Arthur Szyk Observation Essay

For my out of class experience, I chose to visit the two exhibits that Seton Hill’s National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education and Harlan Gallery hosted from October 15th to November 12th. The first exhibit was called “Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk,” which walked viewers through the life of Arthur Szyk and some of his most popular/influential pieces. Arthur Szyk was a Polish Jew that escaped Europe and immigrated to the United States in 1940. He was famous for his brilliantly detailed illustrations that portrayed the Jewish struggle. In a time where Jewish people were oppressed and brought down by any means necessary, Szyk brought them up again by portraying them as heroic people who continually persevered when faced with adversity/oppression and fought for their freedom. He found inspiration in the history of his people and biblical stories of Jewish bravery, which drove him to display modern examples of Jewish courage to the world. This exhibit surrounds the three themes that Szyk based his illustrations off of, which include: World War II, America, and Jewish response. The second exhibit was called …show more content…
In today’s society, I think that we tend to focus on the negatives in life and how hard things are for us, but in reality we are very fortunate. Sometimes I find myself thinking about how hard life can be whenever I come across big obstacles in my life, but this has made me realize that our lives today aren’t really that hard. I have had to overcome great obstacles in my life, but never as big as the Holocaust. It made me really sad going through the exhibit, but my heart was only filled with hope once I went through the entire exhibit. It proves that we, as humans, are truly resilient and came overcome absolutely everything. Overall, it was an amazing experience and I’m really glad that I got to see both of these exhibits because they affected me in more ways than