ePub No Mean City by Mike Moran in Arts-Photography

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Must readBy Alejandro PisantyScholarship; depth; beauty; and the darkness of a history that shames the West all come together. A must read.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Five StarsBy RCVery impressive collection of a general little known History.17 of 21 people found the following review helpful. Medieval Views of JewsBy Rob HardyWe are unfortunately familiar with gross caricatures of Jews; and it isnrsquo;t just Nazis that promoted them. The images go way back because societies centuries ago found it useful to shun or hate Jews as actively responsible for the death of Jesus; despite the illogic of any such blame on contemporaries centuries later. The usefulness manifest itself in part by assigning visual characteristics to Jews that could be easily recognized. It isnrsquo;t surprising that many of these characteristics were worked out during the Middle Ages; but it is surprising (or at least it was to me) that in the early period of the first millennium; there were no visual clues; except context; for picking out a Jew in an illustration. Then over the centuries; starting around year 1000; because of complex changes in theology; economics; and urbanization; you could spot a Jew in illuminated manuscripts or stained glass windows. How did these changes come about; and what were the cues that would let ordinary people know they were looking at a depiction of a Jew? This is the big subject in _Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography_ (Metropolitan Books) by Sara Lipton. Lipton teaches medieval history and seems to have looked over centuries of such illustrations; and in a detailed and compelling book charts a slow course of evolving images that have stayed with us centuries later.If there were going to be illustrations of Bible stories; Jews certainly had to be in them. They were prophets; soldiers; and kings within the Old Testament; for instance; and initially they looked like the other prophets; etc. There was little derogatory depiction in the early Middle Ages because the Jews were officially valued. They tended; even in crucifixion pictures; to be depicted with dignity and though they might have worn funny hats; they didnrsquo;t have distinctive facial or physical features. Things darkened by the end of the twelfth century. There had been images of villains within pictures and stained glass windows; bestiality; brutality; and evil were evident in figures with beak-like or crooked noses; brutish expressions; and shaggy beards. Lipton insists that the big; hooked noses of Jews in the picture were borrowed from previous depictions of baddies; and were not a caricature of any racial characteristic of Jews. The texts of the times may describe the moral and spiritual failings of Jews; and even their crimes; but make no mention of any particular facial characteristic (except for beards; which Gentiles wore as well). That hook in the nose eventually came to be a hallmark. Interestingly; in a chapter on the depiction of Jewish women; Lipton shows how even evil Jewesses were often depicted without any grotesque features; it seems that making them visually attractive underscored how treacherous such women (and women in general) could be. The pictures of Jewish women often showed them wearing earrings; and one fifteenth century preacher said that Jewish women wore earrings in place of circumcision; which sounds a little confused to me. In fifteenth century Italy; only Jewish women and prostitutes could wear earrings. Christian moralists were ready to decry such extravagance and ostentation; and to use the pictures to help do so.There is ugliness in the many of the images; an ugliness that is sadly familiar from caricatures in our recent times. But Lipton shows this grew slowly and was fed by emphasis on the crucifixion; and the responsibility of Jews for it; along with the horrifying stories of medieval Jews ritually murdering Christian children. As societies became more urbanized; there were worries about surveillance; secrecy; and hiddenness; and the worries were expressed mostly in regard to Jews. Jews were expelled out of countries or into ghettos by the sixteenth century; and were thereby out of sight; except in the pictures that are the subject of Liptonrsquo;s book. The pictures could still provoke anger and hostility. There are many; many examples of the pictures given here as Lipton describes them; one quibble about the book is that many of the pictures could use enlargements of the details which she addresses in the text. Lipton has given a fascinating effort to try to understand what people centuries ago would have made of these pictures; while avoiding jumping to conclusions based on how we look at them now. As Lipton says toward the end of her book; her review does not absolve medieval Christians of anti-Semitism; but it does help show that the anti-Semitism was not static; and was; sadly; not even inevitable.