The Image of the Jew in Christian Art

The Image of the Jew

in Christian Art

Gregory the Great (Bishop of Rome 590-604)

• “Pictures are brought into churches so that those who are illiterate might nevertheless, by looking upon the walls, read about those things which they are not able to read about in books” (1st letter to Bishop Serenus of Massilia, 599)

• “It is one thing to adore a picture, another to learn, through the history presented in the picture, what ought to be adored. For what writing gives to those who read it, the picture provides for those who see it …thus reading without knowing their letters” (2nd

letter to Serenus, 600)

• Later“God … has given to man a power and force of the soul that is called memory. This memory has two doors, sight and hearing, and to each of those doors there is a path …these paths are called painting and speech. Painting serves for the eye, speech for the ear”

(Richard de Fournival, 1201-1260)

The Bird HaggadahGermany

c1300

Published by Metropolitan Books

2014

TheProphet Sophonias, from the Lobbes Bible, 1084

Jews Being BeatenMarginal Illustration from the Rochester Chronicle

(British Library, Cotton Nero D. II.), folio 183v,

Madonna and Child

Enthroned with Saints and Donors

and the Jewish Norsa family below

(end of the fifteenth century,

Church of Sant'

Andrea,Mantua.

San Zeno Doors, Verona, 11th Century showing Abraham and the 3 Angels

Daniel in stained glass window, Augsburg, Germany,

first half of 12th century

Gathering of the Manna

by the Master of the Gathering of the Mannac1460-80Musée del

la Chartreuse de Douai

Old Testament Sacrifice by the Master of the

Gathering of the Manna

c1460-80Museum

Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam

The Road to Emmaus. Winchester Psalter, England, ca. 1121–60. London, BL ms. Cotton Nero C iv, fol. 25.

Psalter and Canticles (St Albans) c. 1246-c. 1260

Jesus nailed to the cross under the direction of Jewish and Gentile executioners, enamel reliquary casket, circa 1170

The Circumcision of Christ,

Friedrich Herlin (German), oil on panel (?), 1466,

St. Jakob Church, Rothenb

urg ob der Tauber, Germany

Master of the Tucher

Altarpiece, active ca.

1430-50 in Nürnberg

Circumcision of Christ, ca.

1440-50Limewood

panel, 101 x 90 cm.

Aachen, Suermondt-

Ludwig Museum,

Circumcision Set of the Torres

FamilyNetherlands, 1827

and 1866Box: silver: filigree, cast and

hammered; inlaid with semiprecious

stones Utensils: silver: cast,

filigree, and hammered; carved

mother-of-pearlJewish Museum,

New York

The ritual murder of Simon of

Trent, in a woodcut by

Michael Wolgemut from the

Nuremberg Chronicle,

1493

Martyrdom of Saint Simon of Trent by Gandolfino di Roreto d'Asti (active c. 1493) Israel Museum

“Circumcision gives you an advantage.

That is why it is customary amongst

Jews.”

Postcard c.1900Germany

Left: Nazi Poster for the film The Eternal Jew 1940

Right: Anti-Semitic cartoon 2011

Moses by Michelangelo1513-15 and from the Walters Manuscript

c.1250

Antelami – Deposition from the CrossParma Cathedral c1178

Giovanni Pisano Crucifixion from Pulpit at Siena Cathedral 1265-8

12

Ecclesia and SynagogaStrasbourg Cathedral c1230

Crucifixion from the Hortus Deliciarum of Harrad of Landsberg c.1185

Ecclesia and Synagoga by the Master of Saint Ursula 1475-82

Mary Magdalen in a turban in Robert Campin’s Entombment Triptych c 1425 Courtauld Gallery

An Allegory of the Old & New Testaments by Hans Holbein the Younger c.1530s.

National Gallery of Scotland

Erhard Altdorfer’s title page for Luther

Bible 1153

Judensau – Colmar and choir stalls in Cologne Cathedral

Venice and the East

Imports from the Levant

• Spice (in particular pepper)

• Silverware

• Jewellery

• Drugs

• Dyes

• Ceramics

Gentile Bellini’s visits to Constaninople 1479 & 1480 Portrait of Sultan Mehmet, NG, London (currently on show at V&A)

Drawings made in Constantinople, British Museum

Dürer, Three Ottomans copied

from Bellini, 1496-7, British Museum

Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria, 1504–7; Brera, Milan

Middle Eastern InfluenceCarpaccio – The Sermon of St Stephen 1514, Louvre

Silk, satin, velvet, brocade and damaskSchool of Giovanni Bellini The Circumcision c.1500

National Gallery, London

Middle Eastern InfluenceCima da Conegliano Madonna and Child c.1496, NG London

Paolo Uccello – Battle of San Romano, 1438-40, National Gallery, London

Uccello, Profanation of the Host, 1465-9, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche,

Uccello, Profanation of the Host, 1465-9, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche,

Uccello, Profanation of the Host, 1465-9, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche,

Uccello, Profanation of the Host, 1465-9, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche,

Uccello, Profanation of the Host, 1465-9, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche,

Uccello, Profanation of the Host, 1465-9, Galleria Nazionale delle Marche,

Madonna and Child

Enthroned with Saints and Donors

and the Jewish Norsa family below

(end of the fifteenth century,

Church of Sant'

Andrea,Mantua.