Staging Jewishness in Decline. Irène Nemirovsky's David Golder vis-a-vis the Works of Bruno Schulz Kris Van Heuckelom KU Leuven -

David Golder in David Golder Jacob in Sanatorium under the ( France, 1931, dir. Julien Duvivier) Sign of the Hourglass ( Poland, 1973, dir. Wojciech Jerzy Has)

"The Eternal Fairy-Tale"

Xięga Bałwochwalcza ( ) The Idolatrous Book

Female domination (sadism) Male submissiveness (masochism) Undula The Eternal Ideal Gender relations in The Idolatrous Book (1)

Psychobiograpical approach: Schulz as a masochist Artistic context: mythological, iconic, literary intertextuality Gender relations in The Idolatrous Book (2)

Undula ~ a contemporary Venus On Cythera Classical mythology

D. Velazquez, Venus At Her Mirror Cover of The Idolatrous Book Iconographic tradition

Fin-de-siècle decadentism the grotesque F. Rops, Pornocrates Demonic femme fatale

Undula ~ pictorial version of L. von Sacher-Masochs Wanda Literary sources

Cover of The Idolatrous Book ( ) Book within a book ~ Painting within a painting

Cover of The Idolatrous Book The Idolatrous Book as autoreferential artefact (1) 1. the material product created by the artist (a portfolio of graphics entitled The Idolatrous Book )

Frontispiece of The Idolatrous Book The Idolatrous Book as autoreferential artefact (2) 2. a similar object (a book) being depicted on the graphics themselves (some of which are entitled The Idolatrous Book)

Undula With The Artists 1. The book as a work-in-progress Undula u artystów

The Idolatrous Book 2. Finished book presented to the idol Undula u artystów

The book as a medium of verbal expression is represented throughout Schulzs portfolio as a typical male attribute, whereas the idol is given an obvious female shape. Gender & word-image relations

Book covers and frontispieces of The Idolatrous Book (1)

Book covers and frontispieces of The Idolatrous Book (2)

seductive attractiveness of paintings ~ seductive beauty of the female sex (Freedberg 1989) Iconoclasm & gender

Double dimension of idolatrous behaviour in The Idolatrous Book (1) Act of veneration (Thou shalt not bow down thyself) Undula The Eternal Ideal The Enchanted City

Double dimension of idolatrous behaviour in The Idolatrous Book (2) Act of image creation (Thou shalt not make any graven image) Undula With The Artists

The creative forces of masculinity are redirected from the domain of the sacred text to the female sphere of images and image production. The Book itself is idolatrous! Pictorial turn ( cf. Mitchell 1994)

= A book of graphics containing a series of subsequent scenes The Idolatrous Book as a visual narrative

The Idolatrous Book as an artistic concept Through the mise-en-abime effect, Schulzs The Idolatrous Book at the same time formulates and implements the idea of interartistic contamination.

Schulzs transgression of boundaries 1. Religious Law: The Second Commandment 2. Artistic Law: G. E. Lessings secular discourse of iconoclasm cf. Clement Greenberg

The Idolatrous Book or The Adulterous Book Cover of The Idolatrous Book The Idolatrous Book

The book offered to the idol is a harbinger of Schulzs Word, a proclamation of his work as a writer. The Idolatrous Book Ficowski (1988: 58)

All existing boundaries between different forms of art are in fact fluid, and thus artificially set up, as all individual artefacts (whether visual or verbal) turn out to be nothing more than similarly defective references to the same reality of interlacing codes.. Schulzs artwork & fiction

The Schulzean narrator unveils his techniques, displays his method, consciously reveals the iconic character of the image. He records reality as if it was a picture ; while the realistic narrator depicts the picture as if it was reality. Stala (1993: 104)

KONIEC THE END

Staging Jewishness in Decline. Irène Nemirovsky's David Golder vis-a-vis the Works of Bruno Schulz Dedication (from The Idolatrous Book, ) Kris Van Heuckelom K.U.Leuven -

The Pictorial Turn of Bruno Schulz Dedication (from The Idolatrous Book, ) Kris Van Heuckelom K.U.Leuven -