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Saul Raskin - the Artist A TLANTA lovers of true ;irt were treated to a rare pleasure when they viewed the works of Mr. Saul Raskin, one of the out standing Jewish painters of Europe and America. Mr. Raskin, whose masterpieces may be found in many of the leading art galleries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Congressional Library in Washington, was re cently in Atlanta with his collection of paintings, which he exhibited at the Carnegie Library. The writer of these lines had the pleasure of meeting the distinguished artist w ith whom he had a most interesting and inspiring chat. Contrary to the accepted and somewhat naive notion that artists should look “Bohemian”—long loose hair, whiskers and the inevitable black Windsor tie—Mr. Raskin looks like a modest business man. There is nothing in his outward appearance to suggest the tremendous hidden power of the painter that he is. Me is rather small of stature and although he is just a wee bit over fifty, he has that perennially youthful twinkle in the eyes and agile movement one finds in persons of superior intellect and reflective sort of mellow philosophy on life. Odessa, Russia, was his place of nativity and it must have been in that colorful southern city on the Black Sea that he developed, quite unconsciously perhaps, his artistic sense of the beautiful. It must have been the beneficent rays of the golden sunshine and abundance of riotous colors and the emerald expanse of the sea that left an indelible imprint on the sensitive soul of the embryo artist and in later years permeated Mr. Raskin’s splendid landscapes. After graduating from the Odessa Acad emy of Fine Arts, Mr. Raskin, quite a young man, left his native home to con tinue his studies in art in Paris, Berlin and Vienna. Emigrating to New York in 1904, he embarked, for obvious economic reasons, on the commercial art career and continued in that field with a large mea sure of success till 1921, in which year he went to Palestine. l he journey to the Holy Land was the turning point of his career and his artistic soul had at last found the inspiration it had longed for these many years. His entire being underwent a miraculous change as his Jewish consciousness attuned itself to the pristine beauty of Eretz Israel. The ar tist’s heart was full of sheer happiness and un wonted exhilaration as he stood on the ground of the Holy Land and contemplated the full signifi cance of the country so rich with the tragic and yet inspiring past. Somewhere in the unfathom able depths of his soul a fervent desire to become the painter of the wondrous scenes in the Holy Land was born and decided his future artistic field. As in a flash he realized the sordidness of his purely commercial art and his soul revolted with all the passion of a Jew'. He felt that there w'ere latent powers within him that fought for the right to assert themselves in a nobler way. It was an emotional phenomenon and almost a divine spiritual transformation. The land of his people gave him renewed strength and in the deep recesses of his Jewish consciousness a new light leaped to the fore. It burned fiercely and brightly and it illuminated Mr. Raskin’s w’ay to another and nobler artistic endeavor. [8] In Atlanta By Joseph A. Loewinsohn He was through with commercial art and his steady hand now painted the beauty and glory that was Eretz Israel. There he saw the old Jewish temples that fairly breathed the bygone number less ages and these ancient buildings held an irre sistible fascination. Palestine’s clear white sun light, its mystic green nights and the shimmering distant stars above held the impressionable young artist spellbound. He felt as if some invisible SAUL RASKIN "The land of his people gave him renewed strength. power was guiding his hand to put dow n on the canvas the incomparable beauty of it all. His awakened creative genius was at work. What impressed me most in Mr. Raskin is his unusual versatility. Unlike most artists in our age of specialization, he is equally at home in the realm of portraiture as he is in landscape, nature mort and other forms of artistic ramification. His various mediums of expression are seldom found in other painters. He excels in oils, water colors, crayons, pastels, dry point, lithographing, etching and often in the combinations of all these. The wide variety of subjects, all of which re flected not only a superb technique, but a profound understanding of human nature, would amaze the most blase of connoisseurs. His genre is not con fined to any particular phase of life, but rather encompasses its cycle in all of its manifestations. Yet, in spite of Mr. Raskin’s universal appeal ar ; his capacity for objectivity, he is cssentially painter of things which are dearest to our heart* How could it be otherwise? Perhaps the ve:\ ta • that he is a Jew adequately explains that ineffable touch of delicacy, compassion and depth ot nobi» emotionalism one finds in his creations. Some thing of the inherent spiritual forces that -uidr: us through the countless centuries of our lugubr ous past continues to sustain the artist in his ere. tive efforts. Perhaps one of the most striking themes in the collection shown in Atlanta was a charming water color “Good Yontov.” To me it was by tar the truest indication of the artist’s inner su* ceptibility to the beauty of pictorial alle gory. There are tw’o items in this simple nature mort (still life) : a vase with wild flowers of autumnal hues and an unfolded tales. One immediately pictures in the mind’s eye a high Jewish holiday full ot the festive spirit and an atmosphere ot unrestrained cheerfulness. The colors are reservedly gay and the entire symbolic composition breathes life, hope and a sort of patriarchial benignity. “Entrance to Jerusalem’’ is treated in an entirely new’ and unconventional man ner. The artist painted this piece from the roof of a near-by building, giving an un usual perspective to the colorful scene be low. The motley crowd surging through / the gates of the city and the donke\* / heavily laden with cumbrous packs pre sent a scene pulsating w r ith primitive Ori ental life. “His only light,” done in oils, is also symbolic and the bent figure of an old Hr brew pondering over the Talmud i' in spiring in its air of detachment from the outside world. The light and shadow ef fects are magnificent and there is some thing Rembrandtesque in the striking spectral combination and translucency of •the lighter colors. The painting of “Mother Rachael- Tomb” can only be described as beauti ful. Mr. Raskin admirably succeeded in capturing the extremely difficult nocturnal atmosphere and the soft Oriental night Jii with the cupola of the star-studded heaven above the white stoned sepulchre is en chanted with sacred mysticism. Again Mr. Raskin gives us conclusive pro**? of h is mastery of lights and shadows and the brill iancy of his technique. There is a note of subtle humor and e\en •* suggestion of facetiousness in the etching called "In Business for Himself.” It is a portrait sketched from life, of a Jewish peddler of “baigfb (hard doughnuts) and there is something pathetic in the title of this etching, for the entire >tock of this street peddler consists of a dozen d< ugh nuts strung on a stick. Yet there is something < : the pride of possession and a certain air or i' 1 dependence in the sly smile of the pitifully ;**>• Jerusalem doughnut vender. This clever reveals the artist’s thorough humanness and a daif for humor tinged with compassion. Mr. Raskin, by virtue of his priceless co itn* bution to the Jewish culture, can rightfully " far the coveted mitre of the high priesthood of a rt - * THE SOUTHERN ISRAEI ITS