From Generation to Generation

Samuel Bak’s recent collection considers the hidden dialogue of generations, with the secret entanglement of different ages. It is indeed a playful cycle, whose playfulness, and even parody, becomes apparent to the beholder literate in Jewish memory and religious imagination. Bak’s images are replete with allusions, citations, intimate references, playing with themes that are as intuitive as they are rooted in Jewish learning and tradition. In his illuminating essay, Lawrence Langer reminds us that Bak thinks of his work as ‘learned paintings’ disclosing themselves, like sacred texts, in layers of meaning cor-responding to the layers of learning. Langer beautifully unravels some of their themes, taking us through the worlds of Torah and Chassidism, to the ‘elsewhere’ of the modern age. Renowned artist Samuel Bak's select paintings centralize strict Ashkenazi Orthodox Shtetl Jewish living, belief, custom, learning, and living immerse in Jewish cadences and memory. A me?i?ah and haunting aura prevail. Bold, larger than life portraits (full, three-quarters, and half size) of ?asidic men and Yeshiva bokhers floating, hanging, strolling in a surrealistic world of empty Torah scrolls, detached seforim, disheveled siddurim, broken chariots, and bellowing fires and smoke. The connective link to these stark portraits is old-new religion mixed with theological issues. Blinded and blind fold ?asidic masters before theophany of smoke, awkward laden head tefillin on faces of age and tombstone heads, face shadows on desecrated walls, and on, speak in enduring silence. Introduction provides excellent commentary and interpretation to the signs and symbols of this remarkable artist recollection of the Yiddishkeit und welt, whose haunting image will forever be. Bird in hand and on the shtreimel – a woven bird’s nest -- guarantee it.