Anti-Semitism in Art

Much attention has been paid in recent years to ethnicity in the early Middle Ages, but one area of investigation that has escaped scholarly attention is the illustrated psalters that originated in Frankish monasteries in the ninth and tenth centuries, chief among them the Stuttgart Psalter, the Utrecht Psalter and the Codex aureum of St. Gall. Of these, the Stuttgart Psalter provides the most explicit portrayal of different ethnic groups, because it employs an innovative pictorial technique by means of which ethnicity could be readily expressed by early medieval artists. In this brief essay we review a variety of the signs, images and visual cues employed in the Stuttgart Psalter meant to signify or to suggest ethnic identity, and we show how Germanic ethnicity is constructed to reinforce Frankish strategies of religious and imperial hegemony.

This study aims to reconstruct and analyse the anti-Semitic visual reception history of the Tiszaeszlár blood libel case from the time of the affair (1882–83) up until today. It examines images created in connection with the blood libel together with their usage and function as instruments of anti-Semitic propaganda. It underlines the power of images by highlighting their role in the establishment and institutionalisation of an anti-Semitic, pseudo-religious cult centred around the figure of the alleged victim of the ritual murder accusation. Furthermore, the study identifies the main actors, their motivations, objectives and strategies, while also exploring the economical aspect of the phenomenon: the production, circulation, multiplication and distribution of anti-Semitic imagery. The Tiszaeszlár affair occurred in Hungary, but it received immediate attention in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy as well as beyond. As for the anti-Semitic, artistic reception history of the case, it is a transnational phenomenon as it involves material and sources from a myriad of countries ranging from Russia to the United States.

This paper attempts to place Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ’ in a more objective context, by focusing on establishing the real significance of Gibson’s film in the light of Christianity’s theological import and its possible interpretation(s) for a contemporary Western world.  In this regard, the film is evaluated from a number of interrelated perspectives, viz.: Gibson’s avowed intentions, historical accuracy, written gospel accuracy, Catholic sectarian accuracy, contemporary Catholic accuracy and most importantly, the phenomenon of the film itself.

The author concludes that Gibson, who clearly views his faith through the mediation of often violent film imagery, rather than serious theological insights, has pandered to the needs of a cinema-going public that is largely incapable of responding to subtlety because it has become visually punch-drunk by so much celluloid brutality and technological special effects. As a result, this film undermines its own purpose of conversion to Christianity due to its message of hate, violence and bigotry.  In addition, it has the potential to undermine any reconciliation between Jewish and Christian groups.

Published as a catalogue of the two Iparterv exhibitions, dokumentum 69–70 featured two iron etchings by János Major: In Memoriam Móric Scharf (1966) and The Yid is Washing Himself (1967), both masterworks of the artist from the sixties.  The former addressed the Tiszaeszlár blood libel, Nazism and the Holocaust, while the latter – Major’s self-portrait – primarily dealt with antisemitism, Jewish identity and indirectly the Holocaust.

This study is an attempt at a closer scrutiny of the interpretation of these artworks – and the broader context thereof – by a special group of recipients: the Hungarian state authority of the period, the state police. On account of the graphics printed in the unauthorized publication, which were classified as capable of inciting hatred, in other words, antisemitic, the artist received a warning by the police authorities. The reception of the works was similar in Poland in the scope of the Kraków Biennial of Graphic Arts. In order to understand the reactions of the authorities, a thorough knowledge of the works in question is essential; however, with regard to limitations of volume – as well as the fact that a detailed analysis of In Memoriam Móric Scharf has already been published –, this study is confined to the discussion of The Yid is Washing Himself.