This painting is one from a series collectively titled "Generation to Generation". Within these works Bak variously explores the interpretation, practice, and transmission of traditions, especially the learned or enlightened concepts believed to be important for subsequent generations, given the horrendous destruction created by the Holocaust. How are Biblical texts interpreted, religious practices performed, covenants with G-d confirmed, traditional teachings perpetuated after the incomprehensible murder of millions of innocent people?
To symbolically represent multiple generations of learned teachers, Bak will sometimes create two, three, or four Chassidim of different sizes within a scene. Here there are four such figures, each wrapped with a tallis standing at the end of an isolated peninsula projecting into the blues of an open sea, a distant hilly terrain, and an infinite sky with floating white clouds…”till the end of time”. The milieu of this sequestered positioning projects a sense of subject specificity while simultaneously engendering a universality of application to any interpretative conceptions.
The three smaller figures clustered beneath the dominant monumental character appear serious, contemplative, Moses-like with their wooden staffs and collectively add generational gravitas to the scene. The principle Chassidic figure, wearing dark glasses, towers as the central focus for this painting. He holds in his hands two large eye images created using the same blue color as all the elements of the background. This is one of Bak’s clearest, most concrete presentations of metaphoric eyes. Two eyes, a complete human set, are held up for consideration. One eye looks intensely forward to encounter and engage the viewer while the other eye, with a heavy upper lid and baggy lower lid, seems sadly resolved to a downcast gaze.
The major learned figure, ironically staring through dark glasses, instructs us to look, more importantly to see, engage so sight can bring insight. In a recent Sunday Opinion article in "The New York Times" (Jan 28,2024, page 12) David Brooks quotes John Ruskin, ”The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way… Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see.” Is this the true wisdom of the ages and the sages? Bak’s art requires us to look into a damaged world altered by the inhumane events of a horrible genocide. If you can see critical moral issues at the personal level offered by Bak; if you can question the who, why, and wherefore of the complex imagery found on his unique canvases, there is an opportunity for enlightenment, an understanding of mankind which may lead to a better world. It all starts with committed looking… then “tell what you saw in a plain way.”
Dr. Carl M. Herbert (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, January 30, 2024
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