Lets take a look at another Hebrew scene, this time from the old testament. Though another warm family event, also with strong religious overtones, this piece manifests a departure from the explicit cohesion demonstrated in “The Jewish Bride” (where I should have mentioned the ring fingers crossing). Namely, here the woman is being excluded from the ritual; those same religious overtones that served to unify in the marriage, divide in the blessing. The mother stands aloof and, though evidently touched and worried, isn’t allowed into the center of events. I don’t think that Rembrandt intended to pass social critique, he merely illustrated the biblical lines in the way he envisioned them — but that makes the separation only the more obvious, and almost frustrating: personally, it derails me, as a modern beholder, from the main theme, and it imposes itself as a competing one. Even more frustrating is the fact that nothing has really change in ultra-orthodox Jewish circles since Jacob, or even since Rembrandt.
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Sometimes I feel lost for words when starting writing about another artist for this site. It feels like I have used up all of the good epithets that describe emotion, intimacy and humanism. I am afraid that I won’t be able to express myself accurately on the subject of human sentiment, because I tried to do my best (and even better, which is not good) when this triad wasn’t the main theme as it is with Rembrandt — what would I be left with? So I place some hope in this small complaint, and will try to scrub the words of their previous given meaning and re-energize them with a fresh one. One must, because if Rembrandt could revivify these concepts with paint, whoever writes on Rembrandt should be able to follow the linguistic suit. The most suitable description for feelings displayed in this piece is how real and immediate they are: they don’t represent any religious notions or any distant mythical passions; they belong to the people, who are caught in the moment of experiencing them. The experience itself becomes the true, sought for goal and value.
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Much has been written and said about this masterpiece. Critics discuss themes of societal alienation, emotional extremes, such as of loneliness and despair, and so on and so forth — I won’t recapitulate these ideas, but rather will try to examine the painting on a more technical and formal level, in an endeavor to trace what exactly enables the expression of these notions. The main artistic device in this sketchy, almost primitive composition is the line: Munch fully exploits the possibilities of this basic tool, and, which is even more interesting, discovers new possibilities, by inaugurating a genre where it would play such an important role. Color plays a no less important, but subordinate role (the black and white lithograph exemplifies how the painting retains its punch even after being discolored). Finally, the painter employed his trademark method of introducing emotional immediacy by confronting the beholder with the protagonist, challenging the discontinuity of the medium by allowing him to “walk off” the canvas towards the viewer.
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In this review I’ll try to figure out how the image of the sun may seem both very close and far, how remote and aloof yet deeply personal at the same time the painting and its impact can be. One thing is certain: the dominance of the star in (and over) this erratic landscape is overwhelming, and it will affect the viewer in one way or another, and most probably in both. This is a violent image, and there is something intimidating in it — the rays, like a spider’s web, try to catch anyone trying to study them. Though the colors of the light are mostly bright and warm, it is the short thick red and blue lines that grab all the attention, disorienting the viewer. Indeed, lines play an important part here; piercing and deep, they run through the entire canvas as if trying to break out and continue beyond it. Consequently, another notable effect becomes the sense of speed — the speed of light — that overpowers the observer and eliminates the calm instilled by the rocks and the beach.
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David Loshak, the author of my monograph, puts a lot of weight into psychoanalytical interpretation. For instance, he expounds the sun and its reflection in “The Dance of Life” as a phallic image, as well as the tree and its reflection in today’s piece. I would like to contend this trend. In my opinion, psychoanalysis is a deeply flawed, or, in other words, a fictional theory, which illustrious, and even less so art history professors inject into their essays in a way of a ready-made template for the purpose of deriving meaning from paintings. Psychoanalysis has been proven to contain massive inaccuracies but somehow still persists in the humanities — I think that the temptation of an easily accessible paradigm that only needs mechanic application is hard to resist. But eventually this is lazy and bad practice; instead of developing an original system of one’s own, scholars seek to adhere to a popular but obsolete (few “universal” truths have been corroborated as such during modern research) theory.
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