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Mysteries and Meditations
Paintings by Ted Kliman

December 11, 2000 – February 9, 2001

Mr. Kliman will talk about his work at a Dean’s Forum
on Thursday, January 25, at 12:15 pm,
with a response from
Professor of Systematic Theology,
Kendall Soulen

Aliyah (Ascension) , oil on canvas, 72" x 34" 

I didn’t set out to make these paintings; I arrived at them. As happens so often in art, things occur accidentally. One day I read an essay by the art historian Ewa Kuryluk, "The Metaphysics of Cloth," which illustrated and discussed Leanardo da Vinci’s drapery studies. I was astonished. They had form, yet were formless; they were personal, yet indirectly. They had about them a mystical quality; they were almost surreal.

Martyrdom I

I was inspired. Experimenting, I draped my prayer shawl over a manniquin to see what would happen. I made a drawing as called it "Leonardo’s Tallit," as Leonardo himself might have done.

Next, I made a large painting, 78" x 44", from the same model. In its greatly enlarged form it took on a life of its own, with its non-existent face and loosely defined human form. I turned the painting aside for a few days, so that I could return to it with a fresh eye. Having been influenced by the Surrealists, I had adopted their approach: work intuitively, and look for the rationale afterward.

Dance of Death

When I came back to it, I was overwhelmed. Had I done that? And what exactly had I done? The answer is a simple as it is difficult: I don’t know. All I could hope for was that it had some meaning – for me and for others. Although they have a religious reference, I never intended a literal work of religious art. The tallit of these paintings is not the tallit of reality. It is heightened, interpreted – less a representation than a meditation.

Many, I know, have seen in these paintings a metaphor for the Holocaust. And I do, too. But grief and suffering are universal. The Rev. Norene Smith of Luther College, Iowa, told me: "You have done what many artist of this century have been unable to do: you have named a community for the alienated twentieth-century person." So I would hope that these paintings speak for many people in many circumstances.

Redemption I

The 15 large oils on canvas that comprise Mysteries and Meditations are selected from a larger group of works, which the artist calls "The Lamentation Series." Mr. Kliman has been immersed in this series for the past eight years. While portions of it have been exhibited in various venues in Chicago and in Washington, DC, this selection explores the tensions between lamentation and redemption, between suffering and release.

Dance of Death III

In each of the paintings, one or more human figures is delineated by the folds and drapery of a white cloth, which on closer inspection reveals Hebrew lettering and the ritual fringes of a Jewish prayer shawl, or tallith. In his catalog essay introducing Kliman’s work in 1997, Ori Soltes wrote, "[they] take on the contours of the figures around which they would ordinarily be wrapped, but which are eerily absent, with darkness and void in place of faces and bodies, emptiness in lieu of flesh and bone and coursing blood." These absent figures take on the poses of Renaissance crucifixions, depositions, and pietas, creating a tension between the Jewish imagery of the prayer shawls and the Christian iconography that the poses suggest. The palpable emptiness of the shawls also calls up memories of the Holocaust, in which nearly an entire generation of European Jewry was destroyed. Other periods of persecution in Jewish history are recalled in the titles of such works as Auto da Fe, which refers to the "act of faith" in which a many Jews, as well as Christians suspected of heretical beliefs, were burned at the stake during the period of the Inquisition.

Pieta, oil on canvas

Ted Kliman came to painting relatively late in life, at the age of 45. As a mature art student, he immersed himself in the study of art history as well as technique, and was profoundly affected by the art of the Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque periods, from which he continues to draw inspiration. His skill as a draftsman and deep understanding of light and shade allows him to convey profound emotion through dramatic gesture and the restrained use of color. Mr. Kliman’s work has been exhibited both locally and nationally since 1980, and his original paintings, drawings & prints in approximately are represented in approximately 200 private collections as well as that of the Zimmerlee Art Museum at Rutgers University, NJ.

Flagellation	Auto da Fe	Shoah Triptych
Abjection I	Redemption III	Dance of Death IV

send comments or questions about the gallery to the curator at:
dsokolove@wesleysem.edu