In a Different Light

Book excerpt: In a Different Light reproduces in full colour Samuel Bak's remarkable new series of 55 drawings and painting in which he examines concepts such as creation, cruelty, mortality, morality, and accusation. These paintings are a struggle to understand, explain, and rebuild. Subjects include scriptural stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their various encounters with their Creator; humankind's passage through Time and its changing role in existence; tikkun hao'lam-the enormous task of repairing the world; and Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, at whose centre God's and Adam's pointing fingers almost touch. Lawrence Langer develops our understanding of these rich and complicated stories and of the extraordinary artist and his personal vision.Imbued with the same rich colour palette and use of metaphors for which Bak is renowned, this body of work adds new symbols and characters to the artist's repertoire. Moreover, it asks difficult questions concerning divine compassion, human defiance, moral responsibility, and the role of the artist in society. These emotive images impel us to rethink our notions of history, and our way of seeing the past and present.