Artistic Features of Besamims in Eastern Galicia in the 18th – the first third of the 20th Century

The paper focuses on the art of the Jewish community of Galicia from the 18th century to the first third of the 20th century in the context of the European art processes. The analysis of the artistic features of numerous synagogical and household items of the ritual purpose revealed the main trends of particular styles spread, especially baroque and historicism. Special attention is paid to the sources and the artistic inspiration of Jewish art in Galicia. The main circumstances that influenced the development of Jewish art are determined, namely the isolation of the Jewish community, the traditional ideological and semantic load of the monuments, the abidance by the halakhic rules, scriptures on the creating things for ritual and ceremonial purposes, keeping the old traditions in the choice of form, the nature of ornamentation, strict selection of decorating themes and in particular cases even the reproduction of archaic forms. While maintaining the traditional form, the ideological and semantic load for the majority of works of applied arts of the Jewish community of Galicia in the 18th century – the first third of the 20th century, the choice of a composite structure, grouping and ornamental motifs interpretation is influenced by the stylistic effects of Western art. The numerous preserved monuments indicate the openness of masters to the outside art influences, borrowing and basic elements quoting and leading Western styles tendencies as well as Ukrainian art.