Compared to music or theatre, there is less of a specifically Jewish tradition in the visual arts. The most likely and accepted reason is that, as has been previously shown with Jewish music and literature, before Emancipation Jewish culture was dominated by religious tradition. As most Rabbinical authorities believed that the Second Commandment prohibited much visual art that would qualify as "graven images", Jewish artists were relatively rare until they lived in assimilated European communities beginning in the late 18th century.
The delay in Jewish participation in the visual arts in Europe parallels the lack of Jewish participation in European classical music until the nineteenth century. This delay was progressively overcome with the rise of Modernism in the 20th century. Jewish artistic activity boomed after World War I. Jews became emancipated, committed themselves in politics and became artists. This marked a Jewish cultural renaissance.
Jews figured in the modern artistic movements of Europe- Art Deco (Tamara de Lempicka), Bauhaus (Mordecai Ardon), Constructivism (Boris Aronson), Cubism (Nathan Altman), Expressionism (Chaim Soutine), Impressionism (Leonid Pasternak), Minimalism (Richard Serra), Orphism (Sonia Delaunay), Realism (Raphael Soyer), Surrealism (Victor Brauner), as well as some not necessarily affiliated with a single movement, such as Maurycy Gottlieb, Nahum Gutman, and Charlotte Salomon.