Coats of Many Colors

Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any manner of likeness, of any thing

--Exodus 20:4

David Aronson, son of an immigrant Lithuanian rabbi, breaks the Torah's Second Commandment with exquisite verve He not only graves golden images, but even takes them from the Bible Their pinched faces and twisted bodies are distorted with the febrile passion of Aronson's acknowledged artistic influence, El Greco.

Devil's Footboard. That their youngest son took up art was reason for sackcloth and ashes at the Aronson home. His first one-man show drew a drubbing from the Jewish Daily Forward's art critic. Another critic called his seven-toot-long Last Supper, with its disciples writhing as if from indigestion, "a suitable footboard for the devil's bed." Recently a patriarch of the ultraorthodox Hasidim sect paid a visit to Aronson's studio and saw only apostasy. The patriarch's son, a bearded Hasidic rabbi last week came for a second despairing look at the opening of Aronson's latest display of images, graven or otherwise m Manhattan's Nordness Gallery.

Art has always been a rebellion for Aronson. After eight years of Hebrew studies, he turned against the strictures of orthodoxy and started learning to paint with Karl Zerbe. At first he defiantly depicted only New, therefore more forbidden, Testament figures Works like his Young Christ (see color) won him a place in 1946's 14 Americans exhibit at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art.

Fiery Finish. During the heyday of abstract expressionism, Aronson's figurative works lost their audience Meanwhile he delved into the occult Cabalistic thought of the late-medieval European Jews, who saw nature as a deceptive cloak thrown over man's divine essence. Aronson's new subjects included the golem, or automaton, brought to life by magic and capable of either good or evil. Another was the dybbuk, a wicked spirit that can only be exorcised (usually through the small toe) by a wonder-working rabbi.

For his technique as well as ideas Aronson turns to the past. "In a sense, I'd have been at home if I'd lived 600 years ago," he says. He is the U.S.'s foremost master of the ancient and dangerous medium of encaustic, a blend of wax, resin, varnish and oil fused together by heat. His paintings always burst into flame. Says he: "It's like working on a hot griddle, scrambling eggs." The result is a warm, waxy panel more durable and more translucent than oils.

Bronze Shards. Aronson, 40, chairman of Boston University's art department, is a master of many techniques His eight-foot-tall drawings of The Concert show musicians levitating through clouds of charcoal. His bronze bas-reliefs have ragged edges as if these too were shards from some ancient temple Faces peer and hands pry through the surface as if trying to poke through to heaven. Although cast in medieval garb and aglow with the epicurean colors of Rembrandt, the art of David Aronson merely stages modern problems in ancient dress. What Aronson pictures is mans effort to cast aside his graven image, discard his mask of duplicity He has succeeded where few contemporaries have even dared to try in marrying today's religious concerns with the visual arts.

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