Masterpieces of Jewish Art. Hebrew Manuscript Ornaments

"...And Moses turned, and went down from the mountain with the two tables of testimony in his hands, tables that were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other were they written. And the tables were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables. "

Tor-h. Exodus. 32.15-17

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The seventh volume of the Masterpieces of Jewish Art series focuses primarily on manuscript illumination, which has long-standing traditions in Jewish culture. Jews are often referred to as the people of the Book in view of the exceptional role the Bible had to play in Jewish and not only Jewish history. The subject matter of the present publication, which presents fragments of ornaments of old handwritten codices of the Old Testament, can therefore by rights be regarded as a priori the most important monument of our national art. These fragments form part of a unique collection of Hebrew manuscripts of the Russian National Library of St. Petersburg. While other Judaica collections of most museums and libraries of the former Soviet Union were practically unknown and had to be rediscovered, the collection of Hebrew manuscripts of the former Imperial Public Library of St. Petersburg was made public in Europe over a hundred years ago. The following pages will describe how that collection was formed and studied. It should be pointed out, however, that one of the earliest studies of Jewish art in Russia, the Hebrew Ornament album by Vladimir Stassov and David Gunzburg, was made on the basis of that collection and published in a rich edition in Berlin in 1905. The similar titles of that album and our modest book are not fortuitous: both publications draw largely on the same material. True, the Stassov-Gunzburg book reproduced laborious copies of manuscript fragments, whereas the benevolence of library managers has enabled us to acquaint the reader for the first time with the original reproductions of the manuscripts and publish more of them.

At the same time, we regard the Stassov-Gunzburg work as a piece of local Hebraic studies, albeit infrequent in the past, yet meriting full recognition and setting an instructive example of a Russian and a Jewish scholar cooperating in studying the national culture of the people, whose political situation in Russia had always been unstable. It is noteworthy that Vladimir Vasilievich Stassov (1824-1906), whose scholarly interests in that case matched his civic stance, took the initiative to publish that book. When Stassov's monumental study, Slavic and Oriental Ornament, was published in St. Petersburg in 1884, his joint undertaking with Gunzburg to study the ornamentation of Hebrew manuscripts was in full swing. In the course of over twenty years of mutual endeavours Gunzburg heard many, as a rule, justified rebukes from Stassov for delays in work on the album. The following description of the great Russian scholar given by Gunzburg seems all the more invaluable in this context. "His attitude to Jewish art was conditioned by the same characteristics of his powerful nature that underlay his other deeds - his absolute dedication to truth, passionate love for humanity, striving after truth and sincerity, admiration for all things natural, viable and real, enthusiasm for kindness and beauty, and recognition of the right of every living being to the utmost development of its personality."

The study of the national uniqueness of Jewish art was for Stassov naturally linked to the main task of his kulturtrager activity, that is, to study and put the original sources of Russian art into contemporary artistic practice. That may seem paradoxical today when growing Russian national sentiment is often accompanied by manifestations of anti-Semitism. The author of many theoretical and critical works on the history of Russian culture, Stassov for several decades published articles on Jewish art in journals and anthologies Yevreiskaya biblioteka (Jewish Library) and Rassvet (Dawn). Together with the more important of his studies, he included those articles in the collection of his works2 published in his lifetime. Symptomatically enough, they were never reprinted under the Soviet regime, even though Stassov was among the most progressive Russian critics of the nineteenth century. We have incorporated an excerpt from one of Stassov's articles on Jewish art into this book to acquaint the reader with his writings, which have lost none of their topicality at least in this country, and also pay tribute to that noble man.