{"id":15446,"date":"2015-10-30T00:15:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T07:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=15446"},"modified":"2015-10-28T15:37:21","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T22:37:21","slug":"mosaics-depict-judith-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/10\/30\/mosaics-depict-judith-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Mosaics depict Judith story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lilian Broca with the diptych \u201cJudith Meeting Holofernes,\u201d part of the Heroine of a Thousand Pieces: The Judith Mosaics of Lilian Broca exhibit that opens at Il Museo on Nov. 12.\u00a0(photo from Lilian Broca)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Artist Lilian Broca calls her most recent subject \u2013 the apocryphal Judith, who slew the general Holofernes and saved her village \u2013 \u201ca woman\u2019s woman,\u201d because \u201cshe was able to do what she wanted to do.\u201d Granted, times have changed, and that\u2019s not such an unusual phenomenon, but equality is still an issue for many, there are still oppressors, the world is still in need of repair, tikkun olam<\/em>. Broca\u2019s work reminds us of the power we each have, woman or man, to save, heal or improve at least a part of the world in which we live. And it does so in the most beautiful way.<\/p>\n

Heroine of a Thousand Pieces: The Judith Mosaics of Lilian Broca opens at the Italian Cultural Centre\u2019s Il Museo on Nov. 12, 7 p.m., with a reception. It is the artist\u2019s second major mosaic series. Her first \u2013 seven years in the making \u2013 told the story of Queen Esther, the heroine of Purim.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout my career,\u201d writes Broca in the Judith exhibit catalogue, \u201cI have deliberately used powerful women figures from mythology as symbolic figures and role models whose experiences, I contend, shed light on today\u2019s concerns, thereby becoming relevant to our contemporary society. In my last three series of artworks, I have profiled three exceptionally wise and fearless legendary figures: Lilith, Esther and now Judith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the years, she has worked with a variety of media, but the Queen Esther series called for a new medium: \u201cIn the Book of Esther, it is written that King Xerxes\u2019 palace was magnificently adorned with a floor encrusted with rubies and porphyry in pleasing designs \u2013 in other words, mosaics.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with the Esther series, the nine panels depicting seven scenes from the story of Judith are created in Italian smalto glass. The panels range from 72 to 78 inches tall and 48 inches wide.<\/p>\n

As a widow with no children or family, Judith was able \u201cto act on her own without getting permission from the alpha male of her family,\u201d Broca told the Independent.<\/em> That allowed her to do what she did, \u201cbecause women, as you know, in biblical times belonged to a male, either a husband, father, brother, son. She had none of those, and she was wealthy because her husband had left her quite wealthy. So, she was a woman\u2019s woman, she was able to do what she wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In short, Judith wanted to save her village of Bethulia from the Assyrian army, which was under the command of General Holofernes, who answered to the ruler Nebuchadnezzar. A beautiful woman, she seduces her way into Holofernes\u2019 camp and, eventually, into his tent, where she manages to get him so drunk that he passes out. She then cuts off his head with a sword, smuggling it out of the camp with the help of her servant. She presents it to the people of her village, while Holofernes\u2019 army flees in disarray.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe meet her at the point where she calls the town officials, and tells them that she\u2019s going to be victorious,\u201d and that she\u2019s going to be successful with the help of God, explained Broca of the exhibit\u2019s first panel. Judith doesn\u2019t, however, tell them what she\u2019s going to do.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
“Judith Praying in the Desert,” by Lilian Broca, part of the Thousand Pieces: The Judith Mosaics of Lilian Broca exhibit. (photo from Lilian Broca)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the second panel, Judith is praying, asking God to help her deceive Holofernes and his men. Not knowing how women prayed at the time, Broca contacted Dr. Adolfo Roitman, curator of the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum (where the Dead Sea Scrolls are housed), but, despite his and other biblical specialists\u2019 efforts, they weren\u2019t able to answer that question. \u201cSo, I was left with my artistic licence,\u201d said Broca. \u201cI figured that light is always associated with the divine, and so I had a lot of photos of oil lamps dating from that century \u2026 and I decided to have her praying in front of that lit oil lamp, with that light, and her hands \u2026 she is begging God, she is arguing with God, she is having a dialogue, so I put her hands in a kind of gesticulating [position], up in the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third scene \u2013 one of the exhibit\u2019s two diptychs \u2013 depicts Holofernes first meeting Judith in all her finery and beauty. \u201cJudith, just like Esther, was articulate, spoke very well, and perhaps also God helped her,\u201d said Broca. \u201cShe told the general a cockamamie story about God coming to her in her dreams and saying to her, you have to go down [to see him] because he will be the winner of the war, he\u2019s a great leader, and I\u2019m going to punish the people of Bethulia \u2026 because they broke the dietary laws. Well, that was true: they were starving, they had no water. The general knew that the Israelites had a very powerful God\u201d who would protect them if they were faithful to Him and kept His laws. Judith continued, said Broca, \u201csaying that God will tell her in three days\u2019 time when is a good time to attack. During those three days, she will stay with him in the camp but, every night, she will go with her maid \u2026 to pray, and then come back to the camp. And then, on the third night, God will tell her. In the meantime, the general wanted to seduce her, that\u2019s all he had on his brain.\u201d<\/p>\n

In this way, the sentry was used to seeing Judith coming and going, said Broca, which is why she was ultimately able to steal the severed head, hidden in a sack, out of the camp. The fourth scene of the exhibit is a diptych of Judith plying Holofernes with wine, the fifth panel shows Judith about to bring down the sword onto his neck, while the sixth has Judith and her maid running to Bethulia, sack and sword in hand. The final panel shows Judith raising the head for her people to see.<\/p>\n

Broca started this work about four years ago. Roitman was in Vancouver giving a talk on the Dead Sea Scrolls and visited her studio. \u201cWhen he saw Esther, he said, oh, now you have to do Judith.\u201d He told her that Judith was likely written as a response to Esther, that Judith is the flipside of Esther. \u201cAnd it is absolutely true,\u201d said Broca. \u201cWhen I read the story, I knew right then and there that my greatest dream in life is to have both Esther and Judith exhibited in one very large museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because they are completely different personalities, Broca used different methods in creating the two mosaic series. \u201cEsther was executed in a Byzantine style, and that was because<\/p>\n

Esther was a quiet, loyal little girl who manipulated men to do a dirty job, basically\u2026. Judith, on the other hand, was a warrior from the get go.\u201d Judith acted independently and \u201cin a manly manner,\u201d while Esther \u201cacted within the accepted nature of women\u2019s role in life,\u201d said Broca. This is why the artist couldn\u2019t create<\/p>\n

Judith using \u201cthat very quiet, icon-like Byzantine style\u2026. I had to use a more Baroque style to show her personality.\u201d Judith\u2019s depictions needed to have more action and movement, as well as more emotional facial expression.<\/p>\n

Broca said that what attracted her to the\u00a0stories of Judith and Esther, true or not, was that \u201cthese heroines illuminate the fundamental truth \u2026 and that is that one single individual, not just a group, male or female, can \u2013 and will \u2013 make a difference in a threatened community. Today, we have Malala [Yousafzai] \u2013 she is an example of such a heroine. And both Esther and Judith save their communities from being exterminated, or taken into slavery, as was the case with Judith, I believe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Esther and Judith are examples of women\u2019s empowerment, and can serve as role models, said Broca. As well, the medium of mosaics bears its own message, not only connecting an ancient art with contemporary times, the past with the present, but also in that \u201cour world is becoming more and more fragmented, and it\u2019s essential that all these fractured elements should be put together in order to heal, to make the world whole once again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Esther series, the unifying motif that ran through the panels was a wrought-iron lattice that appeared in each one. Broca said she agonized for weeks over what would be the unifying motif in the Judith series. \u201cFinally, I came up with this idea of a torn sketchbook page. The reason for that is because I thought, well, what am I doing? I\u2019m revivifying or reenacting an ancient story, and I\u2019m starting from scratch, and it\u2019s from my personal vision.\u201d Since she started with sketches that became the mosaics, she thought, \u201cWhy don\u2019t I show the whole process?\u201d The sketchbook also becomes a \u201c21st-century prop,\u201d something that brings the work, and the ancient story it tells, into the present. Included in the exhibit are Broca\u2019s sketches and painted sketches (which are called cartoons). \u201cIn total,\u201d she said, \u201cthere will be 14 pieces under glass accompanying the mosaics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
For visitors who want to take a piece of the exhibit home with them, Broca has created a series of mosaic silk scarves that will be available for purchase. (photo from Lilian Broca)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The catalogue accompanying the Judith exhibit is comprehensive. It is a full-color, 94-page publication with essays by Broca and Roitman, as well as by Dr. Sheila Campbell, archeologist, art historian, curator and professor emerita of the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies; Dr. Angela Clarke, museum curator at the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver; and Rabbi Dr. Yosef Wosk, adjunct professor and Shadbolt Fellow in the humanities department at Simon Fraser University. The book\u2019s foreword is written by Rosa Graci, curator at Joseph D. Carrier Art Gallery in Toronto, where the Judith series will be displayed from May 5-July 4, 2016.<\/p>\n

The exhibit will be in Vancouver at Il Museo, 3075 Slocan St., until March 31, 2016. For hours and other information, visit italianculturalcentre.ca\/events\/museum<\/a>. For more on Broca, visit lilianbroca.com<\/a>. As well, three relevant stories are \u201cContemporary ancient art<\/a>,\u201d Nov. 18, 2011; \u201cPiecing together a heroine<\/a>,\u201d March 21, 2008; and \u201cMosaics honor heroine<\/a>,\u201d April 30, 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lilian Broca with the diptych \u201cJudith Meeting Holofernes,\u201d part of the Heroine of a Thousand Pieces: The Judith Mosaics of Lilian Broca exhibit that opens at Il Museo on Nov. 12.\u00a0(photo from Lilian Broca) Artist Lilian Broca calls her most recent subject \u2013 the apocryphal Judith, who slew the general Holofernes and saved her village […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[989],"tags":[4748,4749,4750],"class_list":["post-15446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-arts","tag-il-museo","tag-lilian-broca","tag-mosaics"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}