For over ten years, the gallery "Vellum» (
www.vellum.ru) is engaged in works of artists born in the village who knew their life was not hearsay and are displayed in his work life Pale Jews - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Their work absorbed images of folklore, religion, everyday life and holidays.
The fate of the artist-Jew has always been pretty easy: at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries, it began to emerge interest in Jewish subject, and in the period before the first world war, and during the years of the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet period. Jewish theme has long been a little popular. The names of most of the artists who first appealed to the national theme, unjustly forgotten, and artistic heritage of many of them have disappeared without a trace. For all the seeming paucity of Jewish masters of the late XIX - early XX centuries. The names of some have made history of fine arts, and their contribution to world culture is unique. It is they who have drawn attention to the Jewish theme in art, creativity of Jewish artists, as one of the manifestations of national life.
In the Middle Ages, Jewish artists concentrated their efforts on building and decoration of objects of worship - the Torah crowns, embroidered robes for the scrolls, Mezuzah cases for, candlesticks, etc. In the same period, were decorated with illustrations of manuscripts. In modern times Jewish artists created works with national themes in modern technology. Among them were Mark Antokolsky, M. D. Oppenheim, Maurizio Gottlieb. Of course, the most prominent Jewish artists of the twentieth century, are Marc Chagall, Mane Katz, Chaim Soutine. Culturological significance of the phenomenon of Jewish art, comparable to the impact on the global art of the first Russian avant-garde.
In the twentieth century, in addition to biblical and folk stories in the works of Jewish artists appears one of those piercing - the theme of the Holocaust. It is reflected in the work of a number of Soviet Jewish artists, both known and unknown.