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Gold Marilyn Monroe is a 1962 painting by Andy Warhol. Executed in silkscreen ink on synthetic polymer paint on canvas, the large painting depicts the famous actress Marilyn Monroe, who committed suicide earlier that year.
The image of Monroe comes from a publicity still for her 1953 movie Niagra.[1]
References[edit]
Dyer, Jennfier. "The Metaphysics of the Mundane: Understanding Andy Warhol's Serial Imagery." "Artibus et Historiae" 25, no. 49 (2004): 33-47.
Notes[edit]
- ^ Dyer, "Metaphysics of the Mundane," 34.
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Maurycy Gottlieb made significant contributions towards creating the genre of Jewish Art. Gottlieb’s 1878 painting Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur exemplifies many artistic values that are significant to Eastern European Jews at the time and contains many deeper meanings about Gottlieb’s short life. The religious holiday of Yom Kippur (the holiest day of the Jewish year) is shown throughout this piece by the figures and symbolism. The color palette, location, human beings, and objects used all suggest a holiday of repentance and of importance. In this research paper, I will formally analyze the painting Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur, examine the context of the painting and how Gottlieb’s Jewish upbringing influences this work of art.
Yom Kippur is the Jewish holiday of repentance and is a time for the Jewish people to pray and repent for their sins. As Soussloff writes in Jewish Identity in Modern Art History, “Yom Kippur is also the occasion in the Jewish year when the dead are solemnly commemorated (in the service called Yizkor), and Gottlieb has injected into this picture several prominent self-memorials.” This piece shows the rabbi grasping the holy Torah (which contains the Old Testament); his expression is very somber and serious in keeping with the theme of the holiday they are observing. The location (a synagogue) is apropos considering the figures are observing the holiday of Yom Kippur. Gottlieb was a man who was proud of his Jewish heritage and wanted to show the world the religion and culture of Eastern European Jews. This painting was created on the days of atonement (preceding the day of Yom Kippur) but the setting of the piece is on the actual day of Yom Kippur. In his book Painting a People, Ezra Mendelsohn confirms that Gottlieb’s subject in this painting is the Days of Atonement: “Nathan Samuely, who discussed the work with Gottlieb in 1878, does specifically connect it, in his German essay on the artist published in 1885, with Yom Kippur, and informs us that the artist himself had the idea of painting it during the days of repentance preceding this holiday.” Not only does this piece show the observance of the specific holiday of Yom Kippur, but it also highlights the many differences of how Jewish people observe general holidays and how they dress in a unique fashion as opposed to gentiles. Every figure in the synagogue has a serious look on their face. They could be listening to the rabbi’s sermon at the podium or reflecting upon their actions in the past year. It is very obvious they are in a place of prayer because of several objects placed in the temple and the way the figures are dressed. For example, many of the adult men are wearing talith (a holy cloth) and yarmulke’s (head coverings). These holy pieces of clothing are worn when praying in a synagogue. There is a Torah in the center of the composition, stained glass windows in the back, and candles on the top left. As Mendelsohn writes, “candles, at the left of the painting help provide the light.” The viewer can easily tell that the light is coming from the left of the painting which is where the candles are located. There is a quote/inscription on the wall that talks about the triumph of the Torah. All of these objects indicate that the paintings location is in a holy synagogue. The artist Maurycy Gottlieb appears in the painting three different times, which is a common ideal that artists practice. He appears throughout the painting in different stages of his life. In one self portrait he is an adult, in another he is a young child and in the third self portrait he is depicted as an adolescent. These various self-portraits show Gottlieb throughout the stages of his short life. As Mendelsohn writes, “Maurycy himself stands, in a colorful, exotic-looking talith, with head in hand. On the left we have the artist as a small boy, wearing a medallion with his initials written in Hebrew. On the extreme right is a young male figure, perhaps again Maurycy, reading from the prayer book alongside a man who might well be his father. Malinowski assumes that this is the case when he says that the painting presents ‘an account of his whole life’.” It has been suggested that the artist placed his beloved Laura among the female worshippers. In the painting, many of the figures are people that are close to Gottlieb or people he knew at the time. As said by the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Maurycy Gottlieb created this work of art at the young age of 22 years old; which was a year before his death. Most of the 20 figures depicted here represent people close to the artist.” There are many characteristics that create a somber tone within this painting. The novel Painting a People, described in this painting, as “other striking motifs in this painting are sadness, nostalgia, and beautification. There is no religious ecstasy, no intensity of emotion, only a pervasive melancholy.” The facial expressions of the figures also contribute to the tone. The darker color palettes used, the unusual looking men and the normal appearance of the women create a contrast and show the culture of Polish European Jews. In Gottlieb’s painting there are many motifs demonstrated. For example, the idea of “Jew’s otherness” Jewish life and its decline. He shows Jewish life in a sad depiction that exemplifies its endangerment. Gottlieb shows in his works, a world that he grew up in and from which he was no longer a part of. He was both insider and outsider, an attribute that set him apart from the secular creators of modern Jewish culture in Eastern Europe. He was an outsider because he would not always practice Eastern European Jewry. Gottlieb’s art emphasizes the uniqueness of the Jewish people and how they looked and acted very different from gentiles. His purpose was to showcase the Jewish people. “Gottlieb, in other words, had done for Judaism what the great Italian artists of the Renaissance had done for Christianity. But of course his task was much more difficult, since his subject, Judaism itself, and in particular Eastern European Judaism— was held in general contempt.” Gottlieb idealized the Jewish culture and religion to the best of his ability. He memorialized Jewish Life in Eastern Europe.
References[edit]
Maurycy Gottlieb, ”Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur.” Tel Aviv Museum of Art, accessed January 31, 2017, http://www.tamuseum.org.il/collection-work/8224.
Boyarin, Jonathan. “Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art.” Slavic Review 2004.
Gilya and Schmidt. The Art and Artists of the Fifth Zionist Congress, 1901: Heralds of a New Age. Syracuse University Press, 2003.
Małaszewska, Wanda. "Gottlieb, Maurycy." Grove Art Online, accessed March 19, 2017, http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T033787
Mendelsohn, Ezra. Painting a People: Maurycy Gottlieb and Jewish Art. Hanover: University Press of New England [for] Brandeis University Press, 2002.
Rishon, Mekor. "Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur by Maurycy Gottlieb.”Accessed January 31, 2017, http://yaelmaly.blogspot.com/2016/10/jews-p praying-in-synagogue-on-yom-kippur.html.
Soussloff, Catherine M. Jewish Identity in Modern Art History. Berkeley [u.a.]: Univ. of California Press, 1999.