The Shape of Revelation Aesthetics and Modern Jeish Thought [Hardcover]

The Shape of Revelationexplores the overlap between revelation and aesthetic form from the perspective of Judaism. It does so by setting the Jewish philosophy of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig alongside its immediate visual environment in the aesthetics of early German modernism, most notably alongside the spiritual in art as it appears in the art and art theories of Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Franz Marc. The modern shape of revelationand the spiritual in art that emerges from this conversationbuilds upon a vocabulary of form-creation, sheer presence, lyric pathos, rhythmic repetition, open spatial dynamism, and erotic pulse that was unique to Germany in the first quarter of the twentieth century. This study works to identify and critically assess the sensual root that is brought to bear upon the modern image of revelation and the spiritual in art.

The Shape of Revelationhighlights the image of form-creation, sheer presence, lyric pathos, rhythmic repetition, open spatial dynamism, and erotic pulse unique in the work of Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and German Expressionism in order to explore the overlap between revelation and aesthetic shape from the perspective of Judaism. Braiterman has created a fascinating, brilliant, and valuable new reading of Buber and Rosenzweig by reinserting the two Jewish thinkers into their context in German culture. He shows their work has profound confluences and parallels with that culture, especially with modernist painters such as Klee and Kandinksy. WithThe Shape of Revelation, Jewish thought regains the specific aesthetics of German modernism, and modernist aesthetics regains its theological/spiritual dimension. This material is fascinating and largely unnoticed by recent interpreters of modern Jewish thought... The book is about beauty and itself is beautiful. In his new book, [Braiterman] brilliantly traces the parallels between modern Jewish religious thought as epitomized by MlC#