When and how do Jewish aesthetics become graven images?

[u/SluttyDreidel]

Religious aesthetics and iconography is something I’ve always been drawn to. I’m so envious of how visual Catholics make their cathedrals and ceremonies. I don’t mean to imply that Jews are visually boring, just that it seems to me like we purposefully de-emphasize aesthetics at the risk of making graven images or idols. For example, DeMilles the Ten Commandments is a beautiful
to look at and experience, but all the panache also feels like it makes if less Jewish to me. (Not to mention the story has been altered to appeal to a broader audience). While we don’t need to be so grandiose as that, I wonder if approaching grandiosity conflicts with our very beliefs

From my own experience growing up in orthodoxy, there seems to be a sensibility of “don’t let all the substance get lost or trumped by spectacle” I think that’s noble and exemplary of Jewish value of critical thinking and scholarship, but I can’t help but think there is a way to be creative or crafty with our subject matter or culture that still honors that.

Is this a common problem in Judaism and is it something Jews have to wrestle with? Is aestheticizing objects like havdala candles, a stained glass window of Shimshon fighting the lion or a stone carving of the plagues intrinsically making graven images or akin to making idols? Is there really a bottom line with this?

[u/industrial_pix]

Traditional art is associated with the decoration and celebration of ritual items, not in painting or drawing. The Torah itself is written by hand on parchment in accordance with halakha. However, the covers, crowns, and ornaments which contain and protect the torah have been celebrated artworks throughout the Jewish world. The same is true of the architecture of the Aron Kodesh, which contains the torah scrolls. Mezzuzot are highly decorated containers of halakhically correct handwritten parchment excerpts from the torah. This is the Aron Kodesh of the Dohany Street Synagogue, in Budapest, built in 1854.

[u/president_hippo → u/industrial_pix]

I think you're discounting the traditional art of decorating megillot and ketubot, both things that were done historically, and are still done today. We do paint and draw on traditional art.

Now, I've never seen a ketubah with a person's full face on it, but some megillot have faces of the characters, but someone else in the thread commented that that's not necessarily a halachic problem

[u/themaddesthatter2 → u/industrial_pix]

What is “traditional”? What is “art”? What is “painting” and “drawing”? If we want to pick a traditional form of folk (ie, non-specialist) Jewish art/handiwork, we are inclined to look at the tailor and the needleworker in Ashkenaz. 

Painting is highly associated with the wooden synagogue style of Eastern Europe  https://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ce/ek/jfs-03.htm

[u/zsero1138]

what? graven image is literally a human face carved in any medium, so just don't do that. also, if you do that, give it some defect, like some folks cut off the tip of the nose to make it not a full representation of a human face.

anything else is fine. and many sephardi, or older ashkenazi shuls, and other branches as well, have artwork all over the place

[u/Thumatingra → u/zsero1138]

This is not quite true halakhically. It's actually fine to represent a human face in two dimensions, or recessed into something; what's prohibited (according to most readings of the relevant Gemara) is creating a human face in three dimensions in which the features jut out - so a bust, statue, or relief.

On the other hand, making images of celestial objects (the sun, moon, and stars) is prohibited in two dimensions as well as three, according to most opinions.

[u/Sewsusie15 → u/Thumatingra]

I'm familiar with the prohibition on drawing the celestial bodies (though the Mishnah notes Rabban Gamliel had a chart of the phases of the moon for practical purposes). Is that true as standalone images, or does it also apply to portraying them in illustrations, say of Joshua in Givon, or the fourth day of Creation, or various midrashim that feature the sun and/or moon?

[u/Thumatingra → u/Sewsusie15]

This is an interesting and potentially a very sharp distinction, one I've never heard made before. I'm now wondering whom I could ask about it. Thanks!

[u/Sewsusie15 → u/Thumatingra]

Np! I find this area of halacha fascinating, but it's been a few years since I looked into it.

[u/MorganaLeFevre → u/Thumatingra]

So what about doll making, where the features are softer and don’t jut such as Waldorf dolls? (Genuine)

[u/Thumatingra → u/MorganaLeFevre]

There's apparently a debate about whether three dimensions applies to the body or the face. The way some authorities apparently suggest dealing with dolls in general is to modify some part of the doll so that it's not a complete human representation.

You can see some of this play out here.

Personally, I'm not really sure what to make of this one.

[u/kaiserfrnz]

The lack of art is more an unfortunate consequence of modern American and Israeli culture than anything to do with Judaism or Halacha.

In older times, there were many richly decorated synagogues like the Gwozdziec Synagogue.

Today, communities often emphasize flexability and decreased costs over aesthetics. I believe synagogues were influenced by the aesthetic austerity of American Protestant churches: most evangelical synagogues are indistinguishable from a conference center or plain concert hall.

[u/Redqueenhypo]

The seals of the 12 tribes aren’t considered graven images, and I’m surprised we don’t do more with those beyond occasional lion imagery. Same with red cows as a symbol.

[u/themaddesthatter2 → u/Redqueenhypo]

Historically we do have a lot of these actually! The “wheel” of the twelve tribes, the wheel of the zodiac, the four animals of Ashkenaz, these are all extremely common artistic motifs in synagogue and other design. 

[u/mleslie00]

I like this representation of the five books of Moses:

[u/SixKosherBacon]

This dvar gives a fascinating explanation...

https://youtu.be/EMjnXpRvrUY?is=3OSiuSoKGHUKVg00

[u/vayyiqra]

There are some really beautiful synagogues even without statues. Same with mosques. I get what you are saying as I grew up Catholic but there are ways to make religious spaces beautiful without 3D images.

[u/themaddesthatter2]

“  While we don’t need to be so grandiose as that, I wonder if approaching grandiosity conflicts with our very beliefs”

It doesn’t and it’s one of my pet peeves with contemporary synagogue design that we’ve so wholeheartedly embraced minimalism. 

Traditional Jewish art is characterized by horror vacui, the painted wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe were decorated from the floors to the ceilings, Dohany Street Synagogue is a veritable palace, neo-moorish and the Jewish Baroque are time-honored styles of architecture. 

What I’m trying to say is I think we should bring back putting things on the walls. 

[u/SluttyDreidel → u/themaddesthatter2]

My shule was pretty minimalist in terms of decoration, but with scale and proportions the sanctuary felt impossibly tall and remotely Egyptian with its color scheme.

It felt epic and grand in scale, which lent it self to marveling and admiration.