Chapter Ten
RELIGIOUS AND
RACIAL ANTISEMITISM &
Jewish Artists
CONTENTS
Introduction
10.1
A Narrative of Exclusion and Emancipation
10.2
English Expressions of Myth and Faith
10.3
Imaging the Jewess: La belle juive / L’affreuse juive
10.4
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim:”The Rothschild of Painters”
10.5
10.6
Maurycy Gottlieb: Strife and Synthesis
10.7
Meijer Isaac de Haan: Controversy and Escape
10.8
Max Liebermann: Pioneering Change
10.9
Liebermann: Subculture and Identity
10.10
10.11
Edgar Degas: Other Impressions
10.12
Camille Pissarro; Outsider Impressionist?
INTRODUCTION
Modernity brought radical change, turmoil, and expansion to Western Europe. Social and political events from the late 18th century forward challenged marginalized populations while providing unprecedented opportunities for economic advancement, civic equality, and cultural innovation. During the 19th century, an ideology of difference fuelled the advancement of the avant-garde. At the same time, a parallel, grimmer engagement with concepts of ‘the other’, which was largely motivated by ethnoreligious biases, permeated society and culture. For European Jews, negotiating new roles and realities in a rapidly modernizing world was further problematized by a history of racial hatred and exclusion.
This chapter will examine the impact of emancipation, assimilation, and acculturation on European Jews within the binary of a Christian/Jewish art world. It will address how Jewish artists, outsiders in every respect, engaged with visual culture in France, Germany, and Britain during the 19th century.
The oeuvre of artists like Moritz Daniel Oppenheim and Max Liebermann in Germany, Maurycy Gottlieb in Poland, Simeon Solomon in England, and Camille Pissarro in France will serve to illuminate the trajectory of Euro-Jewish artists at this pivotal moment in nascent modernity. Looking at individual narratives, the essay explores questions such as the impact of antisemitic attitudes on artistic advancement and aesthetic directions, as well as the relationship between Jewish identity and subject matter, education, and professionalization within the sociocultural context of the late nineteenth century.
The thematization of Judaic and biblical subjects by non-Jewish artists such as William Holman Hunt, William Blake, and Gustave Moreau, the propagation of stereotypes and tropes within the visual culture, and the divisive question of antisemitism in the vanguard, including among Edgar Degas and the Impressionists further expand the discussion around Jewish artists and modernism.
10.1
| A Narrative of Exclusion and Emancipation
A familiar narrative is associated with the European Jew which dates back to the Middle Ages. It is a story of persecution, displacement, resettlement, success and security, followed by renewed oppression, pogroms and exile. Until the Napoleonic era, religious and racial antisemitism restricted Jews from social entry, civil equality, land ownership, many trades, and most profession