s many paintings, Azazel – The Scapegoat (1994) provides a typically complex commentary on a piece of Torah. During the Yom Kippur service, the hapless goat sent to Azazel is seen tumbling down the rocky hillside, looking back at his executioner just before he is shattered to death by the fall. His gaze directs us to the lunette above that contains the solitary image of an electric chair. The goat sent to Azazel carries the sins of Israel into the wilderness, and through this avodah we find atonement for our sins against G-d, but not against our fellow man. But we must pay for those human sins through apology, repayment, punishment or even death – execution as punishment; execution as atonement; execution as vengeance. Shafner’s painting speaks of the terrible consequences of sin.

 

Richard McBee is a painter and writer on Jewish Art.

 

Janet Shafner • email : sshafner8262@sbcglobal.net

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Artwork and Texts: New Work: 2005 - Present Biblical Visions The Divine Ecology

JANET SHAFNER - ARTIST