Page 350 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Genre: other

of bodily parts is a convention in AR’s work indicating a
character whose physical aspect is subsumed by its intellectual
hypertrophy. In this case, the head is elongated, rounded at
top, with features following the vertical lines of the banana-
shaped piece of wood. The brow is furrowed, eyes are open; no
details appear below the long spade beard. One tiny hand
strokes the mustache pensively, the other (separately carved of
the same wood and unobtrusively attached) is slightly extended
in an explanatory gesture; the pose, therefore, is one of
deliberation and delivery of opinion, the exercise of wisdom.
That interpretation is further compounded by the sage’s long
wavy hair and the absence of a yarmulke: those characteristics
reduce or eliminate any specific religious or cultural context,
but leave open the possibility of a biblical model.

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