VOLUME 24, NUMBER 1 ART CRITICISM Art Criticism vol. 24, no.! -" \, f 1 I I I I I Art Department I State University of New York at Stony Brook l Stony Brook, NY 11794~5400 \ ~ The editor wishes to thank Art and Peace, The Stony Brook Foun­ ! dation, President Shirley Strum Kenny, Provost Eric W. Kaler, I and the Dean of The College of Arts and Sciences, James V.Staros, for their gracious SUPPOlt. © 2009 State University of New York at Stony Brook ISSN: 0195~4148 2 Art Criticism Founding Co-Editors Lawrence Alloway Donald B. Kuspit Editor Donald B. Kuspit Advisors Mel Pekarsky James Rubin Managing Editor Leah Modigliani Business Editor Monica Bravo Art Criticism is published by: Department of Art State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 11794-5400 Prospective contributors are asked to send abstracts. However, if a manuscript is submitted, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope for its return. Manuscripts accepted for publication must be submitted on a PC/Mac compatible computer disk and/or via email with the managing editor's approval. Subscriptions are $20 per volume (two issues) for institutions and $15 per volume for individuals in the continental United States (+ $5 outside the continental U.S.). Back issues are available at the rate 01'$10per issue. vol. 24, no.1 3 _. _. j 4 ArtCriticism Contents Imaging the Book: Jewish Artists and the Bible in Twentieth-Century America Samantha Baskind 7 Aesthetic of Reception'? A Jaussian Reading of The Family of Man Monica Bravo 20 Paths to Dissolution: Water and Abstract Art David Clarke 34 Towards Illustration Theory: Harold Rosenberg, Robert Weaver, and the "Action Illustrator"? Jaleen Grove 69 From Destructive Infant to Restorative Mother: Tracing the Vulnerable Body in the Work of Louise Bourgeois Whitney Howell 85 Understanding The End of Art as a Critique of Arthur Danto Rachel C. Parker 101 Arts and Languages: A Comparative Study Orner N. Soykan 113 vol. 24, no.1 5 painting viable on American soil. Famously, Morse's mother rebuked his reli­ gious and mythological paintings from a practical standpoint: "You must not expect to paint anything in this country, for which you will receive any money to support you, but portraits.'? Morse, Thomas Cole, Washington Allston, and a few other artists of that generation attempted an occasional biblical theme, but America's taste for history painting of any sort - religious, mythological, and literary themed - was rare. Instead the major themes of artists became the unbridled land of the newly founded country, portraiture, and genre scenes depicting the lives of the people, if not out of interest in painting such topics then for the monetary compensation such works rewarded. Without a heritage of religious iconography, most twentieth-century American artists also ignored the biblical vein.' Focused on issues of modernism and life in the big city, artists of the past century explored industrialization and ultimately abstraction and alternate media, especially in the second half of the century.In contrast, a disproportionate number of Jewish artists actively engaged in making the Bible a viable means of representation in twentieth-century America. While best known for his satirical paintings of corrupt politicians and other social realist topics, the Boston-born Jack Levine has been just as en­ gaged with biblical themes. In 1940, Levine painted the first of over one hun­ dred biblical narratives, Planning Solomon's Temple:'This ten by eight-inch painting is an homage to Levine's recently deceased father, a man nicknamed Rabbi Solomon the Wise by his friends. In the painting, the great art patron King Solomon talks with the artisan Hiram about plans for a temple in Jerusa­ lem. Hebrew labels identifying the expressionistically rendered robed figures hover above the pair's heads. A crowned and turbaned Solomon, "a symbolic portrait:" of Levine's father, holds the temple plan.t Hiram, modeled loosely after the artist's own physiognomy, carries a trowel, angle iron, and compass." Modestly dressed in a white robe and shown in profile, Hiram steps toward King Solomon. Levine explained the genesis of Planning Solomon's Temple: "My father's death in 1939 started me on the path of painting these Jewish sages. I was doing much of this biblical stuff because I was very much in­ volved with the way the Flemish painted, and the way the Persians did. It wasn't Judaism bursting out of me but a kind of museumology.It brings me closer to some kind of artistic precedent I have my eye on."; Levine consistently asserts that his biblical paintings are a means to work through the formal and material concerns of the Old Masters he admires and aspires to emulate, not a reflection of his Jewish identity. There is no question that Levine engages with the history of art, but his preoccupation with the Bible's stories transcends a desire to claim a place in art history. Of late, Levine has been more forthcoming about his reasons for painting Jewish themes. In January 2005, Levine explained that he is not a religious Jew, but rather a lover of Israel and a patriarch, much like his father: "I figured this out 8 Art Criticism recently. I'm a Jew. I'm a patriarch. J don't give a hoot about the religion, but my parents are what mattered. The Fifth Commandment ... that one is okay with me."" Levine's respect for his parents' faith encouraged both his use of the Bible and Jewish custom as a source of solace following his father's death. Levine's early biblical works, including Planning Solomon :,' Temple, were a means, he said, of "scoring points for my father."? In Planning Solomon's Temple Levine has interpreted a Jewish text and made it relevant to modem times, specifically to his own life. His visual critique, citing the importance of art in the life of his father's namesake, has been reworked in a personal manner and in accord with the methods of the Jewish sages. Indeed, Levine adopts a variation of the two thousand-year old tradition of Midrash. As written commentaries on the biblical text that engage in exegesis but are especially concerned with creating new meaning, in part Midrash attempts to make the Bible's stories relevant to modern life.'?Levine's Midrash, however, has been made with the brush not the pen. J I Planning Solomon's Temple is the first of many paintings in which Levine employed what Michael Fishbane terms the new voice of the biblical scholar: "This new\ voice is also engaged in prolonging the words of the ancient text. .. Schol­ arly discourse may therefore rightly be seen as a kind of supercommentary, analyzing texts with the ideas and methods of one's own historical situation, and integrating them into new orders ofsignificance.?? For Levine, the bibli-, cal story of Solomon building the Temple served as the perfect artistic proto­ type to illustrate Jewish patronage of the arts while also honoring his father, who was always supportive of his son's artistic aspirations even if they con­ flicted with his own values as an observant Jew. Planning Solomon's Temple (and Levine's subsequent biblical paint­ ings) also addresses themes of living in the Diaspora. Levine's relationship with his father was somewhat tension-filled as his Lithuanian-born, observant parent hoped that his son would live a more Jewish life. To be sure, the Ameri­ can-born offspring of European immigrants, as well as transplanted children who did not have strong associations with the old country, assimilated much more easily than their parents. While Orthodox Jews such as Levine's father enjoyed America's autonomy by openly acknowledging and practicing Juda­ ism, the younger Levine chose to eschew religiosity,forgoing his Bar Mitzvah. This generational conflict may have led to Levine's biblical paintings, for as he explained, Planning Solomon s Temple was instigated by his father's death. Samuel Levine's passing also impelled him to engage in at least one traditional Jewish practice; the younger Levine's Jewish psyche could not be totally dis­ missed, for even if the artist does not believe in the religious elements of Juda­ ism, his allegiance to his father led him to recite the Jewish mourning prayer ­ (the Kaddish) thrice daily for eleven months after his parent's death. 13 Of all his siblings, Jack Levine was Samuel Levine's only child to affirm this impor- vol. 24, no.1 9 by fashioning a discourse that did not simply add to the dominant paradigm but endeavored instead to revise and resist it, so does Rivers in this fascinating painting." As a narrative painter in the last decades ofthe twentieth century, as a Jew, and as an artist on the margins of America, Rivers rewrites art history by creating art that negates what has in reality heretofore been the story of one people. Through the adaptation of biblical imagery, History ofMatzah reveals the limitations and contradictions of western art history - which has excluded the Jew's body from the traditional canon. Several other twentieth-century Jewish American artists privileged the Bible's narrative at some point, many in a midrashic fashion. Because space does not permit enumeration ofthe many examples of Jewish American bibli­ cal art, a few additional instances will suffice. George Segal used the story of Abraham's near sacrifice of his son Isaac as a Midrash when in 1978 he de­ signed a sculpture of the story to commemorate the four Kent State University students killed in 1970 by National Guardsmen while protesting the Vietnam War.2J Ben-Zion first turned to the Bible in 1935 with his canvas The Prophet in the Desert, a painting that was followed by many others such as Joseph's Dreams (ca.