Boris Izrailevich Anisfeld

Petrograd, Soyuz Exhibition, 1912
Moscow, Soyuz Exhibition, 1913
New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The Boris Anisfeld Exhibition (touring), 1918-1920, no. 34

Christian Brinton, The Boris Anisfeld Exhibition, Brooklyn, 1918, no. 34

Original canvas which is slightly loose in the stretcher. There is a layer of light surface dirt and evidence of craquelure throughout. There are patches of paintloss and scratches to the surface in places. UV light reveals some retouching to the right and lower edge and in patches throughout. Held in a simple black wooden frame. Unexamined out of frame.
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Boris Anisfeld painted at least four different Wayside Crucifix compositions while at Gries am Brenner in 1912. They reference the imagery of Paul Gauguin, whose Yellow Christ and Self-portrait with Yellow Christ were amongst the most reproduced works of the Nabis school and Symbolist movement. Like Gauguin, Anisfeld portrays the crucified Christ figure beside living person, and he paints them in a similar fashion--with green complexion, bold contour lines and broad brushstrokes--to create a harmonious parallel between their forms. Through manipulation of perspective and the blurring of his left hand, Christ's wounds are unseen. Rather than rendering the horrific violence of crucifixion, Anisfeld paints a serene, even meditative image. To underscore the region's pagan roots, he adorns the shrine with flowers at the head and a rosary around the neck, translating the sacred into decoration. Thus the artist creates a complex icon of his own, through which the viewer may reflect on religion and the nature of art itself.

Anisfeld's Wayside Crucifix paintings were the centre of a public controversy in the months before the Boris Anisfeld exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in 1918. Leila Mechlin, editor of The American Magazine of Art and secretary of The American Federation of Art, received photographs of Anisfeld's paintings from Dr. Christian Brinton, the exhibition's curator. Mechlin found the images to be hideous, offensive, crudely drawn and "one, 'The Crucifixion'...little short of blasphemous--horrifying to one who reverences Christ." She went on to say that the paintings would be "unintelligible" to the general population, and that--at that time, during World War I--it ought to be the museum's duty not "to hinder, to pull down, or destroy that for which so gigantic a sacrifice [was] being made," thereby implying that Anisfeld's paintings were harmful to the nation and its people.

Brinton was quick to respond--and he had to be, for Mechlin had contacted museum directors across the nation in attempt to prevent the opening of the exhibition. In reference to her words about the present work, Brinton wrote, "The title of the painting to which you make reference is not 'The Crucifixion,' but 'A Wayside Crucifix, Tyrol.' The scene is not, as you infer, an individual conception of the artist. It was, to the contrary, painted direct from nature, the original having been erected alongside a mountain pathway, and there worshipped by generations of pious peasant Catholics, than whom there is no class more reverent or more devout. The subject is, moreover, identical with a number of such themes which have proved inspiring to no less a master than John S. Sargent." Brinton's response went on to counter Mechlin's every point, concluding with the following sentence: "For no matter what your, or my, individual preferences and prejudices may be, art in America should, and must, be wholly and absolutely free, or suffer a craven and stultifying eclipse." It seems that Brinton (and Anisfeld) won out in the end, for the Boris Anisfeld exhibition travelled to nine more cities before it finally closed, just four less than were originally scheduled.

We would like to thank Robert Kashey, Director of the Shepherd Gallery, New York, for providing additional catalogue information.