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Recognized and decorated by numerous governments
both on a local and national level, Szyk's reputation is international. His books, the
Haggadah, Andersen's Fairy Tales, and The
Ten Commandments continue to be reprinted.
Museum exhibits are being held and the illustrated
book, Justice Illuminated:
The Art of Arthur Szyk, has been
recently published.
The four
figures [shown above] epitomize the Jewish
cultural and class struggles in inter-war
Poland. The wise figure is a delicate,
intelligent yeshiva bochur
(unmarried student), dressed traditionally
yet meticulously. His body language
expresses the grace and modesty of the
Torah student, ideally understood as an
intellectual and religious aristocrat. In
contrast, the wicked figure is a
middle-aged bourgeois Jew dressed to show
off his aspirations to Western European
modernity.
While the
wise student has no props, not even a
book, the wicked figure sports a riding
crop, a cigarette with cigarette holder,
and a stylish monocle. He is dressed in a
hunting outfit with a jaunty Tyrollian hat
with a feather, an ascot around his neck,
silk gloves and sharp spurs on his leather
boots. His stance is self-confident,
self-contained and arrogant in contrast to
the simpleton who is fat and smiling,
opening himself to the world trustingly
with arms and legs spread out.
While the simpleton is still traditionally
dressed with a small tallis, the one who
does not even know how to ask is a worker
dressed poorly, wearing proletarian boots,
without any visible link to Jewish
tradition. His contemplative expression
suggests that his direction in life is not
yet determined. |
