THE BODENSCHATZ PICTURES
Johann Christoph Georg Bodenschatz, a priest of Uttenreuth, underwent a triple training for his great work on Jewish Ceremonial. He studied literature, observed facts, and used his hands. The Jewish Encyclopedia remarks that he “is said to have made elaborate models of the Ark of Noah and of the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.” There is no reason for the qualifying words “is said.” In a dedicatory epistle to the Margrave Friederich of Brandenburg, Bodenschatz distinctly informs us that in 1739 he constructed these models, “after the records of Scripture and of Jewish Antiquities.” He adds that the models were preserved in the royal Kunst und Naturaliencabinet. I cannot say whether they still exist; but at the beginning of last century, the Tabernacle was at Bayreuth and the Ark at Nuremberg.
In 1748 Bodenschatz began to issue his work on the Jews; he completed the publication in the next year. In it he dealt with the Jewish religion (Kirchliche Verfassung der heutigen Juden, sonderlich derer in Deutschland). He had planned a continuation on the Civil Laws of the Synagogue. But he left it unfinished, though he lived another half-century. Perhaps he had exhausted all his means, for the thirty copper-plates must have been expensive. The very title-page states he paid for them out of his own pocket. These illustrations he introduced with a double object: they were, in part, to serve as an ornament, but chiefly as an elucidation of the text. Both his book and his pictures became very popular, and did much to secure for Judaism a favorable consideration in Germany.
As we know that Bodenschatz possessed some artistic skill, we may safely assume that he inspired and assisted the artists whom he employed. He does not appear, however, to have done any of the drawings with his own hand. Nearly all the pictures are signed. Most of them were designed by Eichler in Erlangen, and engraved by G. Nusbiegel in Nuremberg. Both of these belonged to artistic families; there were three generations of Eichlers, and a Nusbiegel engraved illustrations for Lavater’s works. One of the Bodenschatz pictures was engraved by C. M. Roth; another, among the best of the whole series—the illustration of Shehitah—was drawn by Johann Conrad Müller. It would be interesting to collect the names of those Christian artists and mechanics who, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were engaged in illustrating books on Judaism. There was, for instance, the Englishman R. Vaughan who worked at Josephus (Josippon); there was the Frenchman Bernard Picart; and there were very many others, though the exquisite medallions, which adorn the title-pages of all six volumes of Surrenhusius’ Latin Mishnah, were from a Jewish hand.
Bodenschatz made use of his predecessor Picart, whose twenty plates illustrative of the “Ceremonies des Juifs” appeared in Amsterdam in 1723. But what he chiefly owed to Picart was the composition of the groups; the details are mostly original. Similarly he derived his idea for the processions of the bride and the bridegroom, with their musical performers, from Kirchner, but here, again, the details are his own, and the total effect is full of charm. I do not wish, by any means, to depreciate Kirchner, who in his Jüdisches Ceremoniel (1726) has some fine engravings. One of them, depicting the preparation of the Passover bread, is as vigorous as anything in Bodenschatz, though I think that the latter is, on the average, superior to Kirchner. Readers can easily judge the character both of the Bodenschatz and the Kirchner pictures from the specimens so wisely reproduced in the volumes of the Jewish Encyclopedia. No one need complain that the Encyclopedia prints these illustrations too profusely. For—to limit my remarks to Bodenschatz—though copies of that worthy’s book are common enough, many of them are incomplete. From the British Museum example, six of the thirty plates are missing; the Cambridge copy also lacks some of the plates, in particular the marriage ceremony under the canopy, which, however, may be seen in the Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. vi, p. 504. On the other hand, the Encyclopedia (vol iii, p. 432) somewhat exaggerates the glare of the eyes in the grim realism of Bodenschatz’s picture of an interment.
What is assuredly one of the most interesting of Bodenschatz’s plates does not, so far as I have noticed, appear in the Encyclopedia. I refer to the Pentecost celebrations, where Bodenschatz shows us both the cut flowers and the growing plants in the synagogue decorations of the day. The floral border of this plate is particularly well conceived. Very attractive, too, is the picture of Blessing the New Moon: the outlines of the houses stand out in bold relief. Bodenschatz is careful to inform us that the favorite time for the ceremony is a Saturday night, when the men are still dressed in their Sabbath clothes, and thus make a good show. The Priestly Benediction is also a notable success; the Cohen with his hands to his eyes impresses. More than once Bodenschatz depicts a curious scene, once common now almost unknown. On the front of the synagogue is a star, cut in stone, and after the marriage the husband shatters a vessel by casting it at the star. The glass, where the custom is retained, is now broken under the canopy. By the way, the author also introduces us to the more familiar ceremony of the same nature at the actual wedding or betrothal. Altogether ingenious is the plate on which are diagrammatically represented the various forms of boundaries connected with the Sabbath law.
Naturally a goodly number of the pictures deal with curiosities. The quainter side of Jewish ceremonial obviously appeals to an artist. Thus the waving of the cock before the Day of Atonement, the Lilit inscriptions over the bed of the new-born infant, the Mikweh, the Halizah shoe, make their due appearance. But Bodenschatz does not show these things to ridicule them. He is among the most objective of those who, before our own days, sought to reproduce synagogue scenes. He must have had a very full experience of these scenes; he must have been an eye-witness. It would seem as though he meant us to gather this from one of his Sabbath pictures, of which he has several. I do not refer to the vividness of the touches in his representation of the Friday night at home—though this illustration presupposes personal knowledge. Nor do I refer to his pictures of Sabbath ovens, for these could have been examined in shops. But what I allude to is this. In his picture of the interior of the synagogue, we see the Sabbath service in progress. Standing on the right, looking on, is a hatless observer. Does Bodenschatz mean this for himself, thus suggesting that he had often been a spectator where the rest were participators? It may be so. Anyhow, most of those who have had to steep themselves in literature of this kind have a warm feeling of regard for Bodenschatz. He was not invariably just, but he was never unkind; no mistakes that he made (and he is on the whole conspicuously accurate) were due to prejudice. Any scholar, any artist, would be proud to deserve such a verdict.