From: helios!intercal.com!hwr@tssi.com (Hanon W. Russell)
Subject: Chess As Metaphor by Samuel Bak
Organization: Chessnews list (chessnews-request@tssi.com)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:10:26 GMT


CHESS AS METAPHOR In the Art of Samuel Bak, with an introduction 
by Jeanlouis Cornuz, 1991 Pucker Art Publications, Pucker Safrai 
Gallery, 171 Newbury St., Boston, MA 02116, Hardcover, color, 
78pp, $35.00 + $3 s&h

Imagine a six-year old Polish-born Jewish boy caught in Europe 
as the horrors of World War II are unleashed. He somehow manages 
to hide from and survive the nightmares; his father is not so 
lucky. The boy had demonstrated an early artistic talent which, 
after the war is further developed and refined by more formal 
education at some of the world's finest art schools. As the 
young man's artistic talent matures, the impact of his 
experiences as a youth becomes more focused.

Such is the background, much simplified, of Samuel Bak. After 
his mother remarried, he was impressed how his stepfather took 
refuge from reality, escaping into the world of chess: "Samuel 
Bak told [Cornuz] that his stepfather, a chess and bridge 
champion, who advised Bak's mother to encourage her son in the 
direction of painting to the exclusion of all other activities, 
had turned to chess as an escape to a strangely different world. 
It allowed him to forget the terrifying realities of the 1930's. 
A world, to come back to Hegel, where reality may well be 
rational, or one at least not totally devoid of reason: in 
short, a world of harmony."

The game of chess has longed been employed by authors, artists, 
filmmakers and others as a way to represent different themes. 
Metaphorically, it has been seen variously - War, life, 
struggle, refuge, order and chaos are but a few examples. 
Occasionally, it is just a good vehicle through which to tell 
all or part of a story. Ian Fleming's "From Russia with Love" is 
a case in point. Many times it is used to give someone an 
intellectual aura. Its brief use in the very recent film "My 
Cousin Vinny" is an example.

It should also be noted that artists have also used a chess as a 
subject for its own sake. Thus, the charming, Escher-esque set 
of etchings by Elaine Rothwell which were featured in "Chess 
Life" some 17 or 18 years ago continue to please enthusiasts.

Readers of "Chess Life" were offered a glimpse into Bak's "Chess 
as Metaphor" in the January, 1992 issue. His "As the Time 
Passes" graced the cover, while nine other reproductions were 
featured inside. These were all taken from a book which contains 
a collection of his paintings which have chess as their theme.

Bak's use of chess as a metaphor needs some clarification. It is 
evident from both the biographical material presented in the 
book as well as the themes depicted in the paintings that he is 
only using chess as a vehicle to express other human concepts as 
opposed to having the paintings ultimately express inherent 
chess ideas. Thus you will not find his interpretation of the 
Queen's Gambit Declined or the Najdorf Poisoned Pawn Variation 
on canvas, but you will be struck by his metaphorical expression 

of human pain and conflict.

The book features fifty-eight color reproductions of Bak's 
paintings, each of which uses chess metaphorically. The surreal 
pieces and settings are at the same time both terrifying and 
exotic. As we regard each painting, we cannot help but be struck 
with a sense of despair and loss, even though these are 
sometimes tempered by a glimmer of hope.

Bak's chess boards upon which the surreal pieces play out their 
unnatural roles are rarely intact. Cracked, broken or otherwise 
incomplete, they give one a feeling of inexplicable malaise. 
These boards often double as the uneasy resting place for the 
spirits of the dead where resistance to evil is carried on in a 
more clandestined manner.

Some paintings are disturbing. Plate 58, "Blow Up," shows 
faceless figures engrossed in their own business, oblivious to 
everything else, while the world around them explodes. It is 
also difficult not to feel the desolation shown in the post-war 
(post-game?) rubble of plates 52 and 53, entitled "In A Desert" 
and "Under An Arch" respectively.

All is not lost everywhere however. The clearing blue skies 
beckon us in "For A New Start" (plate 19), and we even feel 
somewhat buoyed, in a phoenix-like way, by the slightly more 
coherent set somehow rising from the cracked earth-bound one in 
"Reflection" (plate 2).

Works of Samuel Bak had been featured in an earlier book, "The 
Past Continues," by the same publisher. With "Chess As Metaphor" 
the artist develops the same compelling themes of the human 
condition without many of the limitations that his religiosity 
had imposed. To appreciate "Chess As Metaphor" one need not be a 
chessplayer. As chessplayers, however, we are made even more 
sensitive to the deep tragedies and slim hopes which the artist 
attempts to depict. "Chess As Metaphor" is by no means only for 
people who happen to play chess. It is for all people to 
consider and ponder. Spend some time with it. You will not be 
unaffected.


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