Object Type: Painting

Dimensions:

Medium and Support: Oil on canvas

Accession Number: 2017.0007.0003

Credit Line: Gift of Babette L. Wampold in memory of Charles H. Wampold

Copyright: © Estate of Jack Levine. Licensed by ARS, New York, NY

The influence of European Old Master painters such as Rembrandt (1606–1669), Titian (c. 1490–1576), El Greco (c. 1547–1614) and Goya (1746–1828) is evident in the painterly technique and humanist vision of the contemporary American painter Jack Levine, an artist who rejected the abstract styles of his era to embrace the traditions of the past. By the time he was eighteen years old, Levine was a professional artist, taught and guided in his career in his native Boston by Harold Zimmerman (1905–1941) and Denman Ross (1853-1935), who was chairman of the fine arts department at Harvard University.

Levine was the youngest of eight children of an immigrant Lithuanian family who settled in the South End of Boston. His best-known work has generally been described as realist social commentary focusing on the inequities and injustices of American society and the abuse of power by those in authority. His figures are conceived as caricature-like and distorted to create caustic satires of those who dominate the American scene in political life and the capitalist establishment.

Although the artist was the product of a Jewish household, in adolescence he rejected much of the ritual of Jewish practice. In adulthood, he began to reconsider his religious heritage and produced a series of miniature portrayals of Hebrew kings and sages as a memorial to his father, who had died in 1939. With regard to these works, scholar Paul J. Sachs wrote that they are “touched by a deep, gentle, tender side of the artist’s nature…he is heir to that ancient heritage compounded of religion and poetry, mythology and fable, which in the great epochs of the past supplied artists with subject matter.”

Levine adopted subjects from the Old Testament as manifestations of humanistic sympathy with the spiritual heritage of his ancestors. As with Rembrandt, the focus in these works is on the emotional content in the Biblical story. The Sacrifice of Isaac (1974) is one example of such a traditional religious subject, depicting an ultimate test of faith. God tells Abraham that he must sacrifice his son as a sign of his faithfulness. Levine’s painting focuses on the terror of father and son as Abraham prepares to fulfill his promise to God. The anguished face of Abraham is juxtaposed with the contorted body and tortured expression of the blindfolded Isaac, his rigid, pain-wracked form contrasted with the regal composure of the ram that will become his surrogate. Abraham’s hands, one grasping at the pathetic body of his son and the other gripping the sacrificial knife, form the dual focal points of the composition and convey the unrelenting power of violence. Within Christian iconography, the sacrifice of Isaac prefigures the sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God, and in positioning Isaac’s body Levine mimics the depictions in historical art of the body of Christ after it has been removed from the cross. Utilizing dark tonalities and glazes of color, the artist suggests the very human nature of conflicted evil in an act that tortures the executioner as much as the victim. With broken patches of light and dark Levine suggests the nervous intensity of two people trapped by forces beyond their control, facing the seeming inevitability of death.

Getlein, Frank. Jack Levine. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1966.