Contemplation of any Bak painting begins by seeking a basic comprehension of the content or images presented. In this painting there are three busts resting on a single table/pedestal isolated by the complete absence of a definable background. Each weary, head-shorn figure has a left hand holding a self-replica facial mask immediately before it. Two of the figures are bisected vertically with only their left halves presented and apparently attached to flat wooden cutouts: one with a hemi-facial frontal view and the other outlined by an internal lateral orientation without any specific features. The third bust is presented laterally but displays both shoulders and holds a mask implying a complete form distinguishing it from the other two partial forms. This third figure bares suggestive scarring on its neck and has a floating unattached hand which is grotesquely pierced (stigmata?) by a wooden stake or perhaps a walking stick. There are several reddish spatters or drips on these three busts characteristic of blood.
The presence of facial masks elicits immediate questions of identity. As these individuals appear dead or doomed and each has its own mask, is there a difference between how they were viewed and who they were? Are these “death masks” which allow the viewer to consider superficial remembrance of physical features while the sum of all the person has been and might have become is lost by their death? Given Bak’s life experience, the condition of these individuals, and the implications of violence, the viewer is forced to consider these figures as probable victims. In life they were individuals, each with separate personalities, separate personas, separate life histories. However, in death they become one in the same, buried in a coffin (pedestal).
Bak titles his paintings after they are completed and likes to use the gerund form of an active verb to create certain captions. This subtle device pushes the viewer to remain in an active state, purposefully engaged, during the encounter with a painting. “Comparing “is an ongoing process by both the subjects within this painting and the viewers observing them from without. The simple addition of an “s” creates a noun to formalize the process. How much different would this painting feel if its title was “Comparisons”?
Dr. Carl M. Herbert (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, January 17, 2024
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Influential individuals, such as C.S. Lewis, Theodore Roosevelt, and Mark Twain are all credited with expanding our perception of comparison as the thief of joy.
Here we see an artist's still life as might be seen in the artist's studio. Complete with splattered unassuming walls, an initial read of a hodge-podge of items, and simple pedestal or tabletop. Most strikingly, our items are renditions of the same bust of a realistic man holding or removing a mask much like his own face, but more simplified or rendered. From left to right our man starts from life-like to half wooden silhouette, to full wooden silhouette. This progression, or rather regression, tells us the story of loss in the context of the nearly ominous mask. Our first figure has a propped and pierced hand, the second, a crumbling body, and the third, a splatter of blood across the face.
It is here among this regressive progression that we find Bak's question, which I summarize as such: What does the mask serve? Who does the mask serve? How does the mask serve?
Caroline Staller (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, February 20, 2023
Vilna Gaon Museum of Jewish History (Samuel Bak Museum)
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