The Dome of the Rock, a significant religious site for Judaism and Islam (Photo: Godot13/wikimedia)
Reading the latest headlines about the Middle East, it might be easy to forget that the three Abrahamic faiths—Christianity, Judaism, and Islam—have common origins and shared symbolism, and even adopted symbols and visual ideas from the pagan art that preceded them. Ori Soltes, teaching professor at the Center for Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University, explores how these religious traditions transformed or reinterpreted the meanings of common symbols to express their particularized sense of God and of the relationship between divinity and humanity.
Why and how, for example, does the free-standing dome form connect the Roman Pantheon, the Dome of the Rock, St Peter's basilica, and the Via Farini synagogue in Florence? How do the color blue (or other colors) and the numbers—virtually every one from 1 to 10—offer interwoven symbolic significance for all three Abrahamic faiths?
How have Judaism and Islam visually expressed God without the possibility of figurative imaging and how has Christianity gone beyond the limits of figurative expression in visually articulating God? And how is the legacy of antiquity and the medieval period still palpable in the era of both modern and contemporary art?
Nov. 9 The Language of Visual Symbols in the Ancient Pagan World
Nov. 16 Symbols in Christian Art From the Catacombs to Gauguin
Nov. 30 Symbols in Jewish Art From the Arch of Titus to Sy Gresser
Dec. 7 Symbols in Islamic Art From the Dome of the Rock to Parviz Tanvol
Soltes is the former director and curator of the B'nai B'rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.
No class Nov. 23.
World Art History Certificate core course: Earn 1 credit
