A Fiery Echo of the Holocaust

Elizabeth Wix
Review in "New York Newsday" (Manhattan and Long Island Editions)
February 12, 1993

The Holocaust casts a long dark shadow over the 20th Century and never more so than now when people are again being persecuted and killed for their faith. Man’s inhumanity to man has long been a subject for both painting and literature and Murray Zimiles, in his striking "Book of Fire" and Fire Paintings, takes as his subject the destruction of the Polish wooden synagogues and the Jewish Community in Poland just before and during World War II.

Haunted by his family’s heritage of pain, Zimiles strives in his art to communicate the terror of a world reduced to nothing in the flames. "The Book of Fire" is a large format book (50 by 38 inches) made up of 22 lithographs and three woodcuts and is displayed here both in a small-size facsimile of the entire book and also by many of the original lithographs. Shown alongside these are "The Fire Paintings," several of which are painted directly onto the lithographic plates used in making the edition of the book. Thus they have a multilayered intensity.

"The Book of Fire" opens with text superimposed on an image of flames which leap energetically upward and goes on to document synagogues that were destroyed, such as the ones at Janow Soldolski and Zabludow. In "Janow Sokolski," the building, from which flames leap, is the backdrop for a terrified horse with mouth agape and a man turning away in fear. The elaborate wooden buildings were masterpieces of the carpenters’ and woodcarvers’ art and yet what easy prey they were to the flames. Not only were the buildings destroyed but also their extremely valuable contents. However, the destruction of the buildings of people. The final lithograph in the book illustrates Jacob Glastein’s poem "Smoke" an unites the idea of the crematory with the burning synagogues:

"Above us in the height of sky

Saintly billows weep and wait"

All the paintings and lithographs use blacks, browns and shades of gray extensively --- the only colors are flame red and glowing orange which contrast vividly with the somber grounds. Stylistically Zimiles is indebted to the work of Edward Munch and also to Pablo Picasso whose "Guernica" is probably the touchstone of those who seek to make a visual record of the visceral.

The paintings themselves are dark, as befits the theme, and strongly wrought. The images of animals and of flames --- seem to echo each other in their wildness; for surely it is the animal side of man's nature that allows such horror to take place. the beautiful buildings are symbols, too, of man's higher aspirations. This art is vehement and vivid, strong and impressive and may serve as a warning of that which man is capable in the vilest circumstances. This is a remarkable show which deepens our understanding both of a particular time in history and of a side of human nature which only changes in its particulars. Then it was the Jewish people who were the victims. Who next?