From Russian-American Jewish artist Grisha Bruskin's "Notes" series. In Russia, Bruskin had been accused of creating “subversive” Soviet art and “Jewish propaganda. But he's said, “We have no prejudice here. Even Russians can feel something for art. Some Russians understand the Jewish paintings and some stupid Jewish people do not. It depends upon the person.” Below is an excerpt from a 1988 New York Times profile on Bruskin:
“It is my intention to create two lines of mythology based on the mentality of socialism and Judaism,” he solemnly declares, while acknowledging the “difficulty of looking at Soviet art with Western criteria.” Bruskin’s paintings of Jewish characters are equally perplexing to some Soviets, though their meaning is not as evident because he has invented his own symbols. “In Egyptian or Assyrian art, there were symbolic equivalents of beliefs, but not in Judaism,” he says. “I was interested in creating them not at a secular level but at an artistic level.” In his Jewish-themed works, gnome-like characters may appear upside-down, carrying an angel, a menorah or a strange beast. Snippets of Hebrew text on the background call attention to the importance of the written word to Judaism. “The authority of the text is total in the Torah,” he says. “It is necessary to know how to read, but the Hebrew text in the paintings is only fragmentary. That leaves the meaning open and equivocal. “Some people have wondered if this is serious or a joke. I don’t want to dot all the I’s or cross all the T’s. Nobody will know what it means, but everybody asks.”
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