Epstein, Dreams of Subversion INTRO ... - Dickinson Blogs

6 Dreams of Subversion in Medieval jewish Art and Literature
hypothetical Jewish artist still stands, though it may now be directed at the ostensible
Jewish patron: Why did the Jewish patron request particular scenes, iconography,
and symbols?
Yet we cannot so blithely sidestep the question of the illuminator's identity.
When one examines the presuppositions of the arguments made in favor of Christian
illuminators, they turn out to be based primarily upon stylistic evidence : a
division of labor in manuscript production , we are told, might have resulted in
the coupling of a text obviously written by a Jew because of its language with
illuminations " obviously" created by a Christian becaus e of their style.
Now, it is true that there is little ground for the assumption that a particular
manuscript must have been illuminated by Jews simply because the language of
its text is Hebrew. But, the necessary (and seldom-considered) corollary to such
an assertion is that, in the absence of specific documentary evidence of the back ­
ground of the illuminator, there is likewise no rea son to assume that a particular
Hebrew manuscript was illuminated by a Christian because its stylistic "language"
is that of the dominant majority. There is a nefarious tendency to pre ­
suppose that manu scripts exhibiting style, and in some cases, iconography characteristic
of their time and place could not, a priori, have been illuminated by
Jews. Even when, as is often the case, one encounters iconography in Hebrew
illuminated manuscripts that contains details that suggest familiarity wit h midrash
or commentary, it has become customary, on the basis of style alone, to
propose that Christian artists simply copied this Jewish iconography, perhaps
from an ancient Jewish iconographic tradition now lost. But if one conjectures
Christians cop ying Jewish iconography, might one not just as easily postulate
Jewish artists who emulated Christian style? Both are possible, and the issue has
not yet been conclusively resolved.
Still, if we are to maintain that there is something indigenously "Jewish" about
medieval Jewish art, the problems posed by Christian illuminators, even if working
under a Jewish patron, remain complex, though not insurmounta ble. For instance,
if one wishes to argue that medieval Jewish illumination is fra ught with
subversive iconography, does it not seem necessary that the art sho uld have been
the literal product of Jewish hands? It is difficult to fathom how Christian illuminators
would have tolerated being commissioned to create th e kind of illum inations
I sha ll discuss in the following chapters, images that contain indigeno usly
Jewish messages of protest and dreams of subversion direc ted aga inst Christian
culture. Yet why, realistically, does it seem so implausible th at a Christian illuminator
would have limned an image hostile to Christian society unawares, when
it is so easy to imagine oblivious Jewish illuminators heed lessly adopting iconographic
motifs from Christian art? The symbols I shall parse were, after all, common
and fairly pervasive emblems whose indigenously Jewish meaning is not
always immediately clear without some prior knowledge of Jewish texts and
"If lions could carve stones .. ." 7
traditions. Such symbols may very well have been requested by Jewish patrons
from Christian artisans unaware of their latent protestant or subversive content.
Third, and finally, even in the unlikely event that patrons were not involved at
all and that Christians created the iconography entirely on their own, it must be
recalled that the actual and intended audience for medieval Hebrew manu scripts
was Jewish; we must consider not only the genesis, but the possible reception of
the illumination as well. We can ask the same question of that audience that we
asked of the ostensible Jewish illuminator and patro n: Regardless of its origin,
how might this iconography have been "read" by a medieval Jewish audience?
Ultimately, it is clear th at medieval Jewish art is Jewish not because it was produced
by Jews, but because it was produced forJews-Jewish patrons and Jewish
audi ences. But to accept this idea is not so simple as it seems. It necessitates making
a quantum leap fro m the opinion that medieval Jewish art is derivative and
superficial to an encounter with medieval Jewish art as inherently Jewish. This
leap, in turn, forces upon us th e mantl e of inter pre tation. N o longer is the simple
knowledge of the occurrence of transcultural borrowing or of the process by
which it occurs sufficient . Such knowled ge leaves us hungerin g for more infor ­
mation. We need to know to wh at end the borrowing was effected. The tradition
al view of the medieval Jewish iconographic tradition "fro m the outside in"
req uires corrective balance.P
One thing is certain: Jews did no t commiss ion or create art in a vacuum. Scholars
of medieval art have assidu ously catalogued examples of " the image of the
Jew" as reflected in "the mirror of Christian art." Thi s research has revealed an
often gro tesque body of material illuminating the otherness of the Jews, from the
perspective, of course, of the majority culture.' >Thi s gallery of horrors in fact
formed the backdrop against which subversive elements flouri shed in Jewish art
of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Such elements existed in a symbiotic
relationship with the perception and reception of the Jews in the majority culture
and its art. They stood minimally in reac tion to, and maximally in response to,
"the image of the Jew in the mirror of Christian art ."
It is necessary to investigate wh at recourse Jews in the Middle Ages might have
had to express their self-perceptions, to depict their neighbors, and to depict
themselves vis-a-vis their neighbors in their own art, particularly if those neighbors
were polemicizing against them in literature and art. Until we address these
issues, the conceptual shift from a very general perception of Jewish art as outside
the mainstream to an active definition of Jewish art as the art of a minority culture,
with all the atten dant fascin ations and methodological difficulties of such a
definition, will remain a desideratum. I explore those complex but signa l issues in
the chapters to come. I shall demonstrate throughout what it means to " borr ow"
iconography, and consider what may be revealed about medieval Jewish culture
by th e ways in which medieval Jews borrowed it. Wh y did Jews borrow specific