“Perceived with Hebrew Sense and Hebrew Instinct” – “Close to the Christian Ideal”: Polish Art Criticism on Maurycy Gottlieb’s Christ Preaching at Capernaum (1878–1879)

The views of Polish art critics regarding Maurycy Gottlieb’s painting entitled Christ Preaching at Capernaum (1878–1879) are analysed. The canvas, which was fi rst exhibited in Cracow in 1879 and subsequently in Warsaw, aroused particular interest among the public and among art critics, fi rst of all because its author, himself a practising follower of Judaism, had presented Christ as a pious, religious Jew. Almost all of the critics were positive about Gottlieb’s work, pointing out, however, to the different qualities in his representation of the fi gure of Christ. This resulted, in their view, from the discrepancies between Christian and Jewish spirituality. Still, the image of Christ as created by Gottlieb seemed to them so close to the Christian ideal that some did not hesitate to suspect that the artist himself was not far from converting to Christianity. Both Gottlieb’s work and how it was perceived fi t into the atmosphere of the 1870s, it seems therefore unjustifi ed to associate the genesis of Christ Preaching at Capernaum with the manifestations of anti-Semitism that Gottlieb must have felt during his studies at the School of Fine Arts in Cracow. Modern anti-Semitism on Polish territories developed only in the 1880s. The preceding decade seemed to coincide with a time when it was believed that the integration of Jews, namely their transformation into “Poles of Jewish faith”, was considered to be the most appropriate solution of the “Jewish question”. Such was the atmosphere in which the art of Maurycy Gottlieb, a Jew-painter, arose.