Based on readings in the book of Genesis, rainbows have been religiously interpreted as representing a covenant between God and humanity. The first specific reference follows the destructive flood which killed all things living on earth except for those protected aboard the ark. The text describes God creating a new covenant with Noah and all living creatures to never again destroy them and acknowledging the rainbow as representing this covenant. The rainbow has subsequently been considered a symbol for the presence of God and a metaphor for faith and mercy.
As Bak’s experience during the holocaust included destruction of almost every member of his family and the majority of Vilna’s Jewish population, his skepticism about “covenants” leads to a legitimate use of rainbow irony in many of his paintings. This monumental teacup reconstructed with multiple rainbow-colored sherds and displaying a prominent bullet-hole sits atop a stone altar amid multiple barren trees with fallen leaves. There is a weakly colored wooden rainbow interwoven into the tops of these moribund trees reflecting the loss of life and a vanishing covenant.
The bright colors of the teacup may offer some hope for the civility of man to create a new covenant between people or cultures. However, the supporting teaspoon, intimately tied to a powerful rifle, suggests peace is unlikely. Bak has juxtaposed the symbol of a “never again” covenant with realities of a damaged violent world thus demanding reassessment of simplistic naïve intellectual platforms for understanding our world and hopes of making it better.
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