Essay presenting The Warmth of Home and New Dutch School series
First published at The Times of Israel, December 9th, 2020.
The Warmth of Home and New Dutch School Art Series
Inna Rogatchi(C). New Dutch School I. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, Chinese red paste, encre l’alcool on authored original archival print on Museum Etching cotton paper. New Dutch School series. 45 x 60 cm. 2020.
Everything is different this year. Our routine, our celebrations, our thinking, our perception. Just everything.
Fighting the array of darknesses – the literal one, the metaphorical one, the psychological one, the rational and irrational ones – we are getting into the new realms, often subconsciously, often involuntarily. When we notice, we are deep into the territories never explored before practically in anything that we all do: writing, painting, composing, creating, inventing, engineering, high-teching. Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Double Yellow. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, Indian ink, encre l’alcool on authored original archival pint on Museum Velin cotton paper. New Dutch School series. 45 x 60 cm. 2020.
What pandemic upside-downing of our world, the global one, and billions individual ones, has done for us is the change of perspective and an accelerated search of new anything and everything. Very often, that new is a form. I think it always is a form, actually – because I believe that deep down, the meaning that we are looking for in our experiments, arts including, is primarily, if not always, the same, belonging to the same range of core matters. Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Gold I. The Warmth of Home series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool, perle d’or on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Looking at the newly discovered prehistoric art in Colombia, that extraordinary archaeological breakthrough dubbed ‘The Sistine Chapel of the Ancients’ , I can clearly see that the meaning of the images created by the people in prehistoric age is absolutely similar to the meaning which we have in mind creating an artwork today. I saw there the groups of people of three, four and five, groups of birds, different animals, imprints of human hands, all this in variable messages of humanity, referring perhaps to a family, perhaps to friends, clearly to a household, and individual reflections. Inna Rogatchi (C). Still-Life in Orange II. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool, perle d’or on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 45 x 60 cm. 2020.
I am not sure about ‘the Sistine Chapel’ in the midst of the vast Amazon forest, but a wealth of human approach in questing life by art images what we see there is all the same questions that were and are reflected upon by artists at any given time, from Renaissance to Warhol. It just confirms that in art, a form can – and must, for the sake of interest and vivacity – be different, but the essence is the same. It is humanity in its different aspects. Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life with Lemons and Lemons IV. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool, perle de janue on authored original archival print Museum Etching cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
And now we are entering the eight days of Hanukkah when we will be hoping for a miracle as never before, all of us. Always coming in the darkest period of a year, Hanukkah is usually a celebration of an uplifted spirit originated from those eternal flames that we cherish from the time of the Maccabeans. This year, the eight days of our celebration of light in the midst of darkness are also close to mark the ending of this weird, impossible, so very difficult year of the pandemic. It is not only the virus that got pandemic, it is also prompted by it encompassing stress upon stress, fears, tiredness, isolation.Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Violet I. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, Chinese red paste, encre l’alcool, perle d’or on authored original archival print on Museum Etching cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
We are strained and wear off. We need a miracle as never before, in memory of three generations. We do need light in extra-quantities, metaphorically too. And we need warmth, the most precious power from the Court of Good, to comfort us, at any given time during this ongoing covid-marred life, and especially so during the Hanukkah this year which is another holiday to be held by the new rules which are as harsh as anything that covid-life dictates. Inna Rogatchi(C). Still Life in the Mood of Orange I. The Warmth of Home series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, hand-applied pigments of gold and copper, perle d’or on authored original archival print on Museum Etching cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Recently, I have created a new series aiming to search for an emphatic role of a colour . The colour that illuminates different kinds of darknesses around us, both literal and metaphorical ones. But not only illuminates – because it is possible to have a light which does not provide warmth, cold light which is a frightening concept, to me. I was trying to create the warming up colours and compositions in these new series of modern still lifes, New Dutch School and The Warmth of Home. Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Red and Green III. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel. lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, Chinese red paste, perle d’or on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Home is an important concept here, for both series. It comforts, and we all do need it today in a double measure. Thus, the subject of these two new art series has become the colour which enlightens at the home which warms up. By setting the artistic metaphor in the subjects of our daily life, I aimed to bring this enlightening and warming up colours of our home to everyone. And what is the best time of the year to do it other than Hanukkah? Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Red II. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, Chinese red paste, encre l’alcool, perle de jaune on authored original archival print on Museum Etching cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Here, I have chosen some images from the both series to correspond in numbers to eight days of our celebration of light and its warmth, to present the Hanukkah diary in pictures.
More works from these series in full can be seen here , and here .
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life with Lemons 3×3. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool, perle de jaune on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 45 x 60 cm. 2020.
Chag Hanukkah Sameach to everyone, let’s the light of our miracle be embracing, comforting and warming up us all.
The essay is part of the Inna Rogatchi’s ETUDES ON VAN-GOGH project
First published at The Times of Israel, October 6, 2020 –FEATURED POST
The Russian version, the review of the exhibition is published at The Art Newspaper Russia.
From stickers to sandals, Van Gogh’s paintings have become a super-commodity, so I was most pleased to be able behold his work ‘in person’ in Finland
Corona & Culture
Under any circumstances, a new exhibition of Van Gogh is a big event in any country. The format of Van Gogh exhibitions has been varied during recent years, balancing between under- and over-performing, from such under-expectation concept as the whole show built around just five works of Van Gogh in New York, to the creation of that overblown cosmos based on Van Gogh’ images but having very little in common with the artist himself, as those kitsch Van Gogh Disneylands popular in many countries.
Corona pandemic has changed it all, making those who love real art in its real dimension to become more nostalgic and nervous than ever. Ah, that great Degas real exhibition at the National Gallery Washington DC, just so very recently, just half of a year ago. It feels like six years, not six months now. Ah, those countless visits to Van Gogh museums, that one in Amsterdam, and another one in Otterlo, nearby the Dutch capital. How many times could one visit it? Countless times. How many times was it done? So many times. When it could be done again? Who knows. This uncertainty unnerves, in a serious way.
Of course, corona is not about our real culture’s deficiency only. It is about everything in our lives. But when culture is deficient, that deficiency not only suffocates those who love it. It poses a fundamental threat to those who did not get to love it as yet. Culture is a vitamin of civility, and this vitamin is of a life-depending category. Civility itself is too.
So, when we heard that there will be a full-size real exhibition of Van Gogh in Helsinki, during corona restrictions world-wide and despite of it, we, the Van Gogh devoted admirers, were exalted. Knowing the organisers, we were not surprised. If somebody could do it, they could. Didrichsen family is known as people who conduct their family museum and its art collection to the best, being focused, devoted and able. They also are known for being staunch supporters of Israel who have participated or initiated many charitable initiatives in such support. Inna Rogatchi (C). Becoming Van Gogh exhibition at Didrichsen Museum. Helsinki, Finland. September 2020.
These people demonstrate judgement and will, and it is exactly what was needed to succeed in bringing the unprecedented exhibition in their home-country, in spite of so many obstacles posed by corona-time.
Van Gogh recent exhibitions
As it is known, Van Gogh additionally to becoming a super-commodity, in those endless subjects with printed images of his, from stickers to sandals, has also become a top artist for all kinds of exhibitions world-wide, from those built on just a few of his works, to those serious undertakes as the last international big Van Gogh show in Frankfurt in 2019-early 2020 featuring more than fifty of his works. The pace of Van Gogh shows was breathtaking and over-galloping, providing us with up to 10 Van Gogh exhibitions annually during the several last years. One cannot devalue Van Gogh by the number of his exhibitions, except those kitsch Disneylands in his name, but the theme of Van Gogh has certainly become over-exploited due to such race with his exhibitions.
And then corona stroke. Several important exhibitions were planned for this year in the USA, two in Japan, several in Europe, most of them had been rescheduled for next year now, with no clear understanding on when it will happen. In another mighty set-back, 60 previous paintings from the National Art Gallery in London, including Van Gogh works, had been stuck in Japan after the major exhibition there, due to the world-wide travel restrictions caused by the covid pandemic. When the priceless works would reach home is unclear. The only clear thing is that the public won’t be able to see them for a long time from now.
With regard to Van Gogh works which we used to have in public domain in numerous exhibitions all over the world in progressing abundance during recent years, now, due to the pandemic, we have Van Gogh’s abrupt disappearance, in a shocking contrast. Maria Didrichsen (C). Becoming Van Gogh exposition. Didrichsen Museum, Finland. 2020.
This is against these unbelievable-but-true realities of the current art exhibition world that the Didrichsen Museum in Helsinki brought to public 40 large drawings, or rather works on paper of Van Gogh and two special oil works in their so very timely Becoming Van Gogh exhibition ( 5.09. 2020 – 31.01.2021). It is the one of just three Van Gogh exhibitions this year world-wide which is a sobering contrast and change in comparison with the international culture realities before corona. It is also the first ever monographic Van Gogh exhibition in Finland.
The Didrichsen Van Gogh show
What I call ‘timely’ for almost breathless at the moment domain of international exhibitions is also specifically relevant for this museum which is a private art institution in Finland. This interesting family art museum celebrates its 55th anniversary this year, and the Van Gogh exhibition was planned as an exquisite celebration of the date, both for the museum and Didrichsen family and for a wide public. The preparation for this exhibition took as long as eight years which is not that unusual for the monographic exhibition showing over forty Van Goghs. The choice of this special exhibition was made by Didrichsens many years back. Van Gogh is favourite artist of the Museum’s long-term previous director Peter Didrichsen who along with his wife, the Museum’s current director, Maria worked incredibly hard in order to make it happen. And they did, very much in the family motto: to formulate the objective and to get it done. In this, both Peter and Maria Didrichsen are continuing the line of Peter’s parents, legendary patrons of arts, Marie-Louise and Gunnar Didrichsen who have established this notable art institution based on their interesting and worthy art collection of modern art. Inna Rogatchi (C). Maria and Peter Didrichsen. Didrichsen Museum, Helsinki, Finland. September 2020.
The museum and its anniversary
It is not without reason that elegant, worthy and interesting Didrichsen Museum is known in Finland and beyond it as ‘a cultural oasis in Helsinki’. The family was very friendly with Henry Moore and has amassed the second largest private collection of his works outside the UK. They were also friendly with Sonya Delauney who did sign one of her works to Gunnar and Marie-Lousie Didrichsen warmly. In their collection, one can find exquisite artworks by Picasso, Dali, Giacometti, Miro and many others, plus they brought to Finland and Scandinavia impressive heritage of the culture of Maya.
The Museum itself is known to the public for their pioneering exhibitions of Munch, Moore, Kandinsky, Dali, three unique exhibitions of Maya culture, among almost 90 major exhibitions organised by them from 1965 onward.
The current Van Gogh exhibition is an undoubted crown in the Didrichsen museum’s activities. The exhibition has become possible due to the Didrichsens sharply-thought concept of the exhibition and their unmistaken choice of the partners.
Partners: Kröller-Muller Museum and Ateneum
Maria Didrichsen, the Museum’s director who dedicated to her family culture establishment all her life, told me that after deciding back in 2012 that the exhibition celebrating the Museum’s 55th anniversary would be of the works by Van Gogh, the next step for them was to figure out the correct partner. “ Of course, majority of the monographic exhibitions are completed on the principle of loaning the works from different museums and collections, but there is also the other way of doing it, namely, to find out the partner who would become your main co-author of the exhibition, thus exploring more coherent approach, especially when we are talking on not a giant museums” – explains Maria.
The Dutch Kröller-Muller is a unique museum indeed. It was established in 1935 and opened in 1938 by the Dutch state after the couple of Helene Muller, the daughter of a prosperous German industrialist, and Anton Kroller, large-scale Dutch entrepreneur, bequeathed their incredible art collection which was created by Helene, to the people of the Netherlands. The museum is situated at the island which is an hour drive from Amsterdam. With 100 Van Gogh’s paintings and 180 of his drawings which are actually large works in mixed technique on paper, this special museum has the second largest Van Gogh collection in the world, after the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The Amsterdam museum which was opened in 1973 after the Van Gogh family bequeathed their family collection to the state back in 1962, with their 200 Van Gogh’s paintings, started to function 35 years later than Kroller-Muller, which was the museum with the largest Van Gogh collection in the world for 35 years.
Such an impressive collection of Van Gogh was passionately collected by Helene Kroller-Muller who was one of the most enthusiastic Van Gogh devotees world-wide. Her attitude towards Van Gogh’s works was personal, deep, and fine in her encompassing love for the artist.
What is amazing in the exhibition organised by the Didrichsen Museum in Helsinki now is the similarity of the two institutions, two private art museums, the one in Finland and the other one in the Netherlands. Both are privately run, both are based on family collections, both have quite similar understanding and feeling of how a private top art museum should function. And to full amazement of those who are keen to detail, even the architecture of two buildings, one constructed in the 1930s in the Dutch Otterlo, and another built thirty years later in Finland, are very similar, as well. It tells you why the several years of cooperation between these two European art establishments went on so well, not only on a professional, but also on a personal level. This mutual understanding has become a very important factor of this successful endeavour.
The other partner in the Didrichsen live Van Gogh exhibition in Helsinki is Ateneum, the Finnish National Art Gallery. They graciously loaned for the exhibition their own gem, the only work of Van Gogh in Finland, the one of the two oil works in this exhibition. The Ateneum work has an extraordinary story of itself, as many works by Van Gogh.
Concept: Van Gogh’s places and his efforts
The concept of this exhibition is logical and clear one: it shows the way of self-improvement of Van Gogh the artist via 40 of his large drawings highlighted by two oil paintings as ‘a resume’ of the viewing tour.
“What we call drawings in this display, are not necessarily or only drawings, actually, – Maria Didrichsen commented to me. – Most of these works are executed by Van Gogh in what we now call mixed technique, with several mediums used together, as pencil, coal, gouache, ink, pastel, watercolour and wash in various colours. These works are much more than mere ‘drawings’, they are complex stages of artistic self-improvement of Van Gogh during the last decade of his life” – said Maria.
Yes, this last decade of that life of that man and that artist. How on earth during nine years an artist can produce this amount of works of that quality, those 1300 drawings and those 850 paintings that Van Gogh did? This is the one of the biggest mysteries in the whole history of art, which adds the magnetism to the most magnetic artist humanity produced. Maria Didrichsen (C). Becoming Van Gogh exposition at the Didrichsen Museum. Helsinki, Finland. 2020.
In her Opening Remarks sent to the ceremony in Helsinki in September 2020, Dr Lisette Pelser , director of Kroller-Muller Museum, has emphasised: “ This exhibition ( at the Didrichsen Museum) offers a unique insight into Van Gogh’s decisive, formative years. Even with us, in the Kröller-Müller Museum, this cannot be seen and experienced as extensively in our Van Gogh gallery!” ( Speech by Dr Pelsers, 5th September 2020, Helsinki, Didrichsen Museum).
Top level presentation
The execution of this rare exhibition is quite compelling. It has been produced to meet the world-class standards, in all details and aspects, from the exhibition composition till the classy catalogue. The exhibition scrupulously met all highest and toughest standards of security and art work preservation. At the time of corona, it also met all necessary requirements for the covid regulations which are doable in such a responsible public and highly organised country as Finland is, but still is a tough challenge.
I was very glad to see growing queue to see Van Gogh’s works live, and to learn that this long queue is a permanent feature of the exhibition which is visited by 600 people daily which is a record among the very well attend top exhibitions at the Didrichsen museum, not to speak about culture event in the time of corona in Finland and elsewhere.
The visitors are awarded for their queuing. This exhibition is the very rare one where one can see Van Gogh’s works from quite close distance, to be able to recognise his signatures in unparalleled live life experience, even to see the prints of his fingers in a blue paint that he clumsily left on one of his drawings while signing it. The way in which Didrichsens presented their exhibition is like to be privileged to get into the Van Gogh studio, whatever small chamber it was during different periods of those last nine years of his life, and to see the details of his work as if emerging in front of your eyes, right now and here. Amazing effect of possibility to see the works from a fairly close distance.
The Didrichsen team has produced not only a very good large Introduction panel which is a must at serious exhibition, but also they were intrigued by Van Gogh’s Europe-trotting in his unusually for that period so intense travel and changing the places of living and being. As a telling element of the exposition, a large map has been artistically and tastefully produced which has become a fresh and attractive point of reference for everyone who visits the exhibition.
Highlights
Walking through the exposition – and being lucky to have very thorough and well-prepared guides commenting on every single work exhibited – the exhibition’s visitors are able to follow the way of Van Gogh’s self-work as an artist, from one of his first drawings onward.
That drawing is truly touching one, and very personal too. It is known that when Helene Kroller-Muller saw it, she was smitten. She said that she ‘started to feel physically the emotions that Van Gogh had” while drawing this simple but very warm and reflective work.
Collection Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands. (C) Authorised media collection, Didrichsen Museum.Vincent Van Gogh. Corner of a Garden. June 1881. Collection Koller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. Authorised media selection. Didrichsen Museum.
In so many works exhibited in Helsinki, the hands of people portrayed by Van Gogh are the focus of his works. In this, one can see the unmistaken echo of Rembrandt who was in Van Gogh’s thoughts permanently, even when he was not drawing or painting. Rembrandt was a central planet of Van Gogh’s cosmic system, so to say. In so many of his letters, the stream of his thought, not necessarily directly or immediately connected to his own art work, starts from Rembrandt who was a formatting part of Van Gogh’s both consciousness and subconsciousness , which is not surprising given the fact that the unique artist, Rembrandt who did revolutionised visual art, was a principle authority for many star-artists before and after Van Gogh. What is interesting in this exhibition is the fact that this major influence of Rembrandt is so visible in the collection of Van Gogh’s works selected for the exposition.
In these works it is also obvious that Van Gogh who started to be professionally familiar with art from the age of 15 when he began to work as an art-dealer helping his uncle, and who was largely self-taught, had no difficulties neither with light which is an essential stumbling point for any beginning artist. His ability to paint cloth yet in his early experimenting works are surprisingly convincing, too.
At the same time, from an impressive and comprehensive selection of works on the wall in Helsinki, one can easily detect Van Gogh’s struggling with anatomy in his works and invalid proportions of the human body all over it. Interestingly enough, the exhibition’s organisers have selected the works which shows both Van Gogh’s problems with his art works, and his progress as he was working frantically. This is a rare and interesting line in curatorial thinking.
Vincent’s chair: his logo
Rare Van Gogh’s exhibition avoids his famous chair, if only because of the fact that he was drawing and painting it almost everywhere in his works. Only the exhibitions covering his Sunflowers and landscapes are chair-less ones. The exhibition at the Didrichsen museum is full of that chair, completed, not completed, but so often present. I have always thought that this chair of his was Van Gogh’s logo.
There is a theory by the ever-inventive prolific art critic Waldemar Januszczak that connects that famous Vincent’s chair to the artist’s fascination with Charles Dickens and that regard Van Gogh’s obsession with the one and the same chair as his homage to Dickens, the one of the writers who did impress him a lot. Januszczak builds his case on the popular at the time lithograph of Dickens’ study, with a chair in the centre, that Van Gogh had decorated his London lodging with. With all due respect to superb Waldermar Januszczak, this theory seems like an over-stretched one to me. Van Gogh did like Dickens indeed, and writers did influence him greatly, but there were several if not many writers in the literary Panteon that Van Gogh has selected and built up, metaphorically, for himself. And Van Gogh indeed, paid a huge attention to visual images of all kinds surrounding himself with it during all his life, as a dutiful student which he actually was at any stage of his life. That lithograph on his wall in London, in my view, was more like a happy bell singing in unison with his own world, his own chair, the sign of his inner inter-connection with one of his favourite writers via supposedly mundane detail of a chair. Because for Vincent, his chair always was anything but mundane. He was painting sitting on it, you see, metaphorically too, that’s why it has become his ‘logo’. It was his symbol of his belonging to artists, being an artist. That’s why the chair, the one and the same, the symbol and the logo, is everywhere.
Vincent’s TreesVincent Van Gogh. Road with Pollard Willows. October 1881. Collection Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
The exhibition in Helsinki shows just one work portraying Van Gogh’s famous trees, there are many more people and some landscapes at this exhibition. But the early work in which Van Gogh paints his poetic, as if speaking trees, is selected very precisely. In his soulful perception of the outside world, Van Gogh always firmly believed that trees in particular are soulful creatures. He would go as far as to compare trees with people’s characters, pointing out that every tree’s shape tells about its inner character: he saw shy, nervous, unsure, contemplating, sure, boasting, and all kinds of trees, projecting the features of human characters onto them. To me, it sounds perfectly correct, but we know that among his artistic colleagues, including French Impressionists who loved and understood nature, Van Gogh was in solitude in his perception of trees. I wonder on had he ever heard about Jewish Mystics’ understanding of the soulfulness of trees and every other living creature? I won’t be surprised if he did. He read the Bible feverishly during some periods of his life, knew the Old Testament and Psalms extremely well, was the son and grandson of the Protestant priests with their reverend attitude towards the Old Testament, and wanted to be a priest himself at a certain stage of his life. In any case, his trees are a certified wonder of the world, and the early work shown at the Didrichsen Museum exhibition proves it graciously.
Lessons of Human Typology
In predominantly portraits-contained Becoming Van Gogh show in Helsinki one can see quite clearly Van Gogh’s efforts of infusing his depiction of people with psychological rendition of it. Not only did he struggle with anatomic proportions, correct depiction of features of human faces ( not to speak about their figures), but admirably, since early stages of his express time-wise, mostly self-taught craft-course, he was clearly occupied with conveying psychological references in his portraits. There is no question that his unusual immersion of the world of literature which was everything for Vincent at any stage of his life, had to do with his sublime interest in the inner depth of the human soul. At this exhibition, we can see it in Man with An Eye-Bandage portrait and even in his colour Scene in the Church which many experts interpret as ‘a caricature’. I disagree with such interpretation.Vincent Van Gogh. Man with Eye Bandage. December 1882. Collection Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
And certainly in two stunning portraits of his Sien, the only woman in his life with whom he lived together in an effort to build a family and home, even if shortly, for a bit over a year. Sien, who was a hard working prostitute with children, was not a beauty. Tellingly, Vincent’s perception of beauty with regard to nature was drastically different with his regard to women, especially to the women in his romantic life who all did look similar, actually ( his cousin, Sien, and couple of more of those whom he had relationships with) : dark completion, older than himself, with powerful features of face and body. Vincent who was a very wholesome person, evidently built up his own ideal of a woman that he felt attraction to; or it was the chemistry that worked its way between him and his type of woman. Vincent Van Gogh. Sitting Woman. April-May 1882. Collection Kroller-Muller, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
When his relationships, always difficult ones with all of them, were on a sunny side, he produced such outstanding works as we have a luxury to observe at the exhibition in Helsinki. On both of those portraits, Sien is depicted being much prettier than she actually was. Not surprisingly. Vincent was incurable romantic, as we know. Thank Heaven, he was, with such mighty, incomprehensible, unique talent. Not only these and alike works of Van Gogh show us what love in heart can do with talent in hand, but these works are among the most expressive, charming and convincing evidences of how love can transform its subject.
Millet inspiration
Among the works in Helsinki, there are many genre scenes and portraits of people while working which were not only the cases of perpetual self-master-class of Vincent to Van Gogh, but also an intentional demonstration of his solidarity with the working class and people working at all possible situations. He did draw them in such a prevailing number on purpose. It was his way of expressing his solidarity and compassion with them. Van Gogh was a very good man, importantly. Vincent Van Gogh. Man Near Fireplace. Collection Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
In all those works, a giant influence of Millet is super-evident in the selection shown at the Didrichsen Museum, and according to Maria Didrichsen, “it was done on purpose, in order to emphasise that special treat in the very process of Van Gogh becoming a superb master”. People visiting the exhibition are really gleaned to the works where Millet’s presence is strongly evident, but where Van Gogh is very much mastering his own way. These are truly gems of the exhibition, both historically and intimately as they are as inviting us into the inner world of Van Gogh and explaining us his way to artistic Olympus. One more work selected for the exhibition has a historic reference, A Boy With Sickle (1881) is notably the first Van Gogh’s watercolour.
Clear line of unhappiness
The exhibition in Helsinki impacts its visitors in a powerful way not only because it succeeded in bringing so many original works of Van Gogh in the genius’ first monographic exhibition in Finland, and not only because it has been produced and presented impeccably, but because it has its own line of thought, its own narrative, its own essence of presentation. To me, this essence is a clear line of Van Gogh’s palpable unhappiness, although I know that when developing the concept of the exhibition, the Didrichsen Museum team was thinking on showing the stages of the artist’s development in connection with the places of his sojourning during the last decade of his life.
In this conceptual blue-print, there are five parts of the exhibition which are transferring each into the other consequently, with showing 12 Van Gogh’s works from his almost a year in Etten (1881), the very beginning of his concentrated artist effort, followed by 20 works from his two years in Haag (from the end of 1881 until the Autumn 1883) when he tried to build a home and family, unsuccessfully so; that is followed by 8 works from his almost a year of a very unhappy sojourn with his parents in Neunen; a couple of drawings and extraordinary self-portrait from Van Gogh’s famous, infamous and so dramatically important two year in Paris (from March 1986 to February 1888), and a very special oil painting from the very end of his life and career from Auvers-sur-Oise.
Somehow, through this geography and time, there is one constant in all those 42 works exhibited at the Didrichsen Museum: acute unhappiness of the artist. And this makes visitors think. The genius who left us all those magnificent sunflowers, those blossoming trees, those incredible skies, was such a deeply unhappy person during all years of the last decade of his short 37 years old life, so wounded, so melancholic often, so vulnerable.
From this prospect, Van Gogh’s exuberant colours that he started to produce just four years before his death, his authentic understanding of Japan and its fine philosophy and symbolism, his poetic and flowering world created for us, all this richness and unparalleled beauty which is his unique heritage, all this is seen even in bigger contrast, from yet another perspective: how such deeply unhappy man could create that incredible feast for eyes for us? The efforts of Van Gogh the artist to overcome the depressing drama of Vincent the man are seen yet more tangibly when we can see his permanent unhappiness during that last decade of his life when he was becoming Van Gogh.
Drama in oil
After observing those 40 large works on paper, visitors came to two last works of the Helsinki exhibition ending that classy show. Those are just two oil works, a small self-portrait of Van Gogh and the one of his very last paintings from the south of France.
One can think that after seeing various images of many of Van Gogh’s self-portraits million times in all possible ways, there can be nothing new in yet another one. The thing, however, is that Van Gogh belongs to the category of artists who are incomparably better in life than in reproductions. Any of Van Gogh’s works, especially oil paintings, is a revelation when seeing live, in comparison with its reproduction. The same goes for this small portrait on display in Helsinki. Maria Didrichsen has told me that it was the idea of their colleagues from Kroller-Muller museum to include that self-portrait into the show. A highly professional idea it was, indeed.Vincent Van Gogh. Self- Portrait. April – June 1887. Collection Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
That portrait created by Van Gogh in the period when he was self-portraying himself frantically is one of 36 known self-portraits of the artist. It is small. But it is magnetic. It just speaks pain in its special technique of hundreds if not thousands of very small brush strokes that Van Gogh constructs his image with. These eyes are completely magnetic. They are getting you closer and closer and you do not know how to express your own compassion towards the man in the portrait. It is beyond one’s understanding how pain can be created on canvas so palpably. And any reproduction would never relate the real sensation of seeing this small Vincent’s self-portrait in green. That’s why nothing in the world cannot replace live art exhibitions. Ever.
Unfinished Skies
Next to the small green self-portrait at the exhibition at the Didrichsen Museum, there is another oil painting of this exhibition. It is the only Van Gogh painting in Finland and it has been on loan to Didrichsen Museum from Ateneum, the Finnish National Art Gallery, for which is a cordial thanks to this important institution and its director Marja Sakari who is a known expert on French culture. Vincent Van Gogh. Street in Auvers-sur-Oise. 1890. Finnish National Gallery, Ateneum Art Museum/Antell collections. Authorised media selection. Didrichsen Museum.
That large enough oil painting is important because it is the one of the very last ones that Van Gogh did. It is also special because it happened to be the first Van Gogh ever acquired by a museum in the world. Contrary to the established understanding that it had happened in 1908 for Städel Museum, actually it did happen in Finland five years earlier, under quite uneasy circumstances. At the time, Van Gogh was regarded as largely unknown and certainly obscure Dutch artist, was clearly under-appreciated and completely misunderstood by many people on the top of the art museums world who were deciding on the acquisitions. After serious efforts and with involvement of several major figures who were backing the acquisition, not as much for its artistic merits but in order to help the seller, the work was finally acquired for the Finnish National Art Gallery for 2,500 marks , the sum which corresponds to 11.300 Euro today. Director of Ateneum does not want ‘even to speculate’ on possible evaluation of the work today, because as she said in a recent interview on the matter, the work will never leave the country. Quite justly so.
Another peculiarity of the work is that during a long period of time, it was debated among the experts on whether the work was completed by Van Gogh, or its skies are not finished. Given the circumstances of Van Gogh’s last few months in Auvers-sur-Oise, either interpretation is plausible. In any case, it is just very telling skies. These skies as if speaking with you. Especially when you are seeing the work live.
Love as a Special Feature
As the intellectually charged and fully emotional experience of this unique exhibition ends, and one is analysing one’s impressions, it all deduces one special feature, love. The exhibition Becoming Van Gogh at the Didrichsen Museum in Helsinki demonstrates love and attention in full measure. Love to unparalleled artist whom Maria and Peter Didrichsen regard as the most important artist in the world, and attention in the way of the exhibition’s producing, the way of telling the story they choose to tall, in effort to highlighting Vincent’s movements, both physical and geographical ones, the stages of his artistic development during that last and only artistic decade in his short life.
This exhibition succeeded in abolishing the distance between us today and that genius man who was creating so incredibly 240 years ago. It is a very warm story told in respectfully intimate way, if intimate means attention and understanding despite the distance of time.
Actually, for myself, after seeing the exhibition in Helsinki, I started to call it Loving Vincent. A good deed by the good museum and its able team, so much needed by all of us at this depressing time of restrictions spreading into anything and everything.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Secret of Light I. Watercolour, oil pastel. wax pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, hand-applied pigment of gold on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
Artistic Interpretation of Spiritual Phenomena
First published: The Times of Israel, September 30, 2020
Visualising pre-existence
As long, as there are human beings living in this world, the question about Creation is the essential one in our perception of the life around us. There is not that much distance, actually, from a child’s natural questioning to an elderly’s organic puzzling.
We know the narrative, but because this one is the question of essential importance and very personal meaning, there are as many individual pictures of the creation, as there are people who are thinking about it.
There are also numerous artistic renditions of this ever-elusive concept, in all genres of arts, from music and poetry to visual interpretations. As it happened, in this very case, music and poetry are the two domains which allow an author’s fantasy to accommodate the author’s version most organically.
With visual arts, there are many stumbles in these renditions. How to visualise the world which did not exist? How to portray the conditions of energy in its pre-life stage? How to escape kitsch and get away from cliches? To avoid extremes on the both sides of the spectrum, not to get neither into too light-headed naivety, nor too heavy-headed obscurantism? How to be intellectually coherent and artistically convincing on the subject of pre-life condition? It is a big gamble for a visual artist.
In my own effort, I followed the multi-dimensional character of the intriguing process that led to Creation. I also have realised that the best way of portraying pre-existence is to keep it dynamic.
This is the background of my composition Primordial Elements portraying the stage before Creation in the way it is seen by our sages and in Jewish Mysticism. Inna Rogatchi (C). Primordial Elements: Void, Chaos, Primordial Darkness and Primordial Light. Original art composition. Encre l’alcool, oil pastel, hand-applied pigments of pale gold and silver on authored original archival print on fine art museum 400 mg canvas . Each panel: 50 x 70 cm. 2020.
Four Primordial Elements
The stage of the world before Creation is understood as consisting of four primordial elements, or rather processes which also have had its consequential order.
It started with Primordial Void, the state of total, complete Nothingness which is not only a description of the condition of energy in Jewish tradition, but also is an important philosophical concept which has been adopted by most of the world’s cultures to be developed into various versions of it.
My portrayal of Primordial Elements is subjective and is just one version of many possible ones. How do you create the image of void, not replicating unconvincing ( to me, personally) Malevich’s idea of Black Square?
In the Talmud and Talmudic literature, Genesis Rabbah and Midrash Konen the sages provide for Primordial Void, which they named as vohu, the certain place in the chain of development that led to the Creation. In this understanding, the important moment is that vohu is placed close to the forthcoming universe of water. Such proximity traces the essential source of life close to its possible origin from Primordial Void, alongside Primordial Chaos.
If vohu, Primordial Void is a form of energy which was partially used in the Creation, as it is discussed in the Talmud, that form had had to have some potentials for further development – and this is the meaning of my artistic interpretation of possible image of Primordial Void.
While working on very many versions of possible image of Primordial Void, I also was thinking on a very intriguing and actually quite important subject in the Rabbinic literature, the Cave of the Four Winds which has direct connection to two Primordial Elements, vochu and tochu, Primordial Void and Primordial Chaos. This thinking led to the image I finally choose to visualise tochu.
Interestingly, of all Primordial Elements and from all phenomena of Creation in general, the image corresponding to Primordial Void turned out to be the most difficult subject to portray, due to the intellectual meaning of the phenomenon.Inna Rogatchi (C). Primordial Void. Encre l’alcool, wax pastel, oil pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on Velin Museum cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
Among the set of Primordial Elements, Primordial Void, vohu, has its valid partner, tohu, Primordial Chaos. Most of the time in the Talmud and other writings, the two Primordial Elements are mentioned together although tochu, Primordial Chaos, is addressed far more often.
In the tradition of human thinking and perception, chaos as a term and condition, is rooted in our mental imagination perfectly well. We all know what it is about.
But back to the origins, there are quite specific descriptions to be found in the Rabbinic literature on the role of vohu and tohu, Primordial Void and Primordial Chaos, in the crucial order of development before Creation, the chain of changes of the energy’ level that has led to the Creation.
Probably, the most clear vision of the Sages is reflected in Pesikta Rabbati. It describes that ‘tochu ( Primordial Chaos) stands on vochu ( Primordial Void), and on tohu stands Abyss’. Such vision provides us with clear understanding on inter-connections of pre-conditions of the process of pre-Creation. It also inter-connect the primordial phenomena in fundamental philosophical concepts. Inna Rogatchi (C). Primordial Chaos. Watercolour, oil pastel, wax pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on Velin Museum cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
My interpretation of possible imaginary of Chaos reflects the understanding that Primordial Chaos includes everything in itself: good and bad, potential and impotent, colour and colourless, intense and weak, frightening and encouraging, storm and calmness.
Deriving from this, it is actually quite logical that in the tradition of Judaism, Chaos is namely pre-Creational element, as Chaos, rich with everything with no order and conscious effort, cannot be a life-force but can be a material from which some elements useful for Creation process can be extracted.
* * * *
I find it interesting that Primordial Elements shows stability in their configuration: they are four in number, thus having a model of a square, the most stable among geometrical figures. This stability extrapolates into the model of the Universe of Pre-Existence, so to say. It is also a linear completed perimeter, without openings or interruptions, which is another sign of stability and completion of the structure.
The four elements are also kept in two pairs, with Primordial Void and Primordial Chaos for the first one, and Primordial Darkness and Primordial Light for the second. One can conclude that while the pair one, void and chaos, are complimentary, with the elements co-coexisting within the pair, the second pair, darkness and light, is the pair of ant-thesis. Actually, this pair of Primordial Elements is the first antithesis in the history of human consciousness. It is not only primordial disposition of pro- and contra, light versus darkness is the prime anti-thesis at any time.
Philosophically, darkness is an easy concept to perceive. Visually, it is not necessarily so, especially is the purpose is to get, artistically, into the nature of this fundamental element, and to do it also from a spiritual point of view. The sages of the Talmud, echoing King Solomon, have come with a convincing method of perceiving darkness orienting us to do in comparison with light. Only then people can truly comprehend it.
In philosophical pondering the essence of darkness, our sages in Zohar and many other sources came with a rather poetical conclusion describing it as ‘unfinished corner of the world’. There are many different opinions of what this corner is left for, and we know from history that this mysterious corner is ever present domain of our existence.
In my attempt to portray darkness, in this case, primordial darkness, I was guided by the Talmudic wisdom of the possibility to see darkness by comparing it with light. In this work, every particle of dimming, disappearing light is infused with the light’s antithesis, darkness, within it. As the process is going, the light gets dimmer and is on the way to disappear while darkness gets the space expanding further on. Visualised here is that mysterious, unfinished corner of the world. Fortunately and hopefully, just a corner of it.
In a contrast with Primordial Darkness, Primordial Light is a champion of our hopes and aspirations. After all, it is the element which is known in Judaism as Infinitive Light. The substance which, according to the Talmud and Zohar, filled the space of the Garden of Eden. The sustenance which was lost by Adam and Eve on their expulsion from Eden. The element, which is the different one from the light produced by sun and moon, was in existence before Creation, according to the basic principle of Kabbalah.
If we can qualify light as a condition of life, metaphorically, as a most distinct feature of Jewish concept, Primordial Light, infinite, mighty, full of positive energy, is the precondition of it. This special state and quality of energy is pre-setting our values, and I think that it is the important thing to understand. Inna Rogatchi (C). Primoridal Light. Wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool on authored original archival print on Velin Museum cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
Tellingly, all Primordial Elements are mentioned in the Psalm 104, and it is the only case of this poetic ‘catalogue’ of the pre-Creation conditions and elements in all of the Psalms. Known as ‘the hymn to Creation’, Psalm 104 is always read on Rosh Chodesh, and also during the part of the Jewish annual circle starting from the Sukkoth and until the Shabbat HaGadol that precedes the Pesach ( Passover).
Pre-conditions for Creation
Following the logic of processes before Creation, after figuring out a possible visual interpretations of Primordial Elements, I turned my attention to the key-process preceding Creation as it is seen by the Lurianic Kabbalah.
The mighty mind of Arizal, brilliant Rabbi Luria, and the school of his disciples saw the pre-Creational dynamic, the process of vital importance, in a razor-like vision and with deeply scientific sharpness. In my art works reflecting on some of these views, I was keen to experiment with possible visualisation of the process of the Primordial Light’s self-contracting which has become the primary precondition for Creation according to Lurianic Kabbalah.
Here is one of several variations of such artistic interpretations, with Infinite Light seeing in the middle after its self-contraction, and the rest of the space in a process of dynamic transfiguration with shades of different colours, corresponding to a wide spectrum between light and darkness, metaphorically, too. I think that the important circumstance here is an imagination of the condition in which almost nothing is final, except the fact that the brightest primordial light is almost gone. But the dynamic and inter-dynamic of the conditions of the rest of the spectrum is perpetually mobile in this portrayal of philosophical interpretation of the Lurian vision of pre-creation. It is not without a reason that I have named this work, additionally to its Contraction II mark, as Flight of Thought. Inna Rogatchi (C). Contraction II. Flight of Thought. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 42 x 30 cm. 2020.
In my art series, two central processes of pre-Creation according to Lurianic Kabbalah, shattering of vessels and life of sparks are interpreted in Shattered Vessels and Life of Sparks I works. According to Rabbi Luria and his pupils’ understanding of this fundamental pre-Creation process, in the result of mighty self-contraction of the primordial light in order to provide space for creation, the vessels which were keeping the light, had been shattered. It was the central development in the cosmic process of pre-Creation, the qualified change in the balance of powers and elements. It was the process which set up a metaphorical ‘landscape’ of all further developments of existence.
In this version of Shattered Vessels artistic interpretation, different stages and conditions of the vessels are portrayed during the process of shattering, with wondering sparks of light which had been released in the process and which were destined for a new conditions of existence. There are some allusions to our world of human beings depicted, as well – because the drama of shattering of vessels containing light is projected onto entire history of mankind in general, and effects the life of every one of us. Inna Rogatchi (C). Shattered Vessels. Indian Ink, hand-applied pigment of gold on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 33 x 33 cm. 2020.
And what has happened with all those 288 sparks released from the shattered vessels? The number was defined by Arizal himself based on the gematria approach ( the math meaning of Hebrew letters) and derived from key-phrases of the Bereishit, the first parasha ( chapter) of the Torah.
There are many ethical teachings on the matter by the Rabbis who had based their vision on the Kabbalist principles, from the Middle Age onward. The one which is very accommodative for a human psychology is the theory explaining that the sparks of light from shattered vessels are the main containers of an ultimate light which was the protoplasm of Creation. For those who see the world this way, the supreme purpose in life is to find, to refine, to keep, to cling to, to collect these sparks, metaphorically, in order to restore that initial Infinite Light which had been dispersed throughout the Universe after the vessels had been shattered.
The idea is quite clear: dispersed original light which was transformed into its sparks, has become an ideal for us to strive for in our thoughts, aspirations, motivation and activities. To enlighten our life experience and to present it with a beautiful, engaging, encouraging and energising reasoning.
Not surprisingly, some descriptions of the sparks in the Rabbinic literature are very poetic. We are reading about the sparks which were ‘like sand, like seeds, like stars’ in compilation of thoughts and ideas of Rabbi Nachman from Breslow in Likutei Moharan, and we also read in many Rabbinic Sources that ‘the sparks fell everywhere in our world, but more than anywhere they fell over the Eretz Israel’.
I personally like the way of interconnecting two kinds of sparks: the sparks from the shattered vessels and the sparks of Jewish souls which are widely present in the Rabbinic literature. I think that ‘the common denomination’ of a spark expresses perfectly the meaning of that inner glimpse of the best that every soul bears by this subtle referring to that ideal Infinitive Light, as well. Inna Rogatchi (C). Fife of Sparks I. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, hand-applied pigment of gold, hand- applied gold on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 30 x 42 cm. 2018-2019. Private collection, Israel.
The trigger of existence
There can be endless tractates to be written, additionally to everything that already exists in the Rabbinic literature, regarding the subject of light. Perhaps, it is the most fruitful subject of all.
Within the framework of the project of intellectual studies and artistic interpretation of Jewish mysticism, I narrowed my consideration into the mystical meaning of light. What is the secret of light? – I thought. What makes its attraction irresistible? I do not pretend to find the answer for such a fundamental question. But I am glad to note that our great rabbis, including such authority as Rav Yitchzak Ginsburgh, have noted that the gematria 207 that correspond to Hebrew word ohr, light, also corresponds to Hebrew words ein sof , infinity, and raz, secret. Light, Infinity, and Secret – this is telling combination.
For anyone who is aware of the principle of gematria, it is evident that there is no coincidence here. As it is stated in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), in the words of Rabbi Eleazar ben Chisma, the tanna ( sage) who was also an outstanding scientist, “Astronomy and gematria are the seasonings of wisdom” ( Pirkei Avot 3:23).
It is important to remember that additionally to its literal semantic, Ein Sof is also a special term in Kabbalah referring to Infinitive One, and is regarded there as the source and origin of Ohr Ein Sof , the infinite light of divine self-knowledge, the very essence of the space of energy of the highest origin, nature and order.Inna Rogatchi (C). Secret of Light I. Watercolour, oil pastel. wax pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, hand-applied pigment of gold on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
To me, that secret , or perhaps, one facet of it, can be formulated in the way that the hidden meaning and mysterious capacity of light makes darkness in its proximity to be transformed into something less menacing and more promising, like in this artwork illustrating my thesis. It is the secret of the Promise.
The Light of the First Day original art series interpreting Jewish spirituality and Mysticism can be seen in full here.
A time of dialogue with oneself, Rabbis, writings, friends, and that ultimate dialogue with the Creator which is the essence of Yom Kippur.
First published in the Israel National News, September 25, 2020
The significance of various periods in our Jewish calendar makes our life thoughtful, reflective and meaningful. But there is nothing like a special time of those ten days in Tishrei between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur when many of us are awaiting anxiously the High verdict for each of us for the year to come.
In more general terms, the time preceding Yom Kippur is probably the time of our highest anxiety on what will happen to us, our family, friends, beloved ones, our people and our country in a new year ahead of us. Is there a way to transliterate our inner thoughts in that period into visual images? I think so.
Challenges of the Ten Days of Repentance: in Life, in Thoughts, and in Art
In my work Challenges. Questions and Answers (2020), I am addressing this group of intentions, which are especially palpable during the Ten Days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Inna Rogatchi(C). Challenges. Questions & Answers. Crayons Luminance, oil pastel on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 30 x 40 cm. 2020. Hidden Windows series. Private collection, London, the UK. As the main, or prevailing mental process during that Ten Days period is a self-inspection, I reflected on it in another work, Life-line I (2020). What we see in the work is the moment when a person amid the daily routine is stopped for a moment to check upon his or her own actions and intentions.
Rogatchi: LifelineRogatchi
Inna Rogatchi (C). Lifeline I. Lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, oil pastel on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 40 x 30 cm. 2020. Tree of Sparks series.
Kol Nidrei : Mixture of Aspirations
Since the time of its composure at the Geonic period, this is from VI to XI century, our entering into Yom Kippur has been rendered endlessly in many directions of art and music, from poetry to classical original music renditions by Max Bruch and the others. And of course, visual arts.
I have created my own artistic interpretation of Kol Nidrei in the work which emphasises the strong and unified – and unifying – movement to ascend. What is ascending? Our aspirations for Mercy at the very moment of the beginning of Yom Kippur. In this mixture of aspirations, there are mighty and fine ones, conscious and subconscious ones, more sure and less sure ones, all of them directed towards the ultimate place of our hopes.Rogatchi3: Kol NidreRogatchi
As Yom Kippur unfolds, we are thinking being intensely focused, probably as we can be focused only once a year, on the essential issue, the balance of good and evil, in many of its dispositions – in our personal life, and many other aspects of this crucial balance.
Sometimes, an artist can see it in a graphic way as well.Rogatchi4: Balance of good and evilRogatchi
Inna Rogatchi (C). Balance Between Good and Evil. Crayons Luminance, lapice pastel on authored original archival print on cotton paper. Tree of Sparks series. 2020.
Even in our philosophical approach to life, it sometimes (quite rarely, actually) looks like a composition in black and white, the shape of polar substances is so similar often. It is all detail, nuance, intentions and motivations that are not that visible, most of the time. One really needs to have his or her moral compass in perpetual working order to distinct in often amorphous and sometimes quite similar shapes of the forces of good and those of the opposite, in order to live one’s life decently.
To be able to awake at the decisive moment, to trust your moral compass, to follow it, to change one’s trajectory if necessary. There is no more suitable moment in our annual circle of life than Yom Kippur to concentrate on that balance and to be able to see it more clearly than in a midst of our daily routine.
The ongoing battle between Gog and Magog is also very much the theme of this balance between evil and good, and thus is the theme of Yom Kippur. In my artistic interpretation of this one of the central terms of Judaism, Gog & Magog dynamics is shown in a thorn circle. If the circle would be unthorn, there would be no ongoing struggle between two beginnings, Gog and Magog. The positive, bright elements are directed upwards, thus underlining their decisiveness to prevail over the negative elements. In the work, there are also variations of intentions of Gog and Magog, the differentiation of their strength, character, and self-manifestation.Rogatchi5: Gog and MagogRogatchi
In what does our hope lie while we are awaiting for Yom Kippur? I think, in sincerity. And in the case of such multi-sourced strives as we experience on Yom Kippur, this sincerity does require warmth, to sustain us in our pleas which can be dramatic enough. I was thinking of this enduring warmth of sustenance in our Yom Kippur dialogues artistically, too. It is reflected in my work Life of Sparks I.
This kind of warmth is much needed – especially when circumstances are not easy ones. It could be cold, and complicated, and muddled around us – as we all are experiencing, especially during these weird times of the covid 19 pandemic when our surroundings are not that cheerful or easy going for many of us. It is not unilaterally dangerous, or absolutely gloomy, but it is weird enough to make our life uneasy. The more warmth we all need in circumstances like that, twice so on Yom Kippur.Rogatchi: Life of Sparks
Inna Rogatchi (C). Life of Sparks II. Watercolor, oil pastel, wax pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton Museum Velin 315 mg paper. 33 x 48 cm. Tree of Sparks series. 2019.
Mercy of Understanding
In the special time of year, when we do a year-back check and re-examining our pros and cons, with this kind of honesty, when a human being talks to himself or herself, without having the luxury to create various excuses, the understanding of some patterns of our lives sometimes flashes in the most unexpected way. In the space of this ever-present balance of good and evil, such understanding, even if it could be sobering, still is healthy and truly energizing. It can be helpful and it can be encouraging. And it can be beautiful too, as the process of achievement of clarity of mind is a beautiful thing.
This is the theme of my artwork, Beauty of Understanding (2020)Rogatchi8: Beauty of UnderstandingRogatchi:
Inna Rogatchi (C). Beauty of Understanding. Watercolor, oil pastel on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 40 x 30 cm. 2020. Tree of Sparks series.
Quest
The summary of our different, but still one-vectored efforts during the Ten Days prior to Yom Kippur can be formulated in one word: quest. Soul’s quest. Yom Kippur is the essential moment of such a quest.
With the annual process of self-introspection, we come with open-ended results, and after Rosh Hashanah we just cannot know in which of the three Books we are written for the year that has just started. On Yom Kippur, and all the ten days before its actual arrival, our efforts in preparing, our readiness to change, our striving to hope all come together in this acute quest of our souls.Rogatchi:9: Sou’s questRogatchi
Inna Rogatchi (C). Soul’s Quest. Watercolor, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton Museum Velin 315 mg paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
What will this just started year be like for me, my family, my friends? How are we written, in which book? This is the moment when our quest gets more anxious, but also more hopeful, completely in accord with humanity’s vulnerable, but enduring nature.Rogatchi10 Soul’s quest fragmantRogatchi:
Inna Rogatchi (C). Soul’s Quest. Fragment. 2020.
After the special time of the entire Elul, and with the arrival of Rosh Hashanah, every year, our understanding of ourselves gets more structured and our hopes acquire a more daring shape. By the time of Yom Kippur, our request — and our quest — gets simpler, more open, and uncomplicated..
I have tried to reflect on it from the artistic perspective. One big plus in such a reflection is that it always provides a wide space for interpretation, being able to accommodate, I hope, aspirations of so many different views.
Yom Kippur Dialogues
There is so much daring, but also such hope, in a special time like the beginning of our Jewish year, with many dialogues for every one of us. The dialogues which I call Yom Kippur Dialogues. They include many sorts of dialogues: with oneself, with one’s Rabbis, with some of our writings, with one’s friends, and that ultimate dialogue with the Creator which is the essence of Yom Kippur.
I hope that our aspirations during those different Yom Kippur Dialogues will result for all of us in the assuring and energetic dialogue, something of the kind which I have created in this work of mine, Dialogue in Heaven ( 2020).Rogatchi12 Dialogue in HeavenRogatchi
First published in The Times of Israel, 13 September 2020
Instinct of Soul
During the last 75 years, which is three generations’ path that includes an immediate family nucleus of parents, children and grandparents, most of us if not all of us ever live in such weird reality as we were in the year 5780 which is about to end for Jews soon. We will be still living in this new reality for some part, at least, of the new coming year 5781.
Can people get used to what we are experiencing now: isolation and self-isolation, confinement in many senses of the word, constant fear of getting infected or that your loved ones might be, the abrupt end of many of us normal functioning? I do not think so.
What do we do? We are self-hypnotised by waiting for the vaccine to be developed and approved, but we do know that even with it, it is a long way for our lives to get back to normal. If it would return to pre-covid state fully.
Never before during the period that each of us can remember, our expectations for the New Year were so high. It is so very tempting to close one’s eyes, to pray with one’s all fervor, and to expect that on the day opening the new year for us, on the First Day of the new year, our worries will be gone, and we will be rewarded by the return to our normalities. If only.
Many of us have our ‘own’ synagogue in heart which is with us always. Some lucky ones have several of them. I have two, Ari’s Synagogue in Safed and Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. This year, the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem would be closed for High Holiday for the first time during its existence, since 1958. It is almost all my life. It put a wreckage into my heart.
Still, we do hope. I have an university degree in biology and philosophy, and am professionally working in the field of psychology all my life. Despite these facts, I tend to classify hope as a specific human instinct. And I believe that this ‘instinct’ is the one of the strongest indicators of beauty and nobility of human soul.
Art Excursion into Jewish History
Working in the dimension of art, I found that in many of my works, faces are appearing from the templates of my works. In all of the many works that I have created in this technique, not a single face did I draw without seeing it first in the face’s own appearance transpiring from a template.
My first work in this special technique is shown in a musical video-presentation which is done as a homage to Rabbi Nachman from Breslov and is set on the beautiful rendition of Adon Olam.
In the following years, in the course of my work on a number of series and projects on Jewish heritage and history, the tendency had developed, with more and more faces coming out for me to draw them, in the works on different subjects, from the Kotel to the Shoah remembrance, and from prayers to history.
In the one of two of my works dedicated to remembrance of the strength of Jewish spirit exemplified at the Masada, the stones of Israel are full of the imprints of numerous Jewish faces, young and old, men, women and children. They all are here. It only takes an effort to seeing them around us. Inna Rogatchi (C). MASADA I. Lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool on authored original archival print on Velin Museum cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.Inna Rogatchi (C). MASADA II. Fragment I. 2020.Inna Rogatchi (C). MASADA II. Fragment 3. 2020.
When invited to participate in an important exhibition in Rome, Italy, at the Casa della Storia museum there in June this year, 2020 ( the exhibition has been moved forward due to the corona now), I started to prepare works for the display from the collection selected by the curator.
Amazingly, when starting to produce the one of the works which was already selected, the faces started to appear there. This is how the special version of Cry Heaven was born. Now neither I or curator Giusy Emiliano cannot imagine the work without them. With those faces, the Heaven in my symbolic artwork cries over every one from our six million , and most probably, substantially more souls crushed in the absolutely inhuman way during the Holocaust, in an addressed form. I do believe that it is important to be distinct in our memory on the Shoah. The more distinct, the better. What else can we do for them, really?Inna Rogatchi (C). CRY OF HEAVEN. IN MEMORY OF SIX MILLION. Crayons Luminance, oil pastel, Indian ink on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 38 x 44 cm. 2019.Inna Rogatchi (C). CRY OF HEAVEN. Fragment 2. 2019.Inna Rogatchi (C). CRY OF HEAVEN. Fragment 4. 2019.Inna Rogatchi (C). CRY OF HEAVEN. Fragment V. 2019.
The similar thinking and idea is transparent in another work which is about our Jewish memory about our Jewish people Ebbing, Tiding ( 2018). The title echoes the waves of our memory reflecting on our history, with its ebbing and tiding that interconnects us each to each other. Inna Rogatchi (C). EBBING, TIDING. Crayons Luminance, oil paste, watercolour on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 30 x 40 cm. 2018. The Rogatchi Art Collection.
Prayers In Art: Quests and Answers
We all know that in the life of each of us, there are the moments of praying, even for the sworn atheists. Tisha B’Av is the time of contemplation, not only on our history and its pivotal moments, but, I believe, also on our prayers, both in general and on the things concrete, both in memory of people dear to us, those who have gone recently or a while ago. It is a prayer for the health and well-being of those who are in need of such support. It is a prayer for Israel and its people, Jerusalem and its stones, metaphorically, too, Jews world-wide, those close and far, all 14,6 million. Whenever I hear the statistics, I cannot stop to think about what would be the figure if the Shoah would be prevented. It is also a prayer for all those people who understand, respect, love and support us Jews, because I know that there are many of them in many countries and they do deserve our acknowledgement of their efforts, in my opinion.
My work Prayer II ( 2018) is about a magic quality of a prayer: inter-connecting people and mutually supporting them. This quality generates an extra light in our lives. And it appears at the moment when one does need it the most.Inna Rogatchi (C). PRAYER II. Watercolour, oil pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 30 x 20 cm. 2018.Inna Rogatchi (C). PRAYER II. Fragment III. 2018.
As it happened, the work Prayer Hour has been exhibited widely in its first version, without the faces on the Kotel. It is a part of my Shining Souls. Champions of Humanity project which has many national editions, Brussel, Helsinki, Vienna, London, Rome, Paris, Jerusalem and American ones. The work in question is dedicated to dear friend, special artist and great humanist, late Pat Mercer Hutchens, the brave author of the unique The Auschwitz Album Re-Visited project. More about that rare human and art story can be read here.
Earlier this year, 2020, I was in the USA attending a number of events, including a special ceremony of awarding Pat’s husband, great friend of Israel and Jewish people Brig General James M. Hutchens with our Foundation Humanist of the Year Award 2019 which is Life Achievement Award for both general Hutchens and his late wife, posthumously.
The artwork dedicated to Pat was an Artistic Prize of the Award. When I started to work on it, the faces emerged from the Kotel wall on the template. The first time I produced the first edition of the work which is a special art collage, back in 2016, there were no faces. It travelled to the world being shown at several exhibitions, without it. Now the faces had appeared. I was only happy to draw them.
But yet much more happier I was seeing the people at the General Hutchens ceremony being literally gleaned to the art work which was exhibited there, for over an hour and a half, and to looking at those faces emerged from the Kotel, in a quiet engagement.
Many, if not all guests of the ceremony were completely absorbed by searching the artwork in detail. The connection between the Kotel and Jerusalem and Washington D.C. was palpable. In reality, there are 5,998 miles between the Kotel and the place of our ceremony in Washington D.C. In a spiritual reality, there was no distance between the two geographical spots whatsoever. Because in that reality, the human heart beats geography, and does it in the most natural way. Inna Rogatchi (C). PRAYING HOUR II. HOMAGE TO PAT MERCER HUTCHENS. Watercolour, oil pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 50 x 40 cm. 2020. Private collection, Washington D.C., USA.
January 2020 was very busy for me. I had to complete several important artworks, some of them went to several notable collections in London, the UK. I was working day and night, with dead-lines approaching and being immersed into the intense work. My next in line, so to say, work was a new edition of my existing work of the Kotel, The Dove of Israel, which had been also well-known, being included in my Jerusalem Album collection, exhibited previously at several different exhibitions in various countries.
All of the sudden, the time stopped. The faces started to appear from a known template. More, and more. And birds, and people in their movement, on almost every stone of the Kotel which I know so very well, and which is arguably the most important for me the place on this earth.
It is difficult to verbalise the feeling of gratitude that overwhelmed me at that moment. That feeling is still with me when I am thinking on this special work for me. Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Watercolour, oil pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 40 x 30 cm. 2020. Private collection, London. the UK.
I am thinking of devoted Jews coming to the Kotel under any circumstances and despite all the risk involved, from the time the courtyard of the Second Temple was extended by Herod and until the establishment of the State of Israel, all those two thousand, two hundred and twenty years. Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment I. 2020.
I am thinking of the Jews who were unable to come to the Kotel while seeing it so closely, during the twenty years of Jordanian control between 1948 and 1967. Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment IV. 2020.
On the Tisha B’Av, I am thinking of the horrific days and nights back in the 70 CE when our Second Temple had been burned by the Romans in a tectonic catastrophe for Jewry and Judaism, with these only 5o meters of the Kotel surviving. How lonely and terrified those stones must have been at the time. But what a strength the Kotel bears with becoming the ultimate source of ultimate strength to so many generations from 70 CE onward. Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment VI. 2020.
The believers know it by both heart and mind, faith and rationale, spirit and knowledge. The others have their own sensations, but we all know how many not observing people are streaming to the Kotel at the daring for them moments, and they are so right to do that. Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment V. 2020.
Tisha B’Av evokes mixed feelings when thinking and seeing the Kotel: oh, if only our Temple would stay erect. At the same time, this symbol of faith, place of consolation, ultimate station of hope stays in its self-sufficient majesty of spirit from the 2nd century BCE, being preserved after devastation of the first Tisha B’Av.
It is the most poignant reminder to all of us of what the Tisha B’Av is about, And at the same time, it is the message from the High. The most supporting one possible. Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment III. 2020.
I am looking at the faces on this Kotel and Its Faces artwork ( 2020). I am immensely grateful for being shown them. When our memory, our instrument for survival, is materialised, it arms us with endurance. The whole Jewish history is the story of our endurance. Sometimes, one is lucky to see it in pictures.
The full The Light of the First Day collection can be seen here.
Inna Rogatchi(C). New Dutch School I. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, Chinese red paste, encre l’alcool on authored original archival print on Museum Etching cotton paper. New Dutch School series. 45 x 60 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Double Yellow. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, Indian ink, encre l’alcool on authored original archival pint on Museum Velin cotton paper. New Dutch School series. 45 x 60 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Gold I. The Warmth of Home series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool, perle d’or on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still-Life in Orange II. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool, perle d’or on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 45 x 60 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life with Lemons and Lemons IV. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool, perle de janue on authored original archival print Museum Etching cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Violet I. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, Chinese red paste, encre l’alcool, perle d’or on authored original archival print on Museum Etching cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi(C). Still Life in the Mood of Orange I. The Warmth of Home series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, hand-applied pigments of gold and copper, perle d’or on authored original archival print on Museum Etching cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Red and Green III. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel. lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, Chinese red paste, perle d’or on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life in Red II. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, Chinese red paste, encre l’alcool, perle de jaune on authored original archival print on Museum Etching cotton paper. 50 x 50 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Still Life with Lemons 3×3. New Dutch School series. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool, perle de jaune on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 45 x 60 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Becoming Van Gogh exhibition at Didrichsen Museum. Helsinki, Finland. September 2020.
Maria Didrichsen (C). Becoming Van Gogh exposition. Didrichsen Museum, Finland. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Maria and Peter Didrichsen. Didrichsen Museum, Helsinki, Finland. September 2020.
Maria Didrichsen (C). Becoming Van Gogh exposition at the Didrichsen Museum. Helsinki, Finland. 2020.
Vincent Van Gogh. Corner of a Garden. June 1881. Collection Koller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands. Authorised media selection. Didrichsen Museum.
Vincent Van Gogh. Road with Pollard Willows. October 1881. Collection Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
Vincent Van Gogh. Man with Eye Bandage. December 1882. Collection Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
Vincent Van Gogh. Sitting Woman. April-May 1882. Collection Kroller-Muller, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
Vincent Van Gogh. Man Near Fireplace. Collection Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands. Authorised media selection, Didrichsen Museum.
Vincent Van Gogh. Street in Auvers-sur-Oise. 1890. Finnish National Gallery, Ateneum Art Museum/Antell collections. Authorised media selection. Didrichsen Museum.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Primordial Elements: Void, Chaos, Primordial Darkness and Primordial Light. Original art composition. Encre l’alcool, oil pastel, hand-applied pigments of pale gold and silver on authored original archival print on fine art museum 400 mg canvas . Each panel: 50 x 70 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Primordial Void. Encre l’alcool, wax pastel, oil pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on Velin Museum cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Primordial Chaos. Watercolour, oil pastel, wax pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on Velin Museum cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Primoridal Light. Wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool on authored original archival print on Velin Museum cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Contraction II. Flight of Thought. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 42 x 30 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Shattered Vessels. Indian Ink, hand-applied pigment of gold on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 33 x 33 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Fife of Sparks I. Watercolour, wax pastel, oil pastel, lapice pastel, hand-applied pigment of gold, hand- applied gold on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 30 x 42 cm. 2018-2019. Private collection, Israel.
Inna Rogatchi (C). Secret of Light I. Watercolour, oil pastel. wax pastel, lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, hand-applied pigment of gold on authored original archival print on Museum Velin cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
Rogatchi: LifelineRogatchi
Rogatchi3: Kol NidreRogatchi
Rogatchi4: Balance of good and evilRogatchi
Rogatchi5: Gog and MagogRogatchi
Rogatchi: Life of Sparks
Rogatchi8: Beauty of UnderstandingRogatchi:
Rogatchi:9: Sou’s questRogatchi
Rogatchi10 Soul’s quest fragmantRogatchi:
Rogatchi12 Dialogue in HeavenRogatchi
Inna Rogatchi (C). MASADA I. Lapice pastel, crayons Luminance, encre l’alcool on authored original archival print on Velin Museum cotton paper. 33 x 48 cm. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). MASADA II. Fragment I. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). MASADA II. Fragment 3. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). CRY OF HEAVEN. IN MEMORY OF SIX MILLION. Crayons Luminance, oil pastel, Indian ink on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 38 x 44 cm. 2019.
Inna Rogatchi (C). CRY OF HEAVEN. Fragment 2. 2019.
Inna Rogatchi (C). CRY OF HEAVEN. Fragment 4. 2019.
Inna Rogatchi (C). CRY OF HEAVEN. Fragment V. 2019.
Inna Rogatchi (C). EBBING, TIDING. Crayons Luminance, oil paste, watercolour on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 30 x 40 cm. 2018. The Rogatchi Art Collection.
Inna Rogatchi (C). PRAYER II. Watercolour, oil pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 30 x 20 cm. 2018.
Inna Rogatchi (C). PRAYER II. Fragment III. 2018.
Inna Rogatchi (C). PRAYING HOUR II. HOMAGE TO PAT MERCER HUTCHENS. Watercolour, oil pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 50 x 40 cm. 2020. Private collection, Washington D.C., USA.
Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Watercolour, oil pastel, crayons Luminance on authored original archival print on cotton paper. 40 x 30 cm. 2020. Private collection, London. the UK.
Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment I. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment IV. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment VI. 2020.
Inna Rogatchi (C). FACES OF THE KOTEL. Fragment V. 2020.