What a quintessential “severed tree” Bak painting! Relying on the multiple cultural and religious allusions associated with trees (including classics like “family tree” and “the tree of life”,) Bak demands an abrupt reinterpretation by presenting these sylvan symbols detached from their life-giving lower trunks and roots. The fatal cleavage means the upper portion is doomed to decay with no definite promise of regrowth from the residual stump. Metaphorically, this death reference has provided Bak with a meaningful method to invoke the loss of individuals, families, and whole communities displaying the extent of this loss as the branches of many trees. There is significant poignancy in this imagery for Bak as many in his family (along with the majority of Jews living in the Vilna ghetto,) were murdered and buried in the Ponary Forest, just outside the city.
To help with intended personification, this painting includes two human forms seemingly in motion but unrealistically constructed to do so. The smaller image is severed and condemned just like the surrounding trees. A larger wooden image within the upper branches of several cut trees has a disarticulated left hand and lacks a lower body and legs, although a detached shoe is present as emphasis for the missing parts. The implied motion gives the viewer a sense of time passing and these events unfolding as we watch.
The large central portion of this painting is dominated by two enormous blue boards nailed together to form an “X”, or perhaps a crucifix, and surrealistically suspended among the floating, detached trees. This unique and specific blue is a striking contrast to the greens and browns of the forest. It is the color of the larger man’s sleeve and as seen in the Israeli flag or Jewish tallit (prayer shawl) is symbolic of Jewish culture. For Bak, an “X” is a literal visual symbol for “X-ed out” or destroyed with additional rotational reinterpretation of a crucifixion in some instances. Here the dimension of this “X” seems to imply greater destruction, not just to the single individual to whom it is attached, but the many innocent Jewish people murdered during the Holocaust. Perhaps we can push our interpretation a bit by suggesting the smaller figure (who is not blue, but whose fate is sealed,) may represent the less numerous non-Jews who were also savagely persecuted during this scourge.
“To the Unknown” is a statement, a powerful visual depiction of the horrors perpetrated during one of mankind’s darkest eras, but without showing a drop of blood or a distorted facial grimace. It might be considered “historical pain” given the technique Bak has used. It is a more universal pain which continues to burden so many in the world today.
Dr. Carl M. Herbert (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, November 29, 2023
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The ageless question of where we are headed is posited in this piece. The two male figures walk off in different directions, but also in different pieces. The legs of the man in the background move faster than his upper body, as sometimes humans act faster than we can think; our bodies powered by instinct while our heads struggle to catch up with the how or why of what has been done. The man in the foreground has faded into nature, his torso becoming trees and the rest of his body (aside from his head, his hands, and a single foot,) are indistinguishable from the greens and browns of the forest. These two men are off into the unknown.
Bak’s brushwork in the leaves of the trees is exceptional. You can distinguish each leaf, while in other areas, the suggestion of separation between one leaf and the next is enough. The variations in hues of greens and yellows hint at the passage of light and wind through the leaves and creates a peaceful space in which these two men travel, from a place we do not know, to another that is also unknown to the figures, both in an out of the painting.
Camila Martorell (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, October 27, 2023
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As if there is ever a known.
The massive X denoting x-ing out, or death, dominates the image.
Two figures are running across this cut off image: trees, figures are cut up in pieces.
The blue figure amongst the branches with a single shoe on the end of one of the boards.
The smaller figure cut in two both rushing to the Unknown.
Just as the events unfolding in Ukraine and across Europe are a rush to the Unknown.
In fact, each of our days is a step into the Unknown.
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