Weltuntergang (End of the World) (Uriel Birnbaum) (1921)

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I saw this illustrated book by Uriel Birnbaum at Marilyn Braiterman Books a month or so ago. Birnbaum was a Jewish expressionist artist from Vienna working in the late teens and twenties of the 20th century. An orientalist (Mesopotamian?) setting dominates this apocalypse. Marked out in black, the scene is set by open plains, a desert town, a brooding eye, an obscure moving human mass, destructive cosmic powers, and flitting souls and angels with bat-like wings around a blinding flash of light. The slideshow below is pretty much in order, starting with the cover and title page.

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About zjb

Zachary Braiterman is Professor of Religion in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. His specialization is modern Jewish thought and philosophical aesthetics. http://religion.syr.edu
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