New York Times, June 18, 1999 Back to Bibliography
'Eve's Vocabulary'
Paintings by Deborah Rosenthal, 1988-1998
by Grace Glueck
Eve, in her sensuous depiction by the 12th-century sculptor Gislebertus on the facade of the cathedral at Autun, France, has served as a model for Deborah Rosenthal in paintings done over the last decade. Motifs and conventions gleaned from Christian art, she says, have, led her to make paintings that arise
from her Jewishness, not least of which is a connection to biblical narrative.
But although faces and figures—she has recently added Adam to her imagery—appear in her work, the figuration fits into an overall scheme that puts vigorous emphasis on abstraction and decorative patterning. There is joy in these paintings: the Matissean colors are vivid, almost tropical; likewise the stylized vegetal forms that often invade the composition. In one of the earliest canvases, "The Mother of All Living Things" (1988), Eve's face presides over an arrangement of ebullient biomorphic forms that give hints of other human presences.
More tightly structured is "Along a Wall" (1991), in which an iconic figure of Eve, dressed in Gauguin-esque yellow and blue, sits flanked by two decorative bushes, shaped like leaves with spines of simple scrollwork. Adam joins her in "Modest Adam and Eve" (1995-96), in which the two figures are evoked by simple forms and patchworks of paint, flanking a skinny tree that branches out in pennants of color. In "Male and Female" (1995), the figures are almost as abstract as flames, enlivened by lambent colors played off against grays. The word "religious" doesn't fit this work; rather, it has an infectious buoyancy of spirit.
'Eve's Vocabulary'
Paintings by Deborah Rosenthal, 1988-1998
Brookdale Center, Hebrew UnionCollege-Jewish Institute of Religion
1 West Fourth Street,
Greenwich Village
Through July 16 Back to Bibliography