• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Rachel Wischnitzer: Jewish Art in Kiev and Petrograd* Analysis and comment by Aleksander Ivanov, Center "Petersburg Judaica", European, University and Alla Sokolova, Museum of the History of Religion, both St. Petersburg Wischnitzer's essay can be treated as a popular review of the state of Jewish art and museum affairs in Petrograd and Kiev during the early years after the 1917 Russian revolution. The essay begins with a description of a trip to Kiev in the summer 1918, where the author visited the studio of an artist Issakhar-Ber Rybak and the Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of the city in the Lukyanovka area. Rybak is introduced in the essay not only as a promising Jewish artist also as a “keen collector”: he had taken a few decorated tombstones from an abandoned Jewish cemetery to his studio and “carefully looked after them.” It is notable that Wischnitzer used in the original text a German word “entwendet” which can be also translated as “stolen”. It seems that she did not approve this way of collecting. This radical way of museumification of tombstones still seems rather problematic today. At least, at the present time, museums do not offer to preserve Jewish tombstones, even the most valuable monuments of decorative and applied art of the 18th century, by transferring them from abandoned cemeteries to museum halls and storage facilities. At the same time, declarations about the need to preserve and protect such tombstones on site look completely unrealistic for a number of reasons, including the high cost of such projects. While describing a visit to the Jewish cemetery in Lukyanovka, Wischnitzer distinguishes three types of tombstones: ones decorated “with geometrical arabesques and lion shields” (fig. 1); Fig. 1: Decorated tombstone at the Jewish cemetery in Medzhibozh (Ukraine), 1810s. Expedition photo by Alla Sokolova of 2009. Collection of the Center “Petersburg Judaica.” * Published in German: Jüdische Kunst in Kiew und Petrograd, in: Der Jude. Eine Monatsschrift, vol. 5 (1920–21), pp. 353–356, English translation by Christoper Wynne. – 1 – the tombstones “built of fired bricks that are akin to a style of civil architecture in Russia” (fig. 2) Fig. 2: Tombstones built of fired bricks at the Jewish cemetery in Tulchin (Ukraine). Expedition photo by Alla Sokolova of 2006. Collection of the Center “Petersburg Judaica.” and the “sarcophagi in the shape of a donkey’s back” (Fig. 3). These types of Jewish tombstones were widespread in the South Western provinces of the Russian Empire in the 19th – early 20th centuries. – 2 – Fig. 4. “Sarcophagi in the shape of a donkey’s back which neck-like extensions are supporting an upright commemorative plaque” at the Jewish cemetery in Berdichev (Ukraine). Source: https://www.secretland.info/jewish- cemetery/ The current deplorable state of the unique carved tombstones in many Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine makes us recognize that the only effective way to preserve such monuments of Jewish decorative and applied art is to move them to museums. Unfortunately, the supervision of the cemeteries that became a Jewish pilgrimage sites now, does not guarantee the safety of the tombstones. Long-term expeditions organized by our Center "Petersburg Judaica" allow us to record the destruction of the tombstones, which is often intensified by an unprofessional approach to their refurbishing. For example, at the cemetery in Medzhibozh, which in the last twenty years has been a place of pilgrimage for the Hasidim, many of the tombstones have been badly damaged due to the aggressive paint used for periodical updating the inscriptions and epitaphs on them. Further, Wischnitzer describes her visit to the so-called "First State Free Exhibition of Works of Art", which was opened in April 1919 in the Winter Palace, the former residence of the Russian tsars. Among the Jewish artists who had shown their works at this exhibition, she especially singles out Nathan Altman and Marc Chagall. Particularly, Wischnitzer analyzes in detail two decorative patterns by Altman entitled “Jewish Ornament” and representing “a combination of cartouche motifs and Jewish letters” (Fig. 5). In the holdings of our Center "Petersburg Judaica" is stored one of Altman's drawings of this kind. Fig 5. Nathan Altman. Sketch for the title page of an album, 1915 (Pencil on paper, 19.5 X 27 cm). Hebrew inscription at the top: “Drink water from your own cistern and running water from your own spring” (Mishlei 5:15). Collection of the Center “Petersburg Judaica.” The second part of the essay is devoted to the Jewish collections stored in Petrograd. Among the organizations involved in collecting and studying Jewish artifacts, Wischnitzer mentioned the Jewish Society for the Promotion of the Arts, the ethnography department of the Russian Museum, and the Museum of Asian Art also known as the Asian Museum. Curiously, Wischnitzer did not write anything about the Museum of the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society (MJHES), which was opened in Petrograd in spring 1917. The core of the MJHES holdings was made up of collections of Jewish objects mainly gathered during expeditions – 3 – to the shtels in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in 1912–1914. The organizer and leader of these expeditions was Semen An-sky. Moreover, Wischnitzer suggests that An-sky's collections were “no longer in Petrograd”, although one part of it was stored in the holdings of the MJHES, until it was closed by the Soviet regime in 1929 and the second part of it An-sky had delivered for temporary storage to the ethnographic department of the Russian Museum in May 1918 before his emigration abroad from Soviet Russia. This statement can hardly be explained only by the fact that MJHES was temporarily closed to visitors from September 1917 to June 1923. As it is known that some researchers at that time managed to gain access to the museum's collections. We also do not know whether Wischnitzer had access to An-sky's ethnographic collections, including expedition photographs, earlier. However, none of the photos of synagogues from An- sky's expedition collections had been used for illustrating Wischnitzer's pioneering article “Art among Jews in Poland and Lithuania” of 1914. The absence of these photographs among illustrations for this article can be explained by the condition, according to which An-sky did not want to deliver any expedition materials including the photos to any persons for publication before there would be prepared an edition of the mentioned materials in a form of more or less complete albums. As is clear from the essay, Wischnitzer had an opportunity to visit the ethnographic department of the Russian Museum and to study “respectable collections of Jewish arts and crafts” stored there thanks to the assistance of Museum director Alexander Miller. It seems that Wischnitzer was not informed that the ethnographic department also owned a part of An-sky's collections. Of special interest is Wischnitzer’s description of a strategy chosen by the Society for the Promotion of the Arts for creating its collection by copying miniatures from old illuminated manuscripts. Wischnitzer mentions that she copied several miniatures including an illustrated Haggadot in the Society. This kind of practices was widely spread in that time. Original illuminated manuscripts, along with the copies of those that could not be purchased from the owners, were often included in museum collections and displayed at exhibitions. The last but not the least visit described in her essay was to the Asian Museum where Wischnitzer got acquainted with the famous library “Biblioteca Friedlandiana” collected by wealthy merchant and philanthropist Leon Friedland. She noted in the essay that access to valuable ancient manuscripts and incunabula stored in this library “was restricted to just a few specialists.” However, restricted access to such collections of Jewish rare books and ancient manuscripts is still a fact even in the present. Wischnitzer's article, which does not pretend to be scientific depth, mentions a variety of monuments of Jewish art, from works of Jewish artists of the time to illuminated manuscripts and decorated tombstones in Jewish cemeteries. This text does not allow us to get an idea of the full spectrum of Wischnitzer's ideas regarding the definition of the boundaries of Jewish art. Meanwhile, it can be noted that she considered it necessary to mention the artworks of nearly painters and sculptors of Jewish origin displayed at the "First State Free Exhibition of Works of Art", including Isaak Brodsky, Aaron Lakhovsky, Mikhail Bloch, Viktor Sinaisky, although their works did not give her grounds for reasoning about Jewish art. Nowedays an art critic would hardly consider the work of these artists in an article on Jewish art. – 4 – .

Load more

  4

Copy Link