Grigorescu, Felicia: Forme de artă în cimitire evreieşti din nord-vestul Romaniei (Satu Mare, 2013)
Glosar de termeni
Hungarian: Készíttette Veiszlovits A. és fia NAGYVÁRADON (It was executed by Veiszlovits A. and his son in Oradea), but we assume that it’s only about the author of the metallic hedge. In the cemeteries from the selected area elements of common arts can be identified, but also elements of differentiation, as a result both of belonging to one of the two European communities, the Sephardi and Ashkenazi ones, and depending of the rite they belonged to, as well. Towards the end of the 19th century, after separating the neologist rites from the traditional conservative orthodox, in some neologist cemeteries capital changes take place, regarding both the form of the funeral monument and the treatment of the graves too, that becomes many times more spacious and in many cases expanding itself a few times and delimiting itself from the rest of the graves through different, most of the times individual, but also familial hedging shapes. This way one can note in the neologist cemetery, but not only, the development of new artistic expression shapes such as one of the wrought iron, used in these new hedging customs of the grave. Beside the classical motifs, the neologist cemetery from Oradea developed at a great number of ensembles of new type a treatment according to the new architectural style of Europe, the secession, embraced by the civil architecture in this zone as well (Pic. 91). The secessional forms of the wrought iron intercept very well the value of the new shapes. As a culmination of these expressions we mention the usage as ornament of iron in a menorah’s hedge. As well, these hedges can be made of wall, with a great attention to decoration, especially of the ornamental vessels as flower plinths. This borrowed custom was taken over in the urban Jewish cemeteries and quickly became an excuse for the ornament’s exuberance. The forms of these vases adapts to the place where they are placed: either built inside the wall, as its edge, on special equipped plinths or natural, case in which they are the most spectacular. The majority are in a round semisphere shape on four legs, bowls with bandy borders, and pyramid frustum with flutings, flower pots, knitted baskets. In the individual heterogeneity, there is a well-defined general unit though regarding the aspects of the Jewish cemeteries in the studied area. The defining elements of this identified unitare:- A strong narrativeness through the presence of the funeral stone’s shape in all cemeteries that refer to architecture and biblical references: the temple of lateral colonnettes type and gable, and the obelisk as pillar seated by Joseph on the grave of Rachel. These essential forms develop uncountable variants but they are the structure around which a unique style has been configured, the Judaic cemeterial eclecticism.- The tidy aspect with distinct rows, aligned, separated by crossover spaces and in the great cemeteries by large alleys as well. These alleys, contrary to the interdiction of the vegetal presence in the cemetery are limited sometimes by tree rows, which is the case of the main alley from the neologist cemetery from Oradea that is flanked by a row of monumental linden trees. In the Jewish cemetery the attention towards the ritual recommendations referring to the compliance of a settled distance, and regarding the emplacement of graves is obvious. These alleys divide the cemetery in zones that in the second parts of the 20th century were numbered with identification plates (examples: the orthodox cemetery of Satu Mare, the neologist cemetery of Oradea). 149
