Творчість єврейських скульпторів у Львові в 1919-1941 рр.

Objectives: to determine and systematize principal imaginative-stylistic and national peculiarities of sculptural art of Lviv Jewish sculptors in the period from 1919 to 1941. For the first time in the study of art this article in an integrated manner presents the view of imaginative-stylistic and national originality of Jewish sculptural heritage of Lviv of that period that has not been explored until present time and provides new biographical details of the sculptors. Discussion of the problem. The origins of efflorescence of the Jewish plastic arts in Lviv in the Inter-War Period can be found back in the late 19th century. For a long time Jewish sculptors of Lviv were engaged predominantly in carving of the stone tombstones that were installed in the Old and in the New cemeteries. Baruch Dornhelm (1858–1928) produced figured bass-relief scenes and ornaments on the cult objects using the technique of metalsmithing and forging. But Alfred Nossig (1864–1943) in fact should be regarded as the first Jewish sculptor in Lviv and in general in Galicia. He had overcome the religious prohibitions against carving volumetric, three-dimensional sculptured figures and human images, and his works were noted for his masterful modeling, harmonious composition in the spirit of academicism, realism and neo-Renaissance. His first one-man exhibition of his works was shown in Paris in 1899. Among the 17 sculptures there were distinct works connected with the Zionistic views of the sculptor that showed the heroes of the Jewish people qand expressed ideas of national revival. In 1912–1914 Nossig worked on the project of a grandiose national-religious monument “The Holy Mount”, that he planned to install on the famous Carmel mountain (now on the territory of Israel) as the symbol of return of Jews to Palestine. Nossig continued his work on the plaster model of the monument in 1934 while he stayed in Lviv .The new generation of the Jewish sculptors of Lviv perceived the work of Nossig with respect, but they were already in search for the new, their own ways. Eugeny Weinberg, under the influence of A. Bourdelle, began to carve sculptural compositions with the elements of archaism and primitivization. Starting from the 30’s of the 20th century he had also engaged himself in polychromatic majolica. Leopold Kretz (1907–1990) created in plaster and bronze realistic and expressive Rodinesque heads as well as the figures of naked women viewed in general. Joachim (Chaim) Kahane (1890–1943) produced copper and bronze cult objects, particularly, bowls, plates, seven-branched candlesticks (Hanukkah menorahs) with stylization of the traditional ornamentation and relief sculptures with flowing contours and soft lighting, certain elements of impressionism. Modernistic stylized design of the traditional Jewish art in the Western Ukraine, appeal to the stylistics of art deco and constructivism was a characteristic phenomenon in the art of Lviv sculptors of the 20-30’s of the 20th century who decorated buildings, for example, of Bernard Kober (1885–1941). Kober is the author of over ten tombstones (have not been preserved now) in the New Jewish cemetery. The best of them was the monument on the grave of the outstanding Zionist luminary Leon Reich (1930). Julia Ringel-Keil (1902–1943) worked in plaster, wood and bronze, creating statues and portrait heads, laconic and, at the same time, exquisitely decorative, a la French plastic art of the 30’s of the 20th century. Another lady-sculptor Helena Rippel (Ripplówna) aside from the modeled in detail portrait busts exhibited in Lviv plaster figurines interpreted laconically in geometrical planes with depiction of Lviv street vendors and beggars in the Jewish neighborhood. In 1930’s interest of the Jewish sculptors of Lviv and, especially, among members of the association “Ster” (“Rudder”), heightened in the Avant garde trends – expressionism, cubism, formizm. Mieczyslaw Buch (1910–1942/1943) created expressive in the emotional tension angular and sharp in broken planes sculptural compositions on the then topical themes. Salomon Schapira (1909–1942/1943), like Buch, appealed to the political and social topic in his plaster groups, exhibited in Lviv in 1934. They were aggressively modeled by the wide planes in laconically closed volumes (for example, the group “Effort”). After arrival of the Red Army in Lviv on September 22, 1939 artists of Lviv under the press of the totalitarian dictatorship had to work in the spirit of the “socialist realism”, produce the works of propagandist content, especially, monuments to Stalin and Lenin. The most typical work of the monumental propaganda became monument to the Stalin’s constitution with the five cement sculptures erected on October 29, 1939. Almost all Jewish artists perished in the period of the German occupation of Lviv (1941–1944). Conclusions. This article describes sculptural works of Jewish sculptors created in the twenty years of the Inter-War Period and in the beginning of the World War II. With intensification of social-political life the Jewish plastic art of Lviv then lived in the period of artistic boom. Along with the efforts to embody in their works their national-religious ideas, continue artistic traditions of the Galician Jews of the 15-19th centuries the sculptors appealed to the wide range of universal artistic devices searching for a variety of stylistic, genre and thematic solutions. At that time Jewish sculptors used elements of the stylistics of academicism, symbolism, impressionism, art deco, expressionism, cubism, neoclassicism, socialist realism and other art movements.