The awakening of Jewish national art in Russia

Discusses, particularly, the works of the sculptor Mark Antokolsky (1843-1902), the first Russian Jewish artist, who made a point of criticizing Christian society and its antisemitism. His busts of a Jewish tailor and a Christian miser comprise the reverse of the traditional antisemitic representation of the Jewish miser and his poor Christian victim. His most important early work is the bas-relief "The Attack of the Inquisition on the Jews" (1868). His teacher and mentor, Vladimir Stasov, supported a national Jewish art; the denial of its existence, he claimed, was due to antisemitism and the weakness of the Jewish fight against it. Antokolsky's ideas on Jewish art education were implemented by his pupils Ilya Gintsburg, who founded a school in Vilna (which existed up to 1941), and Boris Schatz, who founded the Bezalel school in Jerusalem.