8 October 2021
6 October 2021
WHAT EVEN IS JEWISH ART? MARC CHAGALL AND THE ÉCOLE DE PARIS AT mahJ (PART 1)
Musings Abroad | Molly Gosewich
How long has it been since the world effectively shut down? As restrictions loosen (and I say that loosely), jabs administered, and life begins to show some signs of normalcy, I cannot be the only one who has been plotting (more like pining for) their return across the Atlantic.
For Musings Abroad, continuing this year, I’ll continue to spotlight the goings-on of international museums/galleries with a deeper dive into specific exhibition topics, and to hopefully provide some travel inspiration for when we can step foot inside international museums again.
To start us off, we have the mahJ – formally known as the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaïsme (Museum of the Art and History of Judaism) – which I was fortunate enough to visit back in 2019.
Located in the Marais District, once the Jewish hub of Paris, the mahJ is home to the largest collection of Jewish art and antiquity in France – documenting the rich history and culture of Jews across Europe and North Africa, from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Among other stunning Judaic objects, archival manuscripts, and works of art, the mahJ’s collection includes pieces by the legendary Marc Chagall and Amedeo Modigliani, which are conveniently on display until October 31 in an exhibition focusing solely on Jewish artists within the “École de Paris” (School of Paris). The term coined sometime before 1925, was in fact tinged with antisemitism, due to the tendency to lump foreigners together in this way (Fayard, 2001). Many Jewish émigré artists from major European cities and the Russian Empire (plus Asia and Africa) belonged to the cosmopolitan generation of the School of Paris (or Paris School), one without a common style but with a shared desire for freedom amid pogroms and creative internment (see Entartete Kunst for how art was stifled under the Nazi regime). As we know, Paris was the artistic epicentre of Europe — from La Ruche (“The Hive”) building or on Cité Falguière, in the streets near the Boulevard Raspail to the cafés of Montparnasse.
Marc Chagall
Sotheby’s posits that the School of Paris first appeared at the turn of the century and ended roughly after the conclusion of World War II. However, this “school” was completely abstract, including luminaries associated with several assorted avant-garde movements (such as les Nabis or Fauvism, Cubism, and Surrealism). Because of the diversity of abstract genres part of the School of Paris, it begs the question: what is Jewish art?
Of course, there are many other Jewish artists within the Paris School (Jules Pascin, Otto Freundlich, and Chana Orloff to name a few) that are captivating in their own right. But, especially to me, as a student in the Jewish Studies Collaborative Specialization, Marc Chagall is of a particular interest to me. Why you may ask? His artistic archive and legacy is deeply imbued with Jewish signifiers and signals a certain collective memory.
A prominent figure in the School of Paris, the Jewish artist Marc Chagall had lived in the city from 1910 to 1914, and quickly absorbed many of the stylistic influences of the avant-garde working in the French capital. Chagall’s “Bride with Fan” of 1911 is simply enchanting and is indicative of the very delight and radiance typical of his work at this time. Naturally, he became a leading artist of the School of Paris during this time and after his exile from Russia in 1923. In the School of Paris, around 200 artists, most of them being foreigners, had occupied La Ruche at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was a legendary building in the Passage de Dantzig where Yiddish (the language of the Central and Eastern Ashkenazi Jews) reigned supreme.
When Marc Chagall arrived in Paris, he settled there with sculptor Zadkine and artists Michel Kikoine and Chaïm Soutine. It is said that Soutine, the native of a small village in Belarus, knew only Yiddish and it was in La Ruche that he learned a few new words in Russian, perhaps in conversation with Chagall (Levin, 2021). Essentially, there was an obvious Jewish influence on a movement that encompassed many Jewish artists, though not calling itself outright a "Jewish" School of Art. Below you will be two of Chagall's paintings, one of a praying man and one of a shtetl, which both evoke a collective Jewish memory that would have been understood by the Yiddish speakers in the movement.
To understand the full extent of Chagall’s contribution and participation in the School of Paris scene, and his contribution to Jewish art — we have to look back into his earlier days, before he became (to many) one of the greats of art — that'll come in Part 2.
21 October 2020
EDGING ON PORNOGRAPHY: NUDE DAGUERREOTYPES IN THE GETTY COLLECTION
Object of the Week | Caitlin McCurdy
Rear of a Daguerreotype advertising portraits and lessons. Source
With the advent of any new artistic technology, from the earliest, crudest sculptures of early mankind, to painting or photography, one of the first things to be depicted seems to be the nude form of women. The ancient Greeks did it, 15th century painters like Sandro Botticelli did it, and with the advent of Daguerreotypes by Francois Daguerre in 1839, a technology was made available that allowed a larger audience to produce and distribute highly sophisticated reproductions of the female form. Each Daguerreotype was a unique image on a silvered copper plate, and portrait studios quickly became commercial enterprises. This inflation of the portrait market allowed a second market to develop for portraits of a more scandalous nature.
This week’s Object of the Week is a collection of nude Daguerreotypes from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The museum has over 2000 Daguerreotypes, but the female nudes reveal a history of Paris’ 19th century porn market, and where lines were being delineated between artistic representation and pornography. In researching for this article, I found that often Daguerreotypes were being defined between this line of what 19th century morality would allow and what it deemed too vulgar for the masses.
Example of a more demure nude. Source
Daguerreotypes did not render the colour of the subjects they captured, so many were coloured by hand. The vast majority of Daguerreotype studio owners were men, so all examples of nudes in this article were taken by men. The first daguerreotype highlighted in this article, seen above, depicts a woman in a transparent gown, standing against a mirror. Her hands, up in her hair braiding, conceal her breasts from view. This photo suggests a spontaneous glimpse into a private moment, a teasing of nudity rather than the more provocative examples to come.
The next example is described in the Getty collection as a study of a woman resting on a divan in profile. This appears to be the generally accepted “artist’s study” of female nudity, rather than outright pornography. Her pose mimics the stance of ancient marble statues, the nude of a different era.
An "Artist's Study". Source
The images tend to begin being described as pornographic when there is more than one subject in the frame. The following, titled Two Women Embracing is described as “posturing teetered between artist’s study and pornography”. The poses appear to be more for the pleasure of the observer, positioned to be revealed to the camera. It feels voyeuristic, looking in at an intimate spontaneous moment between lovers. However, knowing that the process behind producing a Daguerreotype could take several minutes, the models likely had to hold this pose for an unnatural amount of time while the photo was being taken.
Two Women Embracing. Source.
The question I keep returning to in my study of nudity within museum collections is when does the female body switch from an artistic study of form to pornography. My first, instinctual answer is that this switch occurred with the emergence of photographic representation of contemporary women, as they may appear more relevant and scandalizing to contemporary museum audiences than a centuries old painting or sculpture. The reality, however, is likely more complex than my answer. There are examples of paintings that pushed this distinction too far, crossing the line between artistic appreciation of form into more explicitly erotic depictions. But the availability of technologies like the Daguerreotype allowed a greater number of people to create reproductions of nudity.
Voyeurism and the Nude. Source
These Daguerreotypes were produced and sold out of Paris’ underground porn market, a reaction against crackdowns on a perceived morality crisis. In the example above, Two Nudes in Boudoir Studio Setting, the viewer is again intruding on a fabricated private moment. The shape of the frame also suggests an air of voyeurism, as if they are peering through a viewfinder at the scene within. The quiet intimacy of the subjects, leaning against the surrounding objects of the room reflects common artistic practices within the medium. The women in these images mirror the positions of the singular artist’s study of female nudes, and yet the presence of both women causes these examples to cross the line over into the pornographic.
Why is this? All these examples are functionally the same, pictures taken by men of nude women in similar time periods. My best estimation at this time is that the presence of another contains with it the suggestion of further action. What happened in the boudoir moments after the Daguerreotype was taken? Perhaps therein lies the answer, what makes these images pornographic lies in the voyeur’s imagination.
10 June 2015
THE WILD WEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY DISNEY: MUSEUMS IN UNEXPECTED PLACES
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| Entrance sign to Exhibit Source: Mallory Horrill |
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| Wax Scene, Davy Crockett posed after firing at opponent Source: Mallory Horrill |
The exhibit and Frontierland are a carefully crafted atmosphere that makes the visitor feel as though they are transported to the clichéd Western world of cowboys, outlaws, gold, and saloons. Despite the sentimentality that Disney uses to enhance their park experience the exhibit does provide nuggets of truth. In addition to each panel giving one or two facts, if the visitor looks closely a real historic photograph can be spotted in each of the wax scenes.
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| View of Exhibit Source: Mallory Horrill |