Action through Aesthetics: Philanthropic Art Initiatives in South Africa during the Apartheid
South African artists played an expansive philanthropic role throughout the stages of the apartheid movement. Their artwork ranged from reflective to pro-active and reconciliatory. Although many scholars argue that South African artists were agents of social change, scholars have not drawn a connection between South African art history and philanthropy. Philanthropy is a platform from which artists can serve as catalysts within society. This thesis argues that South African artists acted philanthropically through their work to challenge the destructive social mores enforced by apartheid. INDEX WORDS: South Africa, Apartheid, Philanthropy, Agency, Social mores, Relief, Improvement, Reform, Art ACTION THROUGH AESTHETICS: PHILANTHROPIC ART INITIATIVES IN SOUTH AFRICA DURING THE APARTHEID
Contemporary African art in South Africa
Art in the broadest sense, as creative and aesthetic experience, is universal to all men. From this general perspective, one may analyse art at many levels - even simultaneously. One such level, for example, involves the use of the purely aesthetic language of academic art criticism: a work of art is judged in terms of composition, form, use of colour, structure, balance, rhythm, and so on. Another important level is the socio-cultural and communicative one. This emphasis on the socio-cultural in contemporary African art is necessary for a number of reasons. It is at this level, for example, that contemporary South African black art exercises much of its impact on viewers, calling forth responses that are understood in terms of the social present and the socio-cultural history of its creation. This socio-cultural perspective can also contribute greatly to a better understanding and appreciation of today's black art.
The Tsadik and His Soul’s Sparks: From Kabbalah to Hasidism
The present study shows the continuity between the Safedian Kabbalistic view of the relations between the sparks of a certain soul, and the Hasidic theory, that was conceived of as innovated by and characteristic of 18th century Hasidism, as to the responsibility of the Tsadik for the sparks that belongs to his soul. In the two literatures, the rescue of a spark of one's soul is related to the beautiful captive woman that is conceived of as an externalization of an inner dimension of the righteous person, immersed in a shell.