One of the main foci of Kurt and Ursula Schubert’s methodology is the attempt to create links between medieval and late antique Jewish figurative art. Figurative art was cultivated in Judaism between the third and seventh centuries and then again only from the 13th century on, in Iberia from about 1300. Observations on the influence of the Midrashim on Christian art were used in order to bridge the period between the 7th and the 13th century. This method is based on the so-called ‘Recension Theory’, which was developed in the 1940s by Kurt Weitzmann.
The lecture begins with a short discussion of some late antique examples, as well as with short observations on the following phase of iconophobia.
Many medieval Sephardi Bibles show double or more pages of representations of the temple objects: Parma-Bible, (MS Parm 2668), Toledo, 1277; Paris (BnF, cod. Hébr. 7), Perpignan, 1299; London (BL, MS Kings 1), Solsona, 1388.
Figurative representations are seldom to be found in Sephardi Bibles. One exception is the so-called Cervera Bible (Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional, MS Il. 72), Cervera, 1299. Here there is a picture of Jonah being thrown into the sea; Zachary’s vision of the Menorah; the painter’s colophon.
In 1476 the Cervera Bible served as a model for the illumination of another Bible, the so-called First Kennicott Bible in Oxford (Bodl., MS Kenn.1). In this Bible several models were used, such as the motif of playing cards, which had been popular in Europe since the 14th and 15th century; the world turned upside-down (cats and mice war)
The Passover Haggadot were endowed with rich figurative artistic decorations: the Golden Haggadah (London, BL, MS Add, 27219), Catalonia, circa 1320 with extensive cycles of images from the story of Genesis and Exodus; a further Haggadah in London (BL, MS Or. 2884); the Sarajevo Haggadah (National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina).
Christian picture Bibles and psalter manuscripts serve as pictorial models for these cycles
In London there is another Haggadah (BL, MS Add. 14761), which falls out of the pattern, as it contains relatively few Bible illustrations, yet has a whole series of text-related margin illustrations, mainly of ritualistic content.
Copenhagen, More Nevukhim of Maimonides (Königl. Bibliothek, cod, heb. 37), Barcelona 1348 with some figurative representations at the beginning of the books)
In 1391 a huge wave of persecution of the Jews in the whole of Iberia took place followed in 1492 and 1496 by their expulsion. These crises mean that only very few fully illuminated manuscripts from the 15th century have survived. The First Kennicott Bible is one of the few exceptions.
(Translator: Joan Avery)
The Corresponding illustrations, selected by the Center of Jewish Art (Hebrew University, Jerusalem), can be found here: http://phaidra.univie.ac.at/detail_object/o:525992
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