Bezalel’s antimodernist vision treated Palestine’s underdevelopment as an asset

Evidence

In both roles the oriental Jews of Palestine were regarded primarily as “material.” Above all the vision of Bezalel did not include the possibility of the modernization of Palestine, the development of the country for the sake of its inhabitants, old and new. Quite the opposite. Bezalel presented a clear antimodernist approach backed by anti-industrial pro-handicraft ideals from Europe. The art objects, too, were made to appeal to a widespread taste for “oriental” ornaments that had developed in Europe during the nineteenth century. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 586

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The chapter’s blunt verdict — a national-revival art school deliberately preserved economic backwardness and rendered real people ‘material’ — is a paradigm-shifting lens on settler-colonial culture.
• SEED: Essay: how colonial art movements froze development in amber to manufacture authenticity.