Page 370 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Fantastic and allegorical figures

9 Demonic figure *
Wood
19” x 4”

To sculpt this nightmarish figure, AR first hollowed out most
of a tree-limb log, leaving a three-quarters round shell with a
thick base, open at the top. On its outer surface he carved a
tormented and tormenting face in low relief, with much smaller
incised-detail arms and hands below. He completed the
character by joining its flat bottom to a pair of booted feet, and
attached the whole figure to a cylindrical base of lesser
circumference, all of the same wood. The eyes and teeth-lined
mouth perforate the face in the same manner as those of a
jack-o’-lantern, increasing the work’s aspect of terror and
permitting a light source to be placed behind it.

Analyzing this carving is not a simple matter. AR heard many
ghost stories both at home and in the bet hamidrash. Some of
these must have concerned the dybbuk, a discarnate spirit
inhabiting a person’s body for evil purposes. If this piece
represents a man possessed, his spade beard seems to identify
him as a nineteenth-century elder—but he is also wearing an
odd sort of helmet, he ribbing of which strongly suggests a
crown. Further, in his hands are a whip and a sword (see the
narrative for AR’s terrifying account of being attacked by a
Cossack bearing these weapons). Perhaps AR’s demon is a
synthesis of patriarchal authority, Purim mock-exorcism,
Cossack cruelty and imperial persecution. For what use he
intended this odd creation, one can only speculate: was it his
private version of hell or Hallowe’en—or possibly a re-creation
of Christian masks carried in certain Russian and Polish
festivals?

366