“Song of Songs” – Aharon April, exhibition catalog (Jerusalem – Tel Aviv, 1982)

In one prestigious art gallery I came across a thick book on art under a title which was also a declaration: “Kunst kommt nicht von Können” – “Art does not come from skill.” It was however sufficient to look at the numerous colour plates contained in the book to notice that the title-declaration lacked the question mark which should have been put there. The trouble is that such declarations are not as convincing as they are dangerously comfortable. Too many want to know for sure where does art come from.

There was a time when Ekaterina Furtseva, then Minister of Culture of U.S.S.R., crusaded for the grassroots auto-didactic art gushing out of “the depths of the people’s fountainhead”. With all the vast resources at her disposal and her conviction that art “must reflect”, she struck no masterpieces. Paradoxically enough there exists a parallel between those in power in one society, the pundits of the other, and the medieval alchemists in their endeavour to achieve the great ideal – a formula which would grant the mankind “a glorious future”. To art all three were disastrous rather than redeeming.

As a result, a predominance was established by the art trends which were to advance the artist towards the goal. For some time such magic formula was thought to lie in the non-figurative art, where little was needed save a concept and some artistic flair. But the non-figurative art has its own millennia of history and experience, and it should also be borne in mind that its share in the development of art in general is rather limited. Not on the non-figurative approach alone will the modern art live. Nor ist on a contemporary paraphrase of the Old Masters (and the choice there is unlimited). Is not the “art about art” approach valid? It certainly is, but if such paraphrases increase, art will enter a closed circle.

Many young artists, too weak and insufficiently immune to withstand the overwhelming deluge of words which preach but do not teach, find themselves altogether outside the framework of art.The Wars for reputation – so often waged – are not a struggle for perfection, for culture.Once such a painter as Botticelli, fascina- ted by the theories and the fiery sermons of Savonarola, stopped painting. He did not change. He just stopped painting. Altogether. Fortunately, after many years, Savonarola’s spell lost its power over Botticelli and he took up his brush again. And now any school boy knows him, while the preacher is of interest only a comparatively small group of specialists. Vasari, the famous biographer of painters and sculptors, and an author of long essays on art, left for posterity miles of insipid frescoes in splendid palaces. And yet, in the self-same town of Arezzo, where Vasari lived, one can still see the remnants of the time-devastated frescoes – true masterpieces by Piero della Francesca, who lived and worked there. He, too, wrote. But his subject was scientific: the basic laws of perspective. Try and compare the two.

Once and again the history of art reminds us that all theories are good only if based on the experience of masters – and not vice versa. It is not by chance that the Italian word “Maestro” is relative to “master” (teacher), “majestic” and “expert artisan”. And in Hebrew the word “oman” (artist) one can hear “amen”; may it be so, and “emunah”: faith, belief. “We shall do and we shall hearken”, said sons of Israel to Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai (Exodus 24, 7) which is to say: we shall first work, do and only then listen to the theories – “harken”.

For ages the people of the book were known for their stubbornness and their ability to withstand and select. In the last decade we regularly switch tracks and trains in pursuit of the optimal pattern of a general ideal. It is not by chance that in Hebrew there is no synonym for the word “ideal”. There simply is none. And yet, it seems, that now we are in the New-York carriage. Or, perhaps, no longer there, but on some other track. Don’t they write something somewhere, talk, decide? “Realism now!” Or perhaps something else?

There is something in the fact that the written word is closer to the Jews than an image. There is an attitude for art’s function is mainly decorative. Just as there is a code for those reading the Holy Scriptures, so is there a code for the understanding of genuine art.

Well known artists, the foremost members of the ultra-modern groups and ensembles, leave them to study the Holy Scriptures in the retreat of the Yeshivot. Famous Rabbis analyze painting and sculpture so expertly and perceptively that it is regrettable that the general public is unaware of it.Venerable authors of thick volumes, who formerly loved to wrangle about the question whether there exists or does not exist Jewish Art, now boldly remind us that the works of Jewish artists of the first centuries of the New Era were made prior the generally known models.

Pondering over how the development of the society relates to the development of art, a Russian author remarked that “it is sufficient that all are equal before God. As to society and nature there is no such thing as equality.”In the many-strata society the more active ones accumulate resources. They have time to develop fields of interest, acquire works of art. This trains them to evaluate, and the ability to evaluate becomes a level of culture, thus and never the other way around.

Culture needs means (riches) and aristocracy – not for the sake of satisfying the needs of the artist, but for the sake of genuine demand. The genuine demand not only broad- ens the possibilities of the painter (not always providing him with his daily bread), but also brings him closer to the “hyper achievement”-creation of masterpieces.

Without having mastered the Code of Art, one may say that neither the painter’s brush nor the sculptor’s chisel can express better than what was written in the Book of Books. But if only one could unplug one’s ears and open one’s eyes, and return, be it, to “Ecclesiastes” or to the “Song of Songs”, or to the Book of Job – throughout the impetuous power of Giotto; the heartfelt mystery of Giorgione; the ambiguity of El Greco; the completeness of Vermeer; the humanity of Rembrandt – we shall not want, we shall not lose, we shall not dissipate.

Aharon April Jerusalem, 1983

Job 1998