Page 27 - Studio International - July 1966

Although it is preferable in art to begin by analysing the But for a true understanding of Agam's plastic endea-
works rather than first looking for the artist's intentions vours we need a more specific reference to his interpre-
or the spectator's reactions, in the case of Agam one has tation of the mysteries of the Jewish faith.
to look beyond the works in order to appreciate their The Kabbala, based from its very beginning on an
content. abstract, spiritual interpretation of Hebrew writing, was
Whatever content is there, is linked indissolubly to the fully developed as a system in the thirteenth century. It
plastic expression. This content must be traced carefully. survived throughout the darkest periods of persecution.
It is of course not the simple representation of a figure, a The teaching of the Kabbala sees the invisible in the
composition, etc. It is not even to be thought of as a visible, the spiritual in the corporeal, and the reflection
simple representation in the mind of more abstract ele- of the unknowable God in everything.
ments. It is again linked with the concepts of absence, Agam's 'Credo' is based on the principle of Judaism
disappearance, appearance, re-emergence. Time as a deriving from the concept of the entity of God. Agam
reality never to be known or seen again plays a primary alludes to : 'One Being, yet not unique, until the very
role. word "One" has no justification, for it is everything to-
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