Memorial Exhibition
Written By: Dudu Shenhav, Yigal Zalmona
In 1982, the Israel Museum held an exhibition marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of Bezalel, and the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Boris Schatz. Entitled "Schatz's Bezalel", the show's numerous exhibits represented artists and craftsmen from the period commencing in 1905, with the Seventh Zionist Congress in Basle and its decision to found Bezalel, up to Schatz's death in 1932. The Israel Museum honored the exhibition with a lavish catalogue containing details about developments in the field of arts and crafts during this period in the country's history. Aiming primarily at documentation of the epoch, the 1982 exhibition included relatively few of Schatz's works; but by reviving interest in this extraordinary artist, it has now induced the officers of the Jerusalem Association of Painters and Sculptors to hold an extensive exhibition devoted exclusively to him. Schatz's works will be displayed in all the halls of the Jerusalem Artists House. Boris Schatz passed away in 1932, in the course of a tour of the United States to promote the sale of Bezalel products. The first commemorative exhibition of his work took place in 1933, on the first anniversary of his death; the second was presented in 1962, on the thirtieth anniversary. The current exhibition - the third held in his memory — is taking place in the selfsame building constructed eighty years ago as Bezalel's permanent home. Boris Schatz founded Bezalel at the beginning of the century. The motivating force in numerous events in train at that time was the ideological euphoria prevalent in the country - an offshoot of the successive Zionist Congresses, Jewish settlement and labor colonies, and the revival of the Hebrew language. In her introduction to "Bezalel 1906-1929" (The Israel Museum, 1983) Nurit Shilo Cohen wrote that the founding of Bezalel was "a vast enterprise, virtually from nothing, under harsh conditions..." Nurit Shilo-Cohen goes on to write: "Bezalel provided the Yishuv in Eretz Israel with a glimpse of the international art world, even if it was that of a nineteenth century academism. It is probably not too far-fetched to claim that without Bezalel, many of the artists who studied at the school, rebelled against it, went to Paris and eventually became part of the modernist stream of Eretz Israel art, might never have become artists. Furthermore, the very reputation of Bezalel drew other artists, Zaritsky among them, to Jerusalem; and despite their disappointment with Bezalel, they remained in the country."'
"Schatz's Bezalel" remained in existence till 1929; commencing 1935, the same building served the "New Bezalel", founded that year by the artist Josef Budko. The "New Bezalel" showed little trace of its forerunner's ideological origins, but the spirit of Boris Schatz overshadowed the institution, as though the very walls, having absorbed his ideas, now projected them into the new period. As late as the fifties, a student wishing to study painting or sculpture was also required to learn a trade, with a choice of graphics, design, fine metalwork (jewellery, religious artifacts) or weaving. This stress on the necessity of a "trade" could be traced back to the ideals of "Schatz's Bezalel". But the renewed Bezalel had its own features, more or less admirable. For example, Schatz's stress on Hebrew was played down in the "New Bezalel", many of whose teachers scarcely mastered the rudiments of the language. Those who spoke perfect Hebrew included the sculptor Ze'ev Ben Zvi, who had been a pupil of Schatz. In its curriculum and its artistic approach, the New Bezalel likewise diverged from its predecessor, as undoubtedly befitted the times. The New Bezalel likewise survived less than thirty years. In the late sixties, it was transformed into the Bezalel art academy, with an art department standing out among its most prestigious sections; no-one now thought it necessary to convince students that their art studies ought to be complemented by acquisition of a trade.
These metamorphoses notwithstanding, Bezalel has preserved the spirit with which Schatz imbued it at the beginning of the century. It is reasonable to presume that, had Schatz lived, he would have guided "his" Bezalel along a course similar to that pursued by his successors. Throughout his life, Schatz's art was influenced by his faith, and, invariably, by his cultural commitment at the time; his artistic work was a kind of mirror image, for he always matched words with deeds. During his period in Paris, his work was an amalgam of the Parisian and the Jewish. His sculptures constituted a harmonic blend: the French child with the inscription "Vive la France!", Moses on Mount Nevo, and of course, his Matitiyahu (Matthew). But when he resided in Sofia, his sculptures of Bulgarian folk figures were of an authentic earthiness as though he had never lived anywhere else. This gift for identification was made possible by his candor and his fidelity to his ideals. In 1903, when he met Herzl in Vienna and set about promoting Zionist ideas - principally the notion of founding Bezalel - the change immediately became evident in his sculpture. While still living in Sofia before emigrating to Palestine, he began sculpting a series of reliefs on Jewish themes: the Sabbath Havdala, the marriage broker, the Messiah, and a portrait of Ehad Ha'am.
Boris Schatz headed Bezalel for sixteen years. Throughout this period, his preoccupation with the institution and its difficulties necessarily affected his sculpture; however, possessing the spiritual stamina to renew his art and develop it, he never entirely gave up his creative work. In addition to terminating "his Bezalel", Schatz's death at 66 also cut short his artistic career before he could reach the peaks he deserved to scale.
Schatz the Artist — Yigal Zalmona
Zalman Dov Baruch (Boris) Schatz was born in 1866 in the village of Vorno, Lithuania. His childhood was a typical one in an Orthodox family in the Jewish Pale of Settlement. As a youth he began to read Haskalah ("enlightenment") literature and by the time he moved to Vilna in 1882 he began to study at an art school while still attending the yeshiva. In Vilna he joined a Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) group, which was called Sha'alu Shlom Yerushalayim, led by Perez Smolenskin. It is likely that Smolenskin's ideas on the importance of the spiritual values of Judaism (the hope of redemption, historical culture) influenced Schatz's choice of subjects.
Three phases are evident in Schatz's art: the period before Bulgaria (until 1895), the Bulgarian period (until 1903), and the Jewish period (from 1903 on) which began already in Bulgaria. In 1888 Schatz moved to Warsaw. While he had previously sculpted and drawn to some extent, it was there that he began work in earnest as an artist, and there that, as he related, he created his sculpture of the old Jewish rag-dealer, entitled "Hendel" Schatz defined that sculpture as his first attempt at "propaganda through art," thus articulating his basic belief in the didactic power of art. In Warsaw he created relief portraits of Montefiore and Karshevsky (a nineteenth-century Polish author who defended Jewish rights and depicted Jews in a positive light), and made a lithograph portrait of the Rabbi of Ladi. In his estate was found a drawing on the subject of the Inquisition which was done in Warsaw (this was also the subject of a well-known relief by his teacher Antokolsky). All these works were related to his conception of Jewish art which developed in that period and was defined in his article "M'lekhet Mahshevet" (craftsmanship) which was published in two parts in 1888 in the Hebrew paper Hatsfira The motif of Jewish suffering, which was the subject of the "Hendel" statuette, also appeared in the Yiddish literature of the period. Human suffering in general was at the time the dominant theme of non- Jewish literature as well in Poland, the Ukraine and Czechoslovakia.
In 1889 Schatz returned to Vilna. There he married for the first time and at the end of the year travelled with his wife and her father to Paris. In order to support his family in Paris, Schatz worked at odd jobs, including boxing and wrestling. For a while he designed ceramic utensils at the Dreyfus factory. He studied sculpture with the well-known sculptor Antokolsky who was then in Paris and afterwards he served as his apprentice (the exchange of letters between them was subsequently published in Hebrew by Mordechai Narkiss). Schatz studied painting at the Academy of Cormon, a famous but conservative academy attended by many painters of the latter nineteenth century, Van Gogh among them, who later rebelled against its style and method of teaching. In Paris Schatz adopted the name Boris, Slavic for Dov (Bear).
Several works remain from the Parisian period, which lasted until 1895: a number of relief portraits of famous persons such as Antokolsky, Dr. J.M. Charcot, Anton Rubenstein and Louis Pasteur and others and a few oil paintings, including a later version of the painting "A Dying Man" of 1890. The latter, which portrays a sick man in bed, is, in its iconography and style, characteristic of the realistic-sentimental style current at the end of the nineteenth century. Portraits in this style were also done by the German painter Menzel and even by Edward Munch in his youth.
During Schatz's stay in Paris he did many sculptures, most of which have been preserved only in photographs. A number of his works were on the subject of Moses, such as the sculpture "Moses on Mount Nevo" and an oil painting on the same subject, both from 1890, and the sculpture "Jochebed, Mother of Moses" from 1892 which was shown at the Salon de Paris in the same year and at the St. Louis World's
Fair of 1904, where it won a silver medal. The life of Moses held special significance for Schatz. In his book Jerusalem Rebuilt he wrote of a number of sculptures and reliefs which he planned on the subject: "I have carried this idea with me from my youth. It is the reason why I went to Paris to study — so that I could express this great idea." In fact he eventually created only a few sculptures on the subject, and most of them in Paris. This was not due to any dearth of will or ability on his part but rather owing to the lack of time and opportunity to make this his life's work.
Schatz's idea to create the series "The Life of Moses" was probably inspired by Ehad Ha'am, whose ideology seems to have been behind most of Schatz's important activities. Ehad Ha'am saw Moses as a national and human figure of the utmost importance and significance. The secret Zionist association he led, which was founded in Odessa on the seventh of Adar, 5649 (1889), according to tradition the date of Moses' birth and death, was called Bnei Moshe (the Sons of Moses). Its aim was to deepen Jewish feeling among the people or, as it was formulated in its charter, "to expand the concept of nationalism, to make it lofty and sublime, an ethical ideal centred around the love of Israel..." This coincided with Schatz's own aim, which was expressed in his later works and writings. Ehad Ha'am regarded the members of his association as "unique priests of culture," and Schatz often referred to himself in his writings as a priest "before sacred art." In Paris Schatz sculpted a work called "Scribe of the Generations" in which the ideological connection with Ehad Ha'am's thinking is obvious (in a note in the catalogue for the Schatz commemorative exhibition, Mordechai Narkis wrote concerning this sculpture: "The influence on the artist of his teacher Antokolsky is strong: he borrowed some of his subjects: Nestor was used here not in the composition but as an idea — a driving force"). In his article "Spiritual Revival," Ahad Ha'am attacked Antokolsky for preferring non-Jewish subjects even though he was a Jew.
Schatz gave his "Scribe" a blatantly Jewish face, thereby anticipating the ideas expressed in Ehad Ha'am's article, written eleven years after the creation of the sculpture. It is probable that Ehad Ha'am's ideas were well-known before the article was published; it is also possible that the dating of the sculpture (apparently given by Narkis) is incorrect and that it was actually done in Bulgaria, c. 1903. In 1894, still in Paris, Schatz sculpted what is considered his most important sculpture, "Mattathias the Hasmonean". In the same year, also in Paris, the holding of the Dreyfus trial influenced the history of Zionism and led to the crystallization of Herzl's views. It appears that the figure of the elderly Jew fighting his people's war of liberation and independence was a reaction to the mood of European Jews during the Dreyfus affair. Schatz wrote that he created the figure of Mattathias in the image of his grandfather, as representing Diaspora Jewry physically thin and weak but strong and powerful spiritually.
Like Moses, Mattathias was a symbol of liberation. The great success of the sculpture, which influenced other artists as well, testifies to the fact that he expressed the feelings of many (the Jewish painter Jehuda Epstein used Schatz's portrayal of Mattathias in his painting on the same subject in 1902). The Hasmoneans were a popular Zionist symbol during that period. In 1882 we read in the appeal of Bilu: "Where are the Maccabees... rise up Judah! Come ye and let us go!" The design of the statue is reminiscent, probably not unintentionally, of Antokolsky's statue "Jesus." Jesus is also shown with both hands uplifted, but in one hand he holds the cross (Mattathias holds a sword). The style of Schatz's statue is Baroque. It is governed by dramatic diagonals and is theatrical in subject and in the rendition of the facial expression. The design is realistic and Schatz made sure to photograph it against a background of stormy clouds in order to increase its dramatic and realistic effect. This too is an aspect of the Baroque (the sculptor Bernini, like other artists associated.
with the Baroque, placed his sculptures in such a way as to create a theatrical environment with a realistic effect so that the spectator becomes a part of the scene). Antokolsky, Schatz's mentor, had a clear affinity to the Baroque, especially to the works of Bernini. Schatz's own approach to art was also inspired by Baroque sculpture. In 1895, Schatz arrived in Bulgaria, where he became one of the founders of the Academy of Art. His works in Bulgaria reflect their ideological basis. He created sculptures of persons of national importance: the poet A. Vazov and Boris, Prince of Bulgaria; national monuments; the unknown soldier, a monument to the liberating side with a fountain at its head, a monument in honor of Count Ignatoff in Sofia, a fountain dealing with the subject of the religious wars in Bulgaria, which was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair; Bulgarian folk and Macedonian peasants. He also fashioned many Christian subjects such as "Woman-Angel," etc. He designed and built memorials and edifices such as the Palace of Coronation in Sofia (probably the interior of the palace for a ceremony). His fame as a sculptor grew so that he was allowed to design prestigious objects such as an album which the Bulgarian government gave as a gift in January 1896 to the Russian Czar, Nicholas 11, on the occasion of his coronation. Schatz was appointed a member of the French Academy of the Arts and received many awards for his designs at the different art salons in Europe. During his first years in Bulgaria, Schatz did not develop relationships with Jews, as is attested to by Ben-David: "...His family was small, and lived amidst the wealthy people of the capital, far from the Jewish quarter and from the hustle and bustle of the masses. His neighborhood was Bulgarian, his neighbor ministers, writers and artists." Among his works there are very few on Jewish subjects. One relief, entitled "Rachel," which was exhibited at his commemorative exhibition and dated 1898, apparently portrays a Jewish Bulgarian woman from a Sephardic family. A relief entitled "Rabbi Samuel" appeared in a photograph in the Bulgarian paper
Iskustvo of the same year. In 1900 Schatz prepared a relief as a sketch for "Judith," and in 1902 he prepared a terracotta mask of a sleeping Jewish man. These constituted, however, only a few among the tens of sculptures, reliefs and sketches on national Bulgarian and Christian subjects. Only in 1903 did his work begin to be devoted mainly to Jewish themes.
Six Zionist congresses were held before 1903. Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1896 and a year later visited Bulgaria. The congressional Zionist movement was already at its peak but Schatz, as noted, began his real Jewish creation in Bulgaria only in 1903. The traumatic event of that year and which probably influenced the ideological and iconographic transformation of his artistic direction was the Kishinev pogroms. These pogroms were not only crucial in the history of Zionism, influencing the fate of many; they also produced a rift in the soul and work of the founder of Bezalel. In 1903-1904, Schatz produced a series of reliefs on Jewish figures and customs and on Jewish life in the Pale. Among these reliefs were "Havdalah," "Midnight", "Kabbalat Shabbat," The Blessing of the Rabbi", "Shadhan," "The Messiah," "One of the People of the Book, ""Grandmother, ""The First Deed," and "Jewish Mother." The inspiration for these works were Schatz's own childhood memories. In this his approach resembled that of the nineteenth-century painter Moritz Oppenheim, who depicted similar subjects also drawn from his childhood recollections. Oppenheim's work had an object: to remind the assimilated, enlightened Jews of what was positive and beautiful in Jewish existence. While Schatz's series of reliefs was a personal, spontaneous reaction, a kind of "repentance" on his part, they too served a purpose: to deepen the Jewish- national sentiment of his spectators. This is evident in the numerous copies he made of the reliefs and by the many reproductions and books in which lie later published them. The fact that Schatz chose to emphasize Diaspora life links him to the ideology of Ahad Ha'am who believed that Jewish culture included not only the Bible but also the culture of the Diaspora, which was no less important. During his last years in Bulgaria, Schatz also produced a number of relief portraits of leading Jewish figures including Herzl, the Wolffsohns, Warburg and the painter Lillian. These portraits show his involvement with the Zionist circles which were linked to the foundation of Bezalel. In 1905 he made a relief entitled "Samson and Delilah" which he gave to his daughter Angela. The subject of betrayal implicit in the Samson motif, and the family context — the gift to his daughter - are related to a highly traumatic event in Schatz's life: his wife ran off with his student Andrea Nicoloff, who subsequently became Bulgaria's national sculptor. This event was connected to Schatz's departure from Bulgaria. In his first five years in Eretz Israel, Schatz was too busy with the running of Bezalel and with public affairs to be able to devote much time to his own art. In 1911 he married Dr. Olga (Zehava) Pevsner, and in the same year he sculpted "Jeremiah" and "Moses." Between 1913-1914 he once again dealt with subjects of the traditional Jewish milieu which he had begun to work on in Bulgaria. He created reliefs on the subjects of the havdalah, Kabbalat Shabbat, net Hat lulav, blowing the shofar, a melamed. In 1915 he created models for various subjects connected with the Jewish holidays and a painted version of Jeremiah (this was, as will be recalled, the difficult period of World War I). During the war he also created a relief called "When Will Wonders Cease?" depicting a cabbalist contemplating the end of the world. With the end of the war, and in reaction to the Balfour Declaration, he made a relief of Isaiah and named it, "And It Shall Be at the End of Days".
The war over, Schatz redirected his energies back to Bezalel. Only after matters improved at the school, and he had time on his hands, did he once again begin to sculpt busts of biblical heroes, such as King Solomon, King David, Samson and Deborah the Prophetess (all in 1924), and as before, Moses in various guises. He also produced many busts of Zionist leaders. As was his custom to portray historical events in order to "express the soul of the nation," he reacted to the riots of 1929, in which many Jews were slaughtered in Hebron, by producing a plaster relief entitled "Abraham, Why Did You Slaughter My Sons?" (1930). He had produced an oil painting on this subject in 1929. From 1929 on, his work began to include a greater number of oil paintings. The year before he died he made a pathetic series of ten self-portraits perhaps to create a memorial for himself in a period when he was being attacked from all sides, or perhaps as an act of self-absorption.
Schatz died in Denver, Colorado, in 1932, and was buried in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives a few months later.
Memorial Exhibition
Written By: Dudu Shenhav, Yigal Zalmona
In 1982, the Israel Museum held an exhibition marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of Bezalel, and the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Boris Schatz. Entitled "Schatz's Bezalel", the show's numerous exhibits represented artists and craftsmen from the period commencing in 1905, with the Seventh Zionist Congress in Basle and its decision to found Bezalel, up to Schatz's death in 1932. The Israel Museum honored the exhibition with a lavish catalogue containing details about developments in the field of arts and crafts during this period in the country's history. Aiming primarily at documentation of the epoch, the 1982 exhibition included relatively few of Schatz's works; but by reviving interest in this extraordinary artist, it has now induced the officers of the Jerusalem Association of Painters and Sculptors to hold an extensive exhibition devoted exclusively to him. Schatz's works will be displayed in all the halls of the Jerusalem Artists House. Boris Schatz passed away in 1932, in the course of a tour of the United States to promote the sale of Bezalel products. The first commemorative exhibition of his work took place in 1933, on the first anniversary of his death; the second was presented in 1962, on the thirtieth anniversary. The current exhibition - the third held in his memory — is taking place in the selfsame building constructed eighty years ago as Bezalel's permanent home. Boris Schatz founded Bezalel at the beginning of the century. The motivating force in numerous events in train at that time was the ideological euphoria prevalent in the country - an offshoot of the successive Zionist Congresses, Jewish settlement and labor colonies, and the revival of the Hebrew language. In her introduction to "Bezalel 1906-1929" (The Israel Museum, 1983) Nurit Shilo Cohen wrote that the founding of Bezalel was "a vast enterprise, virtually from nothing, under harsh conditions..." Nurit Shilo-Cohen goes on to write: "Bezalel provided the Yishuv in Eretz Israel with a glimpse of the international art world, even if it was that of a nineteenth century academism. It is probably not too far-fetched to claim that without Bezalel, many of the artists who studied at the school, rebelled against it, went to Paris and eventually became part of the modernist stream of Eretz Israel art, might never have become artists. Furthermore, the very reputation of Bezalel drew other artists, Zaritsky among them, to Jerusalem; and despite their disappointment with Bezalel, they remained in the country."'
"Schatz's Bezalel" remained in existence till 1929; commencing 1935, the same building served the "New Bezalel", founded that year by the artist Josef Budko. The "New Bezalel" showed little trace of its forerunner's ideological origins, but the spirit of Boris Schatz overshadowed the institution, as though the very walls, having absorbed his ideas, now projected them into the new period. As late as the fifties, a student wishing to study painting or sculpture was also required to learn a trade, with a choice of graphics, design, fine metalwork (jewellery, religious artifacts) or weaving. This stress on the necessity of a "trade" could be traced back to the ideals of "Schatz's Bezalel". But the renewed Bezalel had its own features, more or less admirable. For example, Schatz's stress on Hebrew was played down in the "New Bezalel", many of whose teachers scarcely mastered the rudiments of the language. Those who spoke perfect Hebrew included the sculptor Ze'ev Ben Zvi, who had been a pupil of Schatz. In its curriculum and its artistic approach, the New Bezalel likewise diverged from its predecessor, as undoubtedly befitted the times. The New Bezalel likewise survived less than thirty years. In the late sixties, it was transformed into the Bezalel art academy, with an art department standing out among its most prestigious sections; no-one now thought it necessary to convince students that their art studies ought to be complemented by acquisition of a trade.
These metamorphoses notwithstanding, Bezalel has preserved the spirit with which Schatz imbued it at the beginning of the century. It is reasonable to presume that, had Schatz lived, he would have guided "his" Bezalel along a course similar to that pursued by his successors. Throughout his life, Schatz's art was influenced by his faith, and, invariably, by his cultural commitment at the time; his artistic work was a kind of mirror image, for he always matched words with deeds. During his period in Paris, his work was an amalgam of the Parisian and the Jewish. His sculptures constituted a harmonic blend: the French child with the inscription "Vive la France!", Moses on Mount Nevo, and of course, his Matitiyahu (Matthew). But when he resided in Sofia, his sculptures of Bulgarian folk figures were of an authentic earthiness as though he had never lived anywhere else. This gift for identification was made possible by his candor and his fidelity to his ideals. In 1903, when he met Herzl in Vienna and set about promoting Zionist ideas - principally the notion of founding Bezalel - the change immediately became evident in his sculpture. While still living in Sofia before emigrating to Palestine, he began sculpting a series of reliefs on Jewish themes: the Sabbath Havdala, the marriage broker, the Messiah, and a portrait of Ehad Ha'am.
Boris Schatz headed Bezalel for sixteen years. Throughout this period, his preoccupation with the institution and its difficulties necessarily affected his sculpture; however, possessing the spiritual stamina to renew his art and develop it, he never entirely gave up his creative work. In addition to terminating "his Bezalel", Schatz's death at 66 also cut short his artistic career before he could reach the peaks he deserved to scale.
Schatz the Artist — Yigal Zalmona
Zalman Dov Baruch (Boris) Schatz was born in 1866 in the village of Vorno, Lithuania. His childhood was a typical one in an Orthodox family in the Jewish Pale of Settlement. As a youth he began to read Haskalah ("enlightenment") literature and by the time he moved to Vilna in 1882 he began to study at an art school while still attending the yeshiva. In Vilna he joined a Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) group, which was called Sha'alu Shlom Yerushalayim, led by Perez Smolenskin. It is likely that Smolenskin's ideas on the importance of the spiritual values of Judaism (the hope of redemption, historical culture) influenced Schatz's choice of subjects.
Three phases are evident in Schatz's art: the period before Bulgaria (until 1895), the Bulgarian period (until 1903), and the Jewish period (from 1903 on) which began already in Bulgaria. In 1888 Schatz moved to Warsaw. While he had previously sculpted and drawn to some extent, it was there that he began work in earnest as an artist, and there that, as he related, he created his sculpture of the old Jewish rag-dealer, entitled "Hendel" Schatz defined that sculpture as his first attempt at "propaganda through art," thus articulating his basic belief in the didactic power of art. In Warsaw he created relief portraits of Montefiore and Karshevsky (a nineteenth-century Polish author who defended Jewish rights and depicted Jews in a positive light), and made a lithograph portrait of the Rabbi of Ladi. In his estate was found a drawing on the subject of the Inquisition which was done in Warsaw (this was also the subject of a well-known relief by his teacher Antokolsky). All these works were related to his conception of Jewish art which developed in that period and was defined in his article "M'lekhet Mahshevet" (craftsmanship) which was published in two parts in 1888 in the Hebrew paper Hatsfira The motif of Jewish suffering, which was the subject of the "Hendel" statuette, also appeared in the Yiddish literature of the period. Human suffering in general was at the time the dominant theme of non- Jewish literature as well in Poland, the Ukraine and Czechoslovakia.
In 1889 Schatz returned to Vilna. There he married for the first time and at the end of the year travelled with his wife and her father to Paris. In order to support his family in Paris, Schatz worked at odd jobs, including boxing and wrestling. For a while he designed ceramic utensils at the Dreyfus factory. He studied sculpture with the well-known sculptor Antokolsky who was then in Paris and afterwards he served as his apprentice (the exchange of letters between them was subsequently published in Hebrew by Mordechai Narkiss). Schatz studied painting at the Academy of Cormon, a famous but conservative academy attended by many painters of the latter nineteenth century, Van Gogh among them, who later rebelled against its style and method of teaching. In Paris Schatz adopted the name Boris, Slavic for Dov (Bear).
Several works remain from the Parisian period, which lasted until 1895: a number of relief portraits of famous persons such as Antokolsky, Dr. J.M. Charcot, Anton Rubenstein and Louis Pasteur and others and a few oil paintings, including a later version of the painting "A Dying Man" of 1890. The latter, which portrays a sick man in bed, is, in its iconography and style, characteristic of the realistic-sentimental style current at the end of the nineteenth century. Portraits in this style were also done by the German painter Menzel and even by Edward Munch in his youth.
During Schatz's stay in Paris he did many sculptures, most of which have been preserved only in photographs. A number of his works were on the subject of Moses, such as the sculpture "Moses on Mount Nevo" and an oil painting on the same subject, both from 1890, and the sculpture "Jochebed, Mother of Moses" from 1892 which was shown at the Salon de Paris in the same year and at the St. Louis World's
Fair of 1904, where it won a silver medal. The life of Moses held special significance for Schatz. In his book Jerusalem Rebuilt he wrote of a number of sculptures and reliefs which he planned on the subject: "I have carried this idea with me from my youth. It is the reason why I went to Paris to study — so that I could express this great idea." In fact he eventually created only a few sculptures on the subject, and most of them in Paris. This was not due to any dearth of will or ability on his part but rather owing to the lack of time and opportunity to make this his life's work.
Schatz's idea to create the series "The Life of Moses" was probably inspired by Ehad Ha'am, whose ideology seems to have been behind most of Schatz's important activities. Ehad Ha'am saw Moses as a national and human figure of the utmost importance and significance. The secret Zionist association he led, which was founded in Odessa on the seventh of Adar, 5649 (1889), according to tradition the date of Moses' birth and death, was called Bnei Moshe (the Sons of Moses). Its aim was to deepen Jewish feeling among the people or, as it was formulated in its charter, "to expand the concept of nationalism, to make it lofty and sublime, an ethical ideal centred around the love of Israel..." This coincided with Schatz's own aim, which was expressed in his later works and writings. Ehad Ha'am regarded the members of his association as "unique priests of culture," and Schatz often referred to himself in his writings as a priest "before sacred art." In Paris Schatz sculpted a work called "Scribe of the Generations" in which the ideological connection with Ehad Ha'am's thinking is obvious (in a note in the catalogue for the Schatz commemorative exhibition, Mordechai Narkis wrote concerning this sculpture: "The influence on the artist of his teacher Antokolsky is strong: he borrowed some of his subjects: Nestor was used here not in the composition but as an idea — a driving force"). In his article "Spiritual Revival," Ahad Ha'am attacked Antokolsky for preferring non-Jewish subjects even though he was a Jew.
Schatz gave his "Scribe" a blatantly Jewish face, thereby anticipating the ideas expressed in Ehad Ha'am's article, written eleven years after the creation of the sculpture. It is probable that Ehad Ha'am's ideas were well-known before the article was published; it is also possible that the dating of the sculpture (apparently given by Narkis) is incorrect and that it was actually done in Bulgaria, c. 1903. In 1894, still in Paris, Schatz sculpted what is considered his most important sculpture, "Mattathias the Hasmonean". In the same year, also in Paris, the holding of the Dreyfus trial influenced the history of Zionism and led to the crystallization of Herzl's views. It appears that the figure of the elderly Jew fighting his people's war of liberation and independence was a reaction to the mood of European Jews during the Dreyfus affair. Schatz wrote that he created the figure of Mattathias in the image of his grandfather, as representing Diaspora Jewry physically thin and weak but strong and powerful spiritually.
Like Moses, Mattathias was a symbol of liberation. The great success of the sculpture, which influenced other artists as well, testifies to the fact that he expressed the feelings of many (the Jewish painter Jehuda Epstein used Schatz's portrayal of Mattathias in his painting on the same subject in 1902). The Hasmoneans were a popular Zionist symbol during that period. In 1882 we read in the appeal of Bilu: "Where are the Maccabees... rise up Judah! Come ye and let us go!" The design of the statue is reminiscent, probably not unintentionally, of Antokolsky's statue "Jesus." Jesus is also shown with both hands uplifted, but in one hand he holds the cross (Mattathias holds a sword). The style of Schatz's statue is Baroque. It is governed by dramatic diagonals and is theatrical in subject and in the rendition of the facial expression. The design is realistic and Schatz made sure to photograph it against a background of stormy clouds in order to increase its dramatic and realistic effect. This too is an aspect of the Baroque (the sculptor Bernini, like other artists associated.
with the Baroque, placed his sculptures in such a way as to create a theatrical environment with a realistic effect so that the spectator becomes a part of the scene). Antokolsky, Schatz's mentor, had a clear affinity to the Baroque, especially to the works of Bernini. Schatz's own approach to art was also inspired by Baroque sculpture. In 1895, Schatz arrived in Bulgaria, where he became one of the founders of the Academy of Art. His works in Bulgaria reflect their ideological basis. He created sculptures of persons of national importance: the poet A. Vazov and Boris, Prince of Bulgaria; national monuments; the unknown soldier, a monument to the liberating side with a fountain at its head, a monument in honor of Count Ignatoff in Sofia, a fountain dealing with the subject of the religious wars in Bulgaria, which was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair; Bulgarian folk and Macedonian peasants. He also fashioned many Christian subjects such as "Woman-Angel," etc. He designed and built memorials and edifices such as the Palace of Coronation in Sofia (probably the interior of the palace for a ceremony). His fame as a sculptor grew so that he was allowed to design prestigious objects such as an album which the Bulgarian government gave as a gift in January 1896 to the Russian Czar, Nicholas 11, on the occasion of his coronation. Schatz was appointed a member of the French Academy of the Arts and received many awards for his designs at the different art salons in Europe. During his first years in Bulgaria, Schatz did not develop relationships with Jews, as is attested to by Ben-David: "...His family was small, and lived amidst the wealthy people of the capital, far from the Jewish quarter and from the hustle and bustle of the masses. His neighborhood was Bulgarian, his neighbor ministers, writers and artists." Among his works there are very few on Jewish subjects. One relief, entitled "Rachel," which was exhibited at his commemorative exhibition and dated 1898, apparently portrays a Jewish Bulgarian woman from a Sephardic family. A relief entitled "Rabbi Samuel" appeared in a photograph in the Bulgarian paper
Iskustvo of the same year. In 1900 Schatz prepared a relief as a sketch for "Judith," and in 1902 he prepared a terracotta mask of a sleeping Jewish man. These constituted, however, only a few among the tens of sculptures, reliefs and sketches on national Bulgarian and Christian subjects. Only in 1903 did his work begin to be devoted mainly to Jewish themes.
Six Zionist congresses were held before 1903. Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) in 1896 and a year later visited Bulgaria. The congressional Zionist movement was already at its peak but Schatz, as noted, began his real Jewish creation in Bulgaria only in 1903. The traumatic event of that year and which probably influenced the ideological and iconographic transformation of his artistic direction was the Kishinev pogroms. These pogroms were not only crucial in the history of Zionism, influencing the fate of many; they also produced a rift in the soul and work of the founder of Bezalel. In 1903-1904, Schatz produced a series of reliefs on Jewish figures and customs and on Jewish life in the Pale. Among these reliefs were "Havdalah," "Midnight", "Kabbalat Shabbat," The Blessing of the Rabbi", "Shadhan," "The Messiah," "One of the People of the Book, ""Grandmother, ""The First Deed," and "Jewish Mother." The inspiration for these works were Schatz's own childhood memories. In this his approach resembled that of the nineteenth-century painter Moritz Oppenheim, who depicted similar subjects also drawn from his childhood recollections. Oppenheim's work had an object: to remind the assimilated, enlightened Jews of what was positive and beautiful in Jewish existence. While Schatz's series of reliefs was a personal, spontaneous reaction, a kind of "repentance" on his part, they too served a purpose: to deepen the Jewish- national sentiment of his spectators. This is evident in the numerous copies he made of the reliefs and by the many reproductions and books in which lie later published them. The fact that Schatz chose to emphasize Diaspora life links him to the ideology of Ahad Ha'am who believed that Jewish culture included not only the Bible but also the culture of the Diaspora, which was no less important. During his last years in Bulgaria, Schatz also produced a number of relief portraits of leading Jewish figures including Herzl, the Wolffsohns, Warburg and the painter Lillian. These portraits show his involvement with the Zionist circles which were linked to the foundation of Bezalel. In 1905 he made a relief entitled "Samson and Delilah" which he gave to his daughter Angela. The subject of betrayal implicit in the Samson motif, and the family context — the gift to his daughter - are related to a highly traumatic event in Schatz's life: his wife ran off with his student Andrea Nicoloff, who subsequently became Bulgaria's national sculptor. This event was connected to Schatz's departure from Bulgaria. In his first five years in Eretz Israel, Schatz was too busy with the running of Bezalel and with public affairs to be able to devote much time to his own art. In 1911 he married Dr. Olga (Zehava) Pevsner, and in the same year he sculpted "Jeremiah" and "Moses." Between 1913-1914 he once again dealt with subjects of the traditional Jewish milieu which he had begun to work on in Bulgaria. He created reliefs on the subjects of the havdalah, Kabbalat Shabbat, net Hat lulav, blowing the shofar, a melamed. In 1915 he created models for various subjects connected with the Jewish holidays and a painted version of Jeremiah (this was, as will be recalled, the difficult period of World War I). During the war he also created a relief called "When Will Wonders Cease?" depicting a cabbalist contemplating the end of the world. With the end of the war, and in reaction to the Balfour Declaration, he made a relief of Isaiah and named it, "And It Shall Be at the End of Days".
The war over, Schatz redirected his energies back to Bezalel. Only after matters improved at the school, and he had time on his hands, did he once again begin to sculpt busts of biblical heroes, such as King Solomon, King David, Samson and Deborah the Prophetess (all in 1924), and as before, Moses in various guises. He also produced many busts of Zionist leaders. As was his custom to portray historical events in order to "express the soul of the nation," he reacted to the riots of 1929, in which many Jews were slaughtered in Hebron, by producing a plaster relief entitled "Abraham, Why Did You Slaughter My Sons?" (1930). He had produced an oil painting on this subject in 1929. From 1929 on, his work began to include a greater number of oil paintings. The year before he died he made a pathetic series of ten self-portraits perhaps to create a memorial for himself in a period when he was being attacked from all sides, or perhaps as an act of self-absorption.
Schatz died in Denver, Colorado, in 1932, and was buried in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives a few months later.