Bloom and Levine

In that shattering, synthetic stillness which is Lamont, a moment of warmth has come to pass. Two of Boston's favorite sons, Jack Levine and Hyman Bloom, have a small exhibit of their early works and a few late ones, under the auspices of Fogg. Had the show been housed in the museum itself it would have reached a larger audience, but the event is sweet news for denizens of the sputtering cell.

Both painters have been much acclaimed in the ranks of American painting, with Levine accumulating most of the accolades of late. Nevertheless, I am quite willing to go out on a limb--an unpopular one at this point--and predict that Bloom is likely to far outshine Levine when the benefit of further retrospect makes itself available, and for several reasons. In this particular exhibit, however, the scales are unevenly tipped. Levine appears at his absolute best as virtuoso and as spokesmen of the art; Bloom, on the other hand, doesn't have his maximum say. In both cases this is due to selection, which has put together a far from inclusive group of works, but a stimulating one.

A large portion of the drawings represented are products of the extremely auspicious prelude to these two careers, which began during the late twenties. At the ages of fifteen and thirteen respectively, Bloom and Levine were joined by a common mentor and began to develop prodigiously as draughtsmen. They both took to the old masters, learnt much, and turned out a series of remarkably proficient drawings. Their works during this genesis are strikingly similar; it is obvious that their spiritual mentors were the best.

As they progressed and sought personal vocabularies, the two painters began to diverge in their statements. The loss to Bloom in this exhibition is precisely that his mature expression, of which color is a strong positive factor, is largely missing. The chandelier series, the amputated limb series--harder to take than Soutine's carcasses but fine painting all the same--are unfortunately absent.

Levine fares immeasurably better. The two small canvasses, Nude Reclining and Two Politicians, show the painter at a maximum of cogency and sensitivity. The latter canvas happily succeeds more as a painterly statement than as a social comment. Its small size preserves at once its impact and its nuance. Advocacy can be carried off to advantage in the arts, but it has a way of corrupting all but the strongest. Some of Levine's much heralded larger canvases plead excessively where their business is to resolve. In this respect, a splendid containment and innate dignity comprise one major superiority of Bloom over his contemporary.

Bloom's other major advantage has to do with the attachment to the old masters which neither ever yielded. It is Bloom's very emancipation from the confining aspects of this love which proves that he gleaned most from it.

At a time when anarchism and chaos hold considerable power in the world of painters, it hurts to have to blast a respect for tradition which most young painters of the day need desperately. But tradition can mean a road to liberation and it can also mean a confining dedication to antiquity.

Late in life Beethoven declared that the one old master who might still teach him was Handel. Cezanne owed much to Poussin. But Cezanne's work resembles Poussin no more than late Beethoven resembles Handel. What these men acquired were the deepest lessons of the past. They learned the inner architecture of their field.

Jack Levine's King Asa is a hymn to tradition and one executed with devilish skill. But can this form, as Fogg hopes, an alternative to anarchy and a cue for the future? Such prospects can only be viewed with extreme pessismism. This is the exterior, not the soul, of the old master.

Perhaps an analogy can be made with so many of those flourishing beards which adorn the freshman class, more resplendent than Schweitzer's but less natural and less the sign of wisdom. The challenge which Levine will ultimately have to face is that very true aphorism of Andre Gide's, "Patina is the reward of masterpieces."