"A truly beautiful, full-color coffee table book displaying the artistic creations of David Aronson, an immigrant artist of Jewish background who has incorporated Christologicaly, Jewish, mystical, and modernist motifs. Works from 1946 to 2002 fill the pages of this fantastic volume, surely the next best thing to viewing Aronson's art in person. Most pages are devoted entirely to pictures of art, many of which have a soft blurred color tone and fuzzy delineations that give them a feel of transition between the borders of existential planes. A medium-length essay by Dr. Asher Biemann, and a transcript of a 1967 lecture by Aronson himself round out this superb showcase of a major artistic talent."—Midwest Book Review
Description
As an immigrant artist of Jewish background, who borrowed freely from Christological, Jewish, mystical, and modernist motifs, David Aronson has been an equally acclaimed and controversial figure in the Boston Expressionist school and beyond. Defying all clear categorization, his highly evocative art moves precariously between the realms of the religious and the secular, between Judaism and humanism, tradition and modernity.
This book includes rich reproductions of Aronson’s works done in encaustic, pastel, charcoal, and bronze. It also contains Aronson’s 1967 lecture “Real and Unreal: The Double Nature of Art,” which offers a unique testimony of the intellectual background of his creative oeuvre. An interpretive essay by Asher Biemann of the University of Virginia places Aronson’s work and biography in an historical, cultural, and intellectual context and comments on specific aspects of his art.
Provocative and thoroughly documented, this volume will be of interest to scholars of art history, Judaism, and religion, as well as to a general audience.
About the Author
Asher D. Biemann is assistant professor for modern Jewish thought and intellectual history at the University of Virginia. He is the editor of The Martin Buber Reader and author of a critical edition of Martin Buber's Sprachphilosophische Schriften.
Jeanne Koles is the editor of numerous volumes on art published through Pucker Art Publications.
March 2005