Polish and Jewish: Maurycy Gottlieb Caught between Two Worlds

Abstract

Ezra Mendelsohn’s biography of the Jewish artist, Maurycy Gottlieb (1856-1879), is one of several works in many languages on this subject. The fact that so many books have been published about an artist whose life was so brief is an interesting phenomenon in itself. Mendelsohn portrays the artist as a role model in Jewish history, against the fascinating geo-cultural environment of Galicia where Gottlieb grew up. At the time Galicia had a mixed population of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews whose inter-ethnic differences were often blurred. Mendelsohn claims that Gottlieb’s art is imbedded in the East European tradition of historical painting and Orientalism. The author rightly argues that being born Jewish, or painting Jewish figures or religious rituals, is not a sufficient definition of Jewish art. Gottlieb envisioned Jewish integration in Poland, and, since he considered himself both Jewish and Polish, this qualifies him, according to Mendelsohn, as a universal Jewish artist. Thus, Gottlieb’s paintings reflect questions of identity, as illustrated in his famous ‘Jews Praying at the Synagogue on Yom Kippur’ that depicts the dual nature of Judaism: a religion and a way of life, traditional law and a universal worldview. Curiously, the author pays little attention to Gottlieb’s status as a major Polish painter, which suggests different interpretations of the same works. The book’s emphasis on Gottlieb’s aspirations to be both Jewish and Polish, to belong to both cultures simultaneously, echoes contemporary identity issues in art, especially multiidentities and cultural hybridism as legitimate foundations of high art.