Page 297 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Introduction to the sculpture

men may be based on the teachers who made such a powerful
impression on AR in his boyhood that he was able to describe them
in great detail more than sixty years later. They might also resemble
the older men in his extended family, authority figures whose
appearance would have come to his mind more often than that of
strangers. It is here that the beard and possibly the headgear of the
genre (as well as of the study) male heads is crucial. Unfortunately,
those important characteristics cannot be further analyzed into
identifications with specific persons in AR’s childhood cosmos; it is
therefore impossible to say whether or not a particular shape and
length of beard or type of yarmulke was worn by one significant
person or an entire class of shtetl men. The old-country women AR
carved are static, rigidly standing or sitting in subdued poses. They
are almost icons of motherhood, of homely virtue and
circumspection.
In contrast, many of the “modern” (European or, primarily,
American) female genre types are actively engaged, wearing clothes
designed for non-domestic roles: singing, dancing, promenading,
about to step into a motor car. This dichotomy accurately reflects the
different types of women the artist saw before and after he fled
Pelcovizna. The non-shtetl males AR carved fall into two broad
categories: intellectuals and other “serious” types in almost formal
poses (mostly Jews); and men in action, primarily those pursuing an
active vocation (primarily Gentiles). That distinction follows the split
in his own life between rough outdoor labor and the inner life of the
mind (see David Rothstein’s words on this aspect of AR and his
brothers). After a lifetime of experience in both spheres, AR
evidently felt enough sympathy with both types to want to represent
them equally in his sculpture. He was not at his best carving in the
round human bodies in motion (again, the absence of models was a
factor), but several of the “active” figures possess a vigor and
openness absent in the stationary men in suits and ties who ponder
and pray in silence—men who, despite their modern garb, might be
living in the old world, not the new.
A third type of genre carvings is designated “other.” It includes
many of the exotic types AR liked to observe and comment upon.
His actual contact with Persians and Chinese was limited, but his
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