Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation: Women in the Work of Ephraim Moses Lilien at the German Fin de Siècle
Ebook
Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874-1925) was one of the most important Jewish artists of modern times. As a successful illustrator, photographer, painter and printer, he became the first major Zionist artist. Surprisingly there has been little in-depth scholarly research and analysis of Lilien's work available in English, making this book an important contribution to historical and art-historical scholarship.
Concentrating mainly on his illustrations for journals and books, Lynne Swarts acknowledges the importance of Lilien's groundbreaking male iconography in Zionist art, but is the first to examine Lilien's complex and nuanced depiction of women, which comprised a major dimension of his work. Lilien's female images offer a compelling glimpse of an alternate, independent and often sexually liberated modern Jewish woman, a portrayal that often eluded the Zionist imagination. Using an interdisciplinary approach to integrate intellectual and cultural history with issues of gender, Jewish history and visual culture, Swarts also explores the important fin de siècle tensions between European and Oriental expressions of Jewish femininity. The work demonstrates that Lilien was not a minor figure in the European art scene, but a major figure whose work needs re-reading in light of his cosmopolitan and national artistic genius.
The first comprehensive study of E.M. Lilien's portrayals of the fin de siècle Jewish women in Zionist art.
Important scholarship on the representation of Jewish women at the fin de siècle with a particular emphasis on the increasing fashion and preoccupation among Jewish artists and writers on the importance of Jewish Orientalism
A unique examination of Lilien's art and life that situates his images of women within his entire oeuvre
The first English language biography of Lilien's art and life providing a means to interpret and appreciate Lilien's approach to gender, aesthetics, Jewish culture and national identity at the turn of the twentieth century
Introduction: Finding Blind Spots
Chapter One: Ephraim Moses Lilien and His Oeuvre: Context and Contested Issues
Chapter Two: 'We Put All our Hope in Him': Lilien, Zionism and Male Aesthetics
Chapter Three: Boundaries and Borderlines: The 'New Woman' and the New Jewish Woman
Chapter Four: The Dangerous 'Other': Lilien's Femmes Fatales, Other Male Avant-garde Behaviour and Elsa Lasker-Schüler's Transgendered Vision
Chapter Five: Biblical Heroines, Biblical Illustrations and the Search for Meaning
Chapter Six: Ost und West, Zionism and the Construction of German Jewish Orientalism
Chapter Seven: The Exotic 'Other': Lilien's Oriental Beauties and a Jewish Oriental Voice?
Conclusion
Bibliography
Once you see what Swarts shows here, you'll see an entirely new early Zionist culture. You'll wonder why you never thought to ask the questions this book so deftly and convincingly answers.
Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation: At the German Fin de Siècle widens our understanding of how artists at this period, in particular Ephraim Moses Lilien, used extensively portrayals of women to further the national goal of Zionism. By looking astutely at these images and seeing them within the social and historical context, Lynne M. Swarts has made a major contribution to the way gender and orientalism figured prominently in the building of a national idea. Her work, elegantly produced, deserves special recognition as she breaks new ground in thinking about the interrelationship between visual culture and historical phenomena.
A sound and informative analysis of a rich subject. Although it has a strong academic basis, the book is approachable, with many specialist historical aspects outlined. The many illustrations give us a view of Lilien's art and related images.
- Title: Gender, Orientalism and the Jewish Nation: Women in the Work of Ephraim Moses Lilien at the German Fin de Siècle
- Author: Lynne M. Swarts
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
- Print Publication Date: 2020
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781501336157, 9781501374869, 1501374869, 1501336150
- Resource ID: LLS:9781501336157
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-12T06:37:11Z
Lynne M. Swarts is Honorary Research Associate, Department of History, University of Sydney, Australia.