Max Weber
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MAX WEBER, born in Russia in 1881, was brought up in the deeply religious culture of Russian Judaism. Coming to America at ten, he struggled through poverty to achieve an education in art. In 1905 he went abroad for three years, and in Paris came in direct contact with the beginnings of the modern movement and knew many of its leaders. On his return to America he became one of the earliest pioneers of modernism, with all the hardships that this involved.
Weber's earliest work was allied to the exuberant paganism of the fauves. But in 1912 he began experiments in abstraction, notably a series of compositions based on New York. Unlike the naturalistic genre of the Henri group, these were free interpretations of the city's dynamism, its energy, movement and color. With parallels to both cubism and futurism, they were more emotional and expressionist, especially in their color, deep and rich rather than brilliant, and in their vital, sensitive graphic quality. In these years Weber was one of the earliest exponents of abstract art in any country, and its most inventive exponent in America. But temperamentally he was (and still is) opposed to pure or formal abstraction.
One of the deepest sources of Weber's art has been his Jewish heritage--that long history so rich in spiritual genius. His fundamentally religious nature began to express itself in his painting during his middle thirties. A mystical note, clear and strong in themes of prayer and contemplation, also pervaded other subjects not obviously religious. His idyllic scenes of women singing and playing instruments had a biblical character that recalled The Song of Songs. His style, abandoning abstract tendencies, became representational and classic; his women were monumental in the heavy, maternal richness of their bodies.
When Weber was approaching sixty his art began to display a growing imaginative fantasy and freedom of style. In certain subjects there was an intensification of Jewish character, as in his Hebrew scholars meditating and discussing. At the same time came a trend toward abstraction, though never again reaching the purely abstract. Objects remained recognizable, but were now used as springboards for plastic invention. Figures were translated into forms remarkable for their expressive power, their eloquent distortion, their intensity of life. Line took on an independent existence, achieving linear patterns alive with movement and rhythm. Sensitive, vibrating, charged with feeling, it was the violin in the orchestration of the design. His color remained deep-toned; few painters know so well how to use black to give depth to their color, or by contrast, value to the higher notes.
Weber: In the infinite beauty and revelation of nature, and in the inherent spiritual and cultural values of humanity, I find a universe of inspiring motifs for aesthetic plastic interpretation.
To safeguard against alluring pitfalls of obscurantism, I eschew vague idiom, false inference, geometric calligraphic maze and color-blind pigmentation.
For inspiration and incentive, I reflect upon the concept and vision, the grandeur and austerity of the great ancients of all races and climes. Their legacy is as modern and living as it is ancient and eternal.
In carrying on my own humble creative effort, I depend greatly upon that which I do not yet know, and upon that which I have not yet done.
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