In Art of Estrangement: Redefining Jews in Reconquest Spain, Pamela Patton draws upon the rich legacy of material culture in medieval Spain to expand the ongoing discussion of Christian-Jewish relations in the Middle Ages. This well-researched and beautifully illustrated work traces the changing image of the Jew in Spanish art and iconography from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries, as Christian Iberia became increasingly influenced by anti-Jewish ideologies from north of the Pyrenees. Indeed, Patton helps to illuminate the degree to which the cultural reorientation of medieval Iberia toward the Gothic world of Latin Europe shaped local thinking about, and depictions of, Jews and Judaism. Along the way, she also offers a cogent argument for the greater inclusion of visual evidence in any evaluation of medieval Christian mentalité with regard to religious minorities. The various works she examines formed part of a complex cultural matrix that is often overlooked by scholars who focus on literary and archival sources.
In the first of five chapters, Patton provides a historical and historiographical overview of the image of the Jews in medieval Spain. The emphasis here is on the changing landscape of Christian representations of the Jews during the thirteenth century. The central argument of the book—that the Hispano-Christian representation of Jews underwent a significant change during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—accords with recent scholarship in related fields that sees the transition of Iberian culture from one that was highly provincial during the early reconquest to one that was more closely integrated into the culture of the Latin West following the thirteenth century.
The treatment of Christian attitudes toward Jews is executed with the stated acknowledgment that the visual culture under review does not represent social reality per se, but the ideology of a certain sector of Hispano-Christian society. Chapters 2 and 3 expand this discussion, exploring the ways in which Spanish visual culture altered general Christian ideologies to conform to a particular Iberian context. This manipulation of what were, to some extent, “foreign” motifs and archetypes, such as the usurer and the beautiful Jewess, reflected both temporal and theological concerns regarding Jews. The new treatment of these themes was part of a process of inscribing difference in representations of the Jew's body—a process that would ultimately challenge Christian theological claims that the Jews were blind, but capable (and worthy) of salvation.
In chapter 4, Patton looks at the blurring of the image of Jews and Muslims in Christian art, arguing that the conflation of the two religious minorities was fueled by new missionary ideology that focused on the shared alterity of both groups. The fifth and final chapter, as well as a large portion of chapter 4, focuses on the Cantigas de Santa Maria, attributed to Alfonso X of Castile, but more representative of a wider circle of artists and ideologues at the royal atelier. Taken together, the fourteen illustrations in the Cantigas in which Jews figure prominently reflect a kind of Christian wish fulfillment that combines sophisticated theological polemics against Judaism and cruder, more caustic invective against the Jews.
The treatment of the Jews and Judaism in the Cantigas has been examined elsewhere, and the discussion here presents a kind of state of the debate. Patton's analysis of the Cantigas emphasizes their symbolic importance as a turning point—what she calls a “sea change in Christian thinking about the Jews” in thirteenth-century Spain. Yet it is not always clear to what degree Spain's material culture is representative of this transformation, and to what degree it actually contributed to it. As with other literary works of this period, there remains a question of audience for the Cantigas, and for Spanish visual culture in general. Many depictions of Jews circulated among a relatively circumscribed audience, although some appear to depict popular stories and images that permeated Christian culture. A clearer argument for a major turning point in Christian-Jewish relations, or at least Hispano-Christian thinking about Jews, would seem to require greater attention to the contemporary influences of this visual evidence.
This analysis represents an important contribution to an active field, although not quite a full redefinition or reimagining of the way Christians viewed their Jewish neighbors in the Middle Ages. Indeed, at several points Patton's study raises as many questions as it resolves. Thus, if the visual culture of medieval Spain represents a process of incorporating pan-European Christian theological ideals into a particularly Iberian setting, what governed the success or limitations of the influence of these ideals? That is, are we to imagine various factions of illustrators and audiences that accepted one or another view? And were those factions determined by region? Social position? Theological, philosophical, or political bloc? Perhaps the most salient omission is a discussion of Hispano-Jewish art from the period, a field of study that has grown considerably in recent years. Readers may find themselves asking how the Jews' own visual culture represented engagement with their surrounding Christian society. To what degree did their representations of the “other” and the “self” develop and change over the course of the High and late Middle Ages? The question of how the negative depictions of Jews in Hispano-Christian art contributed to their alienation and persecution lies beyond the scope of this study, and requires reference to textual sources not treated here. However, as an exposition of visual evidence too often ignored or marginalized by historians of Spanish Jewry, this study succeeds in offering an important piece of that engaging puzzle.
Patton seems to acknowledge as much in her epilogue. She closes her book with the explanation that it is intended to serve as a beginning, rather than an end. Summarizing her analyses of medieval visual culture, she notes that the Christian portrayals of the Jew in reconquest Spain reflect a complex and often ambivalent set of attitudes. During this pivotal period, the increasing demonization of Jews became intertwined with the themes of salvation and mission: If only the demon-guided Jews would awaken and embrace the true faith, they too could achieve salvation. These two leitmotifs were destined to conflict with one another. Patton's study adumbrates, although it does not engage, the degree to which the “othering” of the Jews in the thirteenth century contributed to the eventual abandonment of Christian missionizing efforts in Spain after the first quarter of the fifteenth century.
Patton succeeds in providing historical context to her discussion of these images, helping to bridge the gap between general and art history. She is at her strongest and most convincing when she analyzes the rich legacy of visual culture of medieval Spain and its depiction of Jews. Scholars interested in putting disciplines into conversation with one another will find this book to be a helpful and thought-provoking model. With sumptuously reproduced color plates and a clear, accessible discussion of Jewish iconography, Arts of Estrangement will also be a welcome addition to undergraduate and graduate courses in both Jewish and medieval studies.
