Earlier this summer I went up to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts to see the blockbuster exhibition, “Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice.” While rarely have I seen as many masterpieces collected together in a traveling show, one painting stood out for both its Jewish subject and the surprising way it narrated the dramatic story of Esther appearing before Ahasuerus.
“The Sistine Secrets” by Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner raises many intriguing issues about one of the most important works of Western art and its creator, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 – 1564) as first presented in my review of August 29th. Now we shall attempt to put this masterpiece and the artist in a larger context.
Near the end of his long and productive life Nicolas Poussin was commissioned to paint in 1660 an unusual series of paintings called the “Four Seasons.” They very quickly became some of the best known and beloved of his artworks; utilizing four scenes from the Hebrew Bible to depict the Ages of Man as the seasons of the year; Adam and Eve as Spring; Boaz and Ruth as Summer; The Spies with the Grapes of the Promised Land as Autumn and finally, The Flood as Winter.
![Banishment of Vashti (1556), (Detail), oil on canvas by Paolo Veronese Courtesy Church of San Sebastiano, Venice [wga.hu]](https://richardmcbee.com/media/zoo/images/Veronese_Vashti_detail_d77b31cbb38f06c55d9e11790e0070ac.jpg "Banishment of Vashti (1556), (Detail), oil on canvas by Paolo Veronese Courtesy Church of San Sebastiano, Venice [wga.hu]")
I was thinking about Esther the other day when I realized that there are almost no Jewish representations of our most favorite heroine and her story. Now of course the tradition of illuminated megillas, many produced in the 17th century, is an exception.
Rembrandt’s etching, “Abraham Entertaining the Angels is a pristine jewel of Biblical narrative. The artist depicts the exact moment the story reveals its true meaning. The guests have been comfortably seated and served refreshments by Abraham himself, shown humbly waiting on them in the lower right corner.
Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio (1571-1610) was well acquainted with evil. His short violent life careened wildly between prestigious painting commissions from the most powerful men in Rome and drunken street brawls with the lowest of the low.
Most Hebrew books have no pictures. Nobody misses them. In fact most books have no pictures, Hebrew or otherwise. The authority of the text is more than sufficient to communicate the ideas, sensations and emotions that literature specializes in. Picture books are ultimately different. The presence of pictures can serve to decorate, illustrate, elaborate, comment or perhaps contradict the adjoining text, thereby making picture books potentially much more complex because of the constant interchange between text and visual, both of which clamor for our attention. So the question arises why should certain Hebrew books have pictures...i.e. what is accomplished?
Walking out of the US Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C. the stench of mass murder was overpowering. Western Civilization, that hubristic culture celebrating man's highest aspirations, seemed obscene. Stately government buildings that bespoke American power and beneficence only reminded me of American rejection of Jewish refugees before the war and refusal to bomb the rail lines during. America knew from the extensive newspaper coverage between 1934 to the end of the war of the Nazi murderous intent to annihilate the Jews. This alone made my beloved America an accessory to the crime. My country essentially did nothing. And what about God? Why did He hide His face?
What is it about big? Why are we impressed by size when we all know that the quality of any given thing is easily just as, if not more, important? The simplest answer is that while man can normally make many things that are small, i.e. on a human scale, the larger something is the more effort and skill seems to be necessary.
In the late 1300’s a masterpiece of Jewish Art was produced in Northeastern Spain in Catalonia. Over the years this Jewish community had been subject to increasing hostility from their Christian rulers in the form of repressive decrees, forced sermons and conversions. In 1391 lawless mobs attacked and massacred Jews in Barcelona and many other Spanish cities. The Rylands Haggadah (the original is currently at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, England and a facsimile was published in 1988) represents a unique insight into the tumultuous Medieval Jewish world of Catalonia and Provence.
Rembrandt’s Moses reaches up grasping the Tablets of the Law as he descends the holy mountain. Firmly rooted in the mundane, the painting presents us with a startlingly image of Moses’ initial journey down the mountain, carrying the first Tablets aloft, simultaneously displaying the prized gift and threatening to destroy God’s handiwork.
A figure in the primitive mosaic is depicted suspended in mid-air, seeming to flee his father’s grasp and yet hovering dangerously close to an all consuming fire. It is our forefather Isaac, depicted as a small lad with his hands bound, and in some way; it is all of us.
When you see a talmid chacham pass by, you stand up to honor him and his learning. You then return to your own learning inspired to do more and to learn deeper. The same holds true of an artist visiting a great art museum. One stands in awe of a masterpiece and returns to the studio inspired and invigorated by the creativity one has witnessed.
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), one of the great masters of the Golden Age of Dutch painting, had nothing to do with the Jews. At least not directly. But I think that his work, shown here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the historical context of the Delft School, actually has a considerable Jewish content that, once discovered, will be seen to be at the core of his creative process.
In the late 1300’s a masterpiece of Jewish Art was produced in Northeastern Spain in Catalonia. Over the years this Jewish community had been subject to increasing hostility from their Christian rulers in the form of repressive decrees, forced sermons and conversions. In 1391 lawless mobs attacked and massacred Jews in Barcelona and many other Spanish cities. The Rylands Haggadah (the original is currently at the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, England and a facsimile was published in 1988) represents a unique insight into the tumultuous Medieval Jewish world of Catalonia and Provence.
