Language:
English
Year of publication:
2021
Titel der Quelle:
Jewish Literatures and Cultures in Southeastern Europe
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2021) 197-213
Keywords:
Biller, Vjera,
;
Jewish women artists
;
Art, Byzantine Influence
;
Avant-garde (Aesthetics)
;
Jewish art and symbolism
Abstract:
This paper deals with Vjera Biller (1903–1940), a ‘forgotten’ Jewish artist of the interwar avant-Garde active in Budapest, Berlin and Belgrade, and her embracing of a distinct Neo-Byzantinist ‘style’ in her oeuvre. This Neo-Byzantinism is characterized by an archaistic rendering of space, perspective and corporality aimed at an overall impression of iconicity highly reminiscent of mosaics. The ‘Byzantine’ is thus adapted and modified within Biller’s avant-Gardist practice as a semantic and aesthetic method of modernity. In addition, the artist’s elaborate Neo-Byzantinism is developed in close correspondence to contemporary debates on Jewish material culture revolving around the motif of the ‘Byzantine’, employed mostly – but not exclusively – in the context of German-speaking, assimilated Ashkenazi Jewry.
DOI:
10.7767/9783205212904.197
URL:
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