Title: The Art of Passover
Description: The values and beliefs, cherished traditions, and hopes of any culture are nowhere more beautifully expressed than in the ritual celebrations passed down from generation to generation. Throughout the centuries, the festival of Passover has brought Jewish families together in a joyous commemoration of the liberation of the ancient Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

The haggadahs retelling the epic story, the seder dish filled with foods symbolizing past suffering and the promise of redemption in the future, the goblet of wine poured for Elijah - every item on the seder table is embodied with religious and historical significance.

Gathered from across the centuries and around the world, this collection of Passover art and objects is at once a stunning visual treasury and a fascinating chronicle of Jewish life from the Middle Ages to the present day. In more than 50 full-color photographs you'll discover illuminated haggadahs of breath-taking vibrancy, artifacts finely crafted in precious metals, crystal, fabric, porcelain, and ivory, and paintings alive with the artist's vision and interpretation of Passover rituals.

The survival of Jewish identity, religious beliefs, and practices, through a history rife with dispersion and persecution, resonates in every work of art here. The adaptability of the Jewish people to varying circumstances and cultures is conveyed in works that incorporate or borrow from the artistic styles of the prevailing, non-Jewish tradition.

.

From illuminated manuscripts miraculously saved from periodic bookburnings, the purposeful destruction of Jewish communities, and the accidental fires that ravaged the ghettos to volumes illustrated by artists in this century, The Art of Passover features haggadahs rich in imagery and imagination. An illustration from the earliest extant illuminated German haggadah, the Birds' Head Haggadah (c. 1300), depicts the decorative figures as having birds' heads rather than those of men and women.

The Golden Haggadah, its scenes glowing with burnished gold backgrounds, reveals a fourteenth-century Spanish artist's familiarity with the French Gothic style of the period; An illustration from the Erna Michael Haggadah, an Ashkenazic haggadah produced in south Germany in the early fifteenth century, depicts celebrants in the pointed hats authorities required Jews to wear as identification. Illustrations by contemporary artists including Ben Shahn introduce new insights into the meaning of Passover.

The seder table items illustrated here are equally diverse and equally striking. Selections of seder plates range from a fifteenth-century majolica piece, 22 1/2 inches in diameter, to a starkly beautiful tiered copper plate crafted by the Bauhaus artist Alois Worle. From Poland, there is an exuberant, folk-inspired three-tiered seder set of brass and wood; from Germany an elaborately carved ivory kiddush cup, and from China, a meticulously embroidered silk afikomen pouch.

A nineteenth-century ewer and basin from Istanbul are a wonderful example of the Jewish practice of adopting decorative objects from the surrounding culture and using them to enhance a Jewish ritual; a plate used in the concentration camp at Terezin is a moving reminder of the darkest period in Jewish history.

Paintings depicting Passover customs and liturgy represent the works of Jewish and non-Jewish artists. "The Search for Leaven," painted by an eighteenth-century French Protestant in Amsterdam, is part of a series of 600 images of Jewish observations commissioned by the state.

El Lissitzky's colorful lithographs transplanting the images of the song "Had Gadya" to a Russian shtetl and Larry Rivers's "The History of Matzah," filled with surprising juxtapositions and images, capture the joyous spirit of Passover. In her simple still life, "Making Haroset," Toby Fluek preserves a memory of her childhood in Poland, poignantly evoking a way of life destroyed in the Holocaust.

. Rabbi Stephan O. Parnes offers cogent explanations of the religious, biblical, and historical symbols found in the art. Bonni-Dara Michaels and Gabriel M. Goldstein's entertaining and informative commentaries, discussing the works from an artistic perspective, complement the illustrations and enhance our appreciation and understanding of this very special holiday.
Subjects: Liturgical objects, Judaism, Catalogs, Passover in art, Jewish art and symbolism, Passover