Obj. ID: 34913
Modern Jewish Art Illustration for Ch. N. Bialik's poem "In the City of Slaughter" (be'Eer haHariga), in Book of Poems (Odessa, 1908), 1908
Description author is Alec Mishory.
Bialik's poem In the City of Slaughter is filled with descriptions of killing and suffering of innocent people killed in a contemporary pogrom against Russian Jews. It is hard to identify any specific objects in Ira Jan's illustration because it is so abstract and blurry; these aspects make the illustration enigmatic and ambivalent. A dark, unidentifiable patch of dark hue leans against a wooden fence with an open gate. The only visual image that suggests the presence of death are ravens flying in the air. Such a minimal rendering of black wings fluttering in the air, as a pattern, raises the association of a flock of birds and such a flock is usually associated with predators. The raven is a common attribute of Death; as a bird that feeds on carcasses, artists have used it whenever they wished to portray the ugly aspects of Nature. The raven motif became an icon of modern art and many Symbolist artists used it in their endeavors to suggest a cruel Death. There is no doubt than Jan was aware of the raven's symbolic aspect and to its morbid connotations when she created the illustration for Bialik's poem. Her typical blurry image endows her work with a universal aspect of Death suggested in it.