Jewish artists find a place in 19th century Europe.

FRAN HELLER
Special to the Jewish News

- 1ff oritz Daniel Oppenheim,
Simeon Solomon, Max
Liebermann and Lesser
Ury — hardly household
names in the canon of Jewish artists.
But, as Jewish pioneers in the visual
arts, they helped pave the way for those
who would follow and achieve far
greater fame.
A unique exhibit, The Emergence of

Jewish Artists in 19th Century Europe,
opened ar the Jewish Museum in New
York Nov. 18. It will run through
March 17.
Some 70 works by 21 artists parallel
the efforts of Jewish artists to achieve
recognition and acceptance in the larger
culture during a century of great social
and political change. These extraordi-
nary paintings are not only a reflection
of their craft, but also of their profound
struggle_with their changing Jewish
identity.
Until the late 18th century, Jewish
identity was largely based on religion,
tradition and exclusion from the larger
non-Jewish world. Legal emancipation
in the 19th century gave European Jews
greater freedoms. For Jewish artists, this
meant greater access to artists guilds and
academies, as well as opportunities for
travel.
While some of the artists embraced
their Jewish identity, others tried to link
their heritage with contemporary secu-
lar culture. Still others moved away
from it completely. These responses to
the challenge of acculturation is reflect-
ed in their art.

Jews In Transition

The first part of the exhibit focuses on
Jewish identity in transition and those
artists who tried to maintain their
Jewish identity as it shifted from a tradi-

tional past to the secular present.
Three key artists who retained
the Jewish experience as a primary
source of their work are Moritz
Daniel Oppenheim, Isidor
Kaufmann and Edouard Moyse.
French artist Edouard Moyse's
rendering of a brit milah ceremony,
entitled The Covenant of Abraham
is rich in detail and narrative. As
the mohel (circumciser) sets about
his task, an anxious father pacifies
his newborn son. The mohel and
others, who are draped in floor-
length tallitot, emphasize the gravi-
ty of the ancient religious rite.
Austrian artist Isidor Kaufmann
traveled to the shtetls (villages) of
Eastern Europe where he chroni-
cled traditional Jewry in an effort
to capture a way of life he believed
was lost in the West. His paintings,
such as Blessing the Sabbath
Candles, of a woman raising her
Self-Protrait by Dutch artist Jacob Meyer de
hands in prayer and Hearken Israel,
Haan (1889-91).
in which a congregation recites the
Shema, helped link urbane
Viennese Jews to a bygone era.
service, portraying the two generations
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim was a
with their different lifestyles attempting
German artist whose canvases mirrored
to live in harmony.
the cultural divide that faced many Jews
"The painting, one of the most
torn between adherence to tradition and important in the Jewish Museum's per-
secular opportunities. A key work that
manent collection of 19th century
reflects this dichotomy, and one of the
works, illustrates the shifting attitudes
most important in the exhibition, is The towards the observance of Jewish tradi-
Return of the Jewish Volunteer from the
tion," explains Susan Tumarkin
Wars of Liberation to His Family Still
Goodman, senior curator-at-large at the
Living in Accordance with Old Customs.
Jewish Museum and organizer of this
In the painting, a wounded Jewish
exhibit.
soldier has returned to his Orthodox
Dutch painter Jozef Israels' A Jewish
family from the battlefront on the
Wedding blends Old World and New
Sabbath. He is wearing the Iron Cross,
Like Oppenheim's Wedding, painted
a military award, which his religious
more than 40 years earlier, the couple
father observes with skepticism. For
stands under a tallit as the chuppah
observant Jews, it is a symbol fraught
(canopy), a traditional custom, in cur-
with contradictory meaning.
rent dress.
The artist has openly addressed the
Lure Of Assimilation
conflict between Jewish tradition and
loyalty to the state through military
Most of the artists yo-yoed between sec-

ular themes and Jewish sources
throughout their lives, notes
Goodman.
But the tug of war between reli-
gious ties and contemporary culture
left some, like Polish artist Maurycy
Gottlieb, ambivalent and uncomfort-
able.
Gottlieb was born into a wealthy
Orthodox Jewish family in a town in
Galicia, when it was part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. He and his
siblings were among the few Jewish
students to attend German-speaking
public schools because their father
thought interaction with non Jews
would prepare them for modern life.
Gottlieb's unfinished painting
Christ Preaching at Capernaum shows
Jesus wrapped in a tallit and sur-
rounded by Jews in a Jewish house of
worship preaching tolerance for all
humanity. The artist includes a por-
trait of himself as one of the Jews lis-
tening to the sermon.

Jews Praying in the Synagogue on
Yom Kippur reflects Gottlieb's own
personal struggles. The composition is
filled with images of 20 individuals who
played an important role in the artist's
life, including three self-portraits at dif-
ferent stages in his own life.
In one self-portrait, the artist as a
young man stands next to the Torah,
deep in thought but looking outward.
On the Torah is an .inscription that fore-

Opposite page, clockwise from top left:
"The Covenant of Abraham" by French
artist Edouard Moyse (c. 1860); "Blessing
the Sabbath Candles" by Austrian Isidor
Kaufmann (c. 1900-1910); "Second Class
— The Parting" by British artist
Abraham Solomon (1855); 'AJewish
Wedding" by Jozef Israels of Holland
(1903); "Carrying the Scrolls of the Law"
by British Artist Simeon Solomon (1867);
and 'After the Pogrom" by Polish painter
Maurycy Minkowski (1905).

11/23
2001

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