Ghetto Comedies

akening grace. And yet, as an artist, I have always been loath to draw a line between the spiritual and the beautiful; for I have ever held that the beautiful has in it the

h my picture of the Man of Sorrows has been assailed drives me to this attempt at verbal elucidation. My picture, let us suppose, is half-a

stic Christ, the Christ who sat in the synagogue of Jerusalem, or walked about the shores of Galilee. As a painter in love with the modern, it seemed to me that, despite the innumerable representations of Him by the masters of all nations, few, if any, had sought their i

y researches for a Jewish model, I became aware that there were blonde types, too, these seemed to me essentially Teutonic. A characteristic of the Oriental face, as I figured it,

in Nature. To me, as a realist, it was particularly necessary to find in Nature the original, without which no artist can ever produce those subtle nuances which give the full sense of life. Afte

. Besides, I understood that the dispersion of the Jews everywhere made it possible to find Jewish types anywhere, and especially in London, to which flowed al

the spectacle of over-dressed Jews paradoxically partaking in it reminded me of the object of my search. In vain my eye roved among these; their figures were strangely lacking in the dignity and beauty which I had found among the poorest. Suddenly I came upon a sight that made my heart leap. There, squatting oddly enough on the pavement-curb of a street opposite the lawns, sat a frowsy, gaberdined Jew. Vividly set between the tiny green cockle-shell hat on his head and the long uncombed

mind, I'll get that old

shook his head in

irt and ugliness! O

g satisfaction with his own conve

the Christ,' I retorted. 'I certainly

us lay now?' he asked, with a

ing,' I said, a

e simplicity with which he was able to maintain a pose so essentially undignified. I told myself I beheld the East squatted broodingly as on a divan, while the West paraded with parasol and Prayer-Book. I wondered that the beadles were unobservant of him. Were th

rriedly and began to move away uncomplainingly

or in my futile search in London I had found that a corrupt G

en I saw that his stature was kingly, like that of the sons of

y scrupulously worst German,

iescence, compounded of a shrug an

in need

d, answering, as I had already found was

ould find you

me to write?' he replied incred

something,' I replied

s if footsore. He did not understand what I wanted, but he understood a pound a week, for he was starving, and when I said h

ael Quarriar, hi

ified the studio. It was thrilling and stimulating to see his noble figu

d,' I, too, murmured, a

ough the days I grew to communion with his shy soul, and piecemeal I learnt his sufferings. I give his st