Jewish Modernity in Multiplicity

In Central Europe, especially in Poland, in the second half of the 19th century, Jewish artists engaged in a very particular form of nationalist discourse. Partly emulating their non-Jewish neighbors, Jewish artists sought to find visual manifestations to explain their layered subjectivities and identities. This study examines the work of Maurycy Gottlieb, a Jewish/Polish artist whose paintings exemplify the negotiation of Jewish identity with Polish national culture. Gottlieb attempted to manifest a visual form that simultaneously expressed his Jewish identity, his status as an Other in the eyes of the non-Jewish Pole, and his desire to be a constructive member of Polish society. Through dramatizations of the Self, Gottlieb’s use of self-portraiture—I argue—engages with the multiplicity of Central European culture, built on dynamic subjectivities and allegiances. The resulting identity Gottlieb expressed in his art is one of hybridity that shows a continual sense of belonging to oft-conceived mutually exclusive groups. As a result of his dialectically woven multiplicities of identity, we can use Gottlieb’s self-portraits to challenge the presumed homogeneity of cultural ethnonationalism often associated with the Central European region of his time. This study is part of a call to explore how multiple versions of national identity were simultaneously created in the region before ethnonationalism emerged as dominant after World War I.