The power of story.

[Lou Gold]

I thought that the relative absence of Jewish visual imagery was an effort to avoid the idolatry of objectification. No? But, yes, music as a stimulant of the senses is a powerful alternative, which is difficult to objectify. It gives us feelings.

This is true. My knowledge of art is quite minimal but I guess before the twentieth century few are the works, if any, that try to resonate anything through art like the image above . So if we're talking about portraits of historical figures or their sculptures, these images can become a concrete idol with no transcendent reality to point to, then indeed, from Judaism's perspective a person can only be a tool that expresses the divine truth and aids its fulfillment, not the divine essence itself. (That's why IMO Kabbala is not idealism even though it has idealistic aspects resembling various idealistic perceptions . I'm referring to the different versions of idealism known to us)

Regarding the "feminine aspect" I love Proverbs 8:22-31 where Wisdom tells her story. I only know the standard English rendering. Several lines really stand out for me:

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
...

then I was beside him, like a master workman;
and I was his daily delight,
rejoicing before him always,
rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the sons of men.


Do you know any special Kabbalist interpretations of these lines?

I mentioned Neumann. Several Israeli scholars have pointed out various connections between articles he has written and Hasidic literature to which he was exposed.
In his article "The Place of Creation", Neumann writes about the work of art as an act of unity. He uses the Kabbalistic unity between 'Kether' (First aspect of God) and 'Shechinah' (last one), as well as the marriage of Krishna and Radha (as symbols!) reflecting this unity.
This unity, as one of the last Kabbalists puts it, is the unity between divine perfection and the "ever-evolving process," to use your words, and it is the "delight of God", when the worldly will is redeemed from his blindness, "rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men".

WONDERFUL! Thank you.