Carrying the Scrolls of the Law

Simeon Solomon

1867

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Painting of man with eyes closed holding Torah scroll. — Simeon Solomon’s *Carrying the Scrolls of Law*, like other pre-Raphaelite paintings, explores the themes of spirituality and religious devotion. Solomon also explores the beauty of the young man carrying the Torah, painting him embracing the Torah in a loving—and sensuous—way. This watercolor and gouache painting is one of several versions of the subject that Solomon painted. In another, the young man’s *peyot* (earlocks) are not shaven off, as they are here.

Credits

The Whitworth Art Gallery, the University of Manchester / Bridgeman Images.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 6.

The Moon and Sleep

Simeon Solomon’s The Moon and Sleep was inspired by the Greek story of Endymion, a beautiful youth beloved of Selene, the goddess of the moon. Zeus granted Endymion ageless immortality, subjecting…

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Abstract painting with variations of lines and dots.

Etude

Avigdor Stematsky, a founder of the New Horizons art group, which, beginning in 1942, sought to break away from the artistic conventions established by the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts, helped…

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Photograph of men in hats and suits and one boy in skullcap outside with their backs turned away from the camera, looking toward the river.

Yom Kippur, East River, New York City

Though this photograph of Orthodox Jews at the East River has long been captioned as having been taken on Yom Kippur, it is much more likely that it was taken on the first afternoon of Rosh Hashanah…

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Creator Bio

Simeon Solomon attended the Royal Academy in London at age fifteen and was the youngest artist whose work was ever shown there. Early in his career, he painted Old Testament and Jewish religious subjects. Inspired by the Italian Renaissance, Solomon increasingly turned to religious mystical subjects and classical pagan themes painted in a pre-Raphaelite style. Much of Solomon’s work was homoerotic, and in 1871 his prose poem on the theme of same-sex male love, “A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep,” was attacked. His arrest and conviction for gross indecency in 1873 destroyed Solomon’s career and led to years of social condemnation, alcoholism, and poverty.

Details

Public Access

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