[Fwd: WOID #III-35. Review: Jewish Tombstones.]

[George Robinson <GRComm...>]

I think this may be of interest to many of you.

George Robinson


Paul T Werner wrote:
> 
> Carved Memories: Jewish Tombstones of the Russian Pale. Photographs by
> David Goberman
> Brooklyn Museum
> Through April 30.
> 
> David Goberman, a Russian photographer now reaching his mid-eighties, has
> been photographing Jewish cemeteries in the Ukraine and Moldovia since the
> 'thirties. He is by no means the first: Jewish graveyards have been a
> nostalgia item at least since Jacob van Ruisdael in the seventeenth
> century, and as J. Hoberman points out in a sensitive review in the
> Village Voice, Jews themselves have long been tourists in a country of the
> imagination called "Yiddishland."
> 
> One could appreciate these photographs for their picturesque qualities:
> the sun slanting onto a gravestone hidden in an overgrown copse, or a
> half-destroyed cemetery with a modern development creeping over a hill in
> the background. They are redeemed by a cool technical accuracy that brings
> out every detail of texture and stone. These images offer fascinating
> documentary material for artists, not just thrills for fans of Fiddler on
> the Roof.
> 
> Most of the tombstones are part image, part Hebrew lettering; and one
> senses a very different historical evolution for each. The earliest among
> the carved inscriptions (in the late seventeenth century) are exuberant
> groupings of baroque foliage carved in the grand tradition of
> Middle-European design. By the early nineteenth century, however, the
> images have shifted to simplistic linear carvings charged with complex
> imagery: a lion trampling a flowering tree; two bears carrying grapes on a
> staff; two deer by a deserted house, one looking forward, the other back.
> It's as if a growing isolation had forced each community onto its own
> visual resources, backed by its considerable verbal skills. Meanwhile, the
> inscriptions, which are most likely pounced from written texts provided to
> the carvers, continue to offer examples of Hebrew lettering of high
> quality.
> 
> All in all, though, it's the images that are most compelling: in subtle,
> contradictory ways they connect the culture of the Jewish Pale to other
> world cultures as varied as the Celtic or the Mayan. A catalog for the
> show is available, though the quality of the reproductions does not quite
> match the glossy sharpness of the originals.
> 
> ***************************************************************************
> Paul Werner, New York City
> http://pages.nyu.edu/~ptw1
>      DRAGONSBLOOD AND ASHES: a project to research and teach the
> techniques of the Medieval scribe and artist.
>      THE ORANGE PRESS: most recent titles: "Vellum Preparation:
> History and Technique," and "Dragonsblood and Ashes: the Beta
> Version."
>      WOID: a journal of visual language in New York, including reviews,
> listings and resources.

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