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YAACOV AGAM |
How do you show an idea such as happiness or love, using only color or shapes? This has been a problem that many artists in the past 100 years have tried to figure out. Yaacov Agam is one of these artists. He was born in Palestine (which became Israel in 1948). His father was a Jewish rabbi (teacher). As a young man, he studied art in Jerusalem, where three of the world's major religions started: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Later he studied in Europe, eventually settling in Paris, France. In all of his artwork, from painting to sculpture, he tried to express his feelings about the ancient Hebrew traditions that inspired his own religion, Judaism. Agam was also interested in how art can fool the eye, making the viewer see things differently than they really are. This is called Op art, or art using optical illusions. Some of Agam's other artwork uses optical effects or optical illusions. In ancient Hebrew tradition, the number nine was used to represent truth. In The Ninth Power, why do you think Agam used the circle as his basic shape? Agam also chose shiny stainless steel to construct his nine pairs of circles, each pair joined at right angles. Stainless steel reflects whatever is around it, so it blends in easily with its surroundings. Another way of saying that an artwork reflects its surroundings is to say that it reflects the reality around it, which is a kind of truth. This is another way that the artist can relate his work to his basic theme, the ancient Hebrew traditions about truth.