The Ark of the Covenant in the Jewish and Christian Traditions
The Ark of the Covenant is one of very few motifs with a long history in both the Jewish and Christian artistic traditions. As such, this history is worth investigating in the context of a program on Renaissance Hebraism.
The Ark of the Covenant has a Jewish art history of some three millenia, whether as the object made for the Tabernacle and Temple or the one represented in coinage, illustrated manuscripts, and synagogue walls, pavements, or textiles, and a Christian art history certainly of a thousand years in large and small scale painting and in architectural sculpture.
We will survey representations of the Ark in the Jewish tradition from Roman times until the early modern period and those in the Christian tradition from the early middle ages until the Renaissance.
For Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple, representations of the Ark of the Covenant have stood as a reminder of what had been in the glorious days of Tabernacle and Temple, an affirmation of the role of the synagogue as a small sanctuary in the period of Exile, and a harbinger of what will be in the coming Messianic era, with the building of a Third Temple.
For Christians, the purity of Mary and Jesus may be symbolized by the Ark of the Covenant and its contents. Ark of the Covenant is also understood in terms of a typology of thematic parallels between the Old and New Testaments.
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