Nahum Gutman illustrates stories of the bible / Yoav Dagon
In 1932, as part of his activities as a publisher, H.N Bialik edited “Stories of the bible” together with Josef Hana Ravinski and S. Ben-Zion. He intended to publish the series of the bible stories for children with new illustrations of an Eretz-Israeli painter. In light of his friendship with Nahum Gutman, it was only natural that he will ask him to illustrate these books.
Later on, in the 1940s, Nahum Gutman illustrated a second series of illustration of the bible called “Torah Layeled” (Torah for the child).
When he started illustrating the biblical texts, in 1932-1933, Nahum Gutman was already an established and mature artist and illustrator, but still he was afraid to cope with such a serious subject like the bible. In the book “Bein Holot VeKhol Shamaim” (Between sand and blue skies) he said: “When Bialik offered me to illustrate the bible stories I though that it was both daring and arrogant, to compete with Dora, I refused because I knew I would be accepting the heavy burden of painting for the bible and with this burden also religious questions and Jewish criticism. But Bialik managed to convinced me”
Gutman later wrote, about the preparation to this series of illustrations, in an article titled “How I worked with Bialik about the paintings to his books”, (“Moznaim”, 1959, volume 9 pages 147-150): “Later came another mission, to prepare illustrations to the series “Stories of the Bible”. The early discussions about the subjects of the paintings were interesting and humorous. Bialik described the characters as he imagined them as a child. He remembered fondly his childhood years, and wasn’t ashamed of dressing them with representing object and images borrowed from the view and way of life, as he imagined was in the land of the bible… Instead of painting and illustrate the miracles in the bible – as the bible painters used to do – we chose moments that mark the becoming of scattered tribes into one nation… I also represented the powerful light of the sun which takes over the entire surroundings and I didn’t allow stage lights.
When he finally agreed to do the mission he was assigned to, he decided to emphasize the drama, he preferred simplicity over elegance and excess decoration and highlighted the importance of the bonding to a place by referring to the close east in the past and present. His characters are monolith and the landscape diverse. In many illustrations Nahum Gutman tried to seek inside the souls and personality of the bible heroes. It is specifically shown in the scene of the murder of Habel by his brother Cain, in the scene of the selling of the birthright for a lentil stew, of Esau to Jacob, and mostly in the series of illustrations of Miriam, Moses’ sister, placing him in an arc on the Nile.
His choice of charcoal painting technique allowed him to achieve the maximum dramatic effect that he sought and create the largest contrast between light and shadow. So in the describing of the murder of Habel, Habel’s body, lying on the floor, is highlighted as an almost only spot of light in a sketch all made with the subtleties of dark shades and where Cain, the murderer, is merged with the darkness.
Nahum Gutman actually picked a very different painting approach the one he had while painting in the newspaper “Davar LeYeladim”. His illustrations for the newspaper were in a specific and safe line and has a rather naïve atmosphere. In the early 30s his color palette changed, and he started using shades of brown. The dark colorfulness of the bible stories agrees with the colorful, yet gloomy, atmosphere of his paintings.
The use of charcoal served him well in the dramatic scenes and allowed him to emphasize the events whether it was the illustration describing Sodom and Gomorra, Josef and his brothers, the slave herders in the building of the pyramids, Moses in front of the angry Israelites, Pharaoh’s army drowning in the red sea, or the golden Calf.
In other illustration, like Abraham’s journey to the land of Canaan or Moses in front of the burning bush, Nahum Gutman mellowed the dramatic atmosphere by using rounder lines, weaker contrasts and soft lighting.
In 1940, the new edition of “Torah for the child” edited by Nahum Gavriely and Baruch Avivi was published.
This edition was illustrated by Nahum Gutman in a series of illustrations. Even though there is a certain resemblance, especially due to the use of charcoal, between this series of illustrations, and the series he made for H.N Bialik in 1933, there seem to be a major difference between the two series.
We need to remember that this series was created during the Second World War which shocked the Jews of Europe and which echoes and even more has already reached Israel.
This shock was bound to show in Nahum Gutman’s general creation and maybe even in his illustrations as happened to many other Jewish artists who couldn’t return, in their creations, to the faith and naivety that characterized them before the dramatic events of the war.
But unlike this process which we would have saw as natural, Nahum Gutman seem to deliberately recreated a world of innocence and faith, to mellow the poison and the dramatics that characterized the illustrations he made in 1932-3.
Among the only illustration, in this series, that kept some of the spirit of the illustrations he made in the 30s, we should mention the illustration of Habel’s murder by his brother Cain (Genesis chapter 4 verse 8), in here, as before, Habel’s body is laid as a spot of light inside a dark surroundings where you can barely see outcrop but Cain’s image is already turning it’s back and holding the cane of wondering. A beam of light is showing out of the darkness of the sky and represents some kind of solution to this dramatic event that was described in such emotional power in the early illustration. While in the early illustration we are in the middle of the storm of emotions that the murder causes, in the older illustration there is some kind of accepting, after the act, of the fate.
Nahum Gutman’s bible illustrations were the first complete attempt of an Eretz Israeli painter to deal with a subject once dealt by world known painters such as Rembrandt and especially Gustav Dora whose illustrated books were well known to the readers of the bible. Despite the burden of tradition, Nahum Gutman was able to create new and original images and added a major layer to the field of illustration of the Bible. His painting were born out of the cultural origins of the ancient east but above all Nahum Gutman was able to place them in the present, to deprive them of the oldness and create illustrations of heroes to whom the children of Israel could relate to. These illustrations were part of the developing Hebrew culture in Israel.
|
