G4 The Boston Globe FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 2019
therewere larger forces at work.
As Bloom entered his prime, he was
working in Boston with Abstract Ex-
pressionism ascendant in New York.
Artists like Jackson Pollockand Mark
Rothko were rising fromthe aftermath
of a world riven by World War II.
Quickly, it would be the movement
that eclipsedall others,leaving those
who rejected it on the outside of Amer-
ican art’s most dominant moment.
Amongthem,of course,was
Bloom. There was surely formal kin-
ship — ravishing color, gestural verve
— and personaladmiration. Pollock
and Willem de Kooning considered
Bloom “the first Abstract Expression-
ist” in a 1954interview with Yale Uni-
versity professorBernardChaet. But
Bloom, who called abstract painting
“emotional catharsis, with no intellec-
tual basis” in the 2005book “Boston
Modern,” wasn’t having it. It doesn’t
take much,whether by logic or gut in-
stinct, to see why.
Pollock may have embraced ab-
straction because, as he famously said
in a 1950interview withWilliam
Wright, “the modern painter cannot
express this age... in the old forms of
the Renaissance or of any otherpast
culture.” But Bloom, clearly, disagreed.
I’m with him. Amidthe tumult of tech-
nological advancementand brutally ef-
ficient warfarethat had just dis-
patchedtens of millions, the body—
upright in defiance, broken by conflict,
moundedin mass graves — is con-
stant. And the body, in all its fleshy
contradictions — insideand out, life
and death — was Bloom’s domain.
And so as abstraction blossomedin
New York, Bloomstayed in Boston,
rooted and turning inward. It’s a con-
trast of hubris and diffidence,and
more.The Abstract Expressionists
seized the momentto tear it all down,
start fresh, make anew, though in the
wideningaftermath of the Modern
shockwaves, we know it’s not so sim-
ple. Bloom, meanwhile, felt kinship
witha continuum, old as time,in the
representation of the human form.
As Bloomstudied the body, he also
studied art. “Mattersof Lifeand
Death” shows a young Bloomliterally
taking apart the humanform in virtuo-
sic figurestudies, musclegroups
stacked and swollen in furious action.
His darktorrents of charcoal evoke
Goya; his eviscerated bodies, the ana-
tomical studiesof Da Vinci and Mi-
chelangelo, and Rembrandt’s vivid dis-
section paintings. An early piece here,
“Skeleton,” from 1936,feels almost like
an archeological excavation, dried
bones tucked neatly in a box centuries
ago. Its claustrophobic confinesare
surely an echo of Hans Holbein’s
“DeadChrist in a Tomb,” fromthe ear-
ly 16th century.
Bloomwas a supremelytalented
draftsman, matching old masters line
for line. He tracked theirmethodsas
wellas theirtechnique,visiting
morguesand attendinghumandissec-
tionsat medical schools. In a short vid-
eo in the show, his friend, the artist Da-
vid Aronson, recalls visiting a morgue
withBloom for one of the first times,
and how the ripening color of cadavers
undergoing autopsy seemed to spark
somethingakin to jubilation in his
friend.
It was part dissection laboratory,
part holy ground — for Bloom, one and
the same.He saw, in death, possibility,
but also much more: In the continuum
of art-making in which he had inserted
himself, he also saw the cosmicchurn
between the livingand the dead,a cy-
cle of existence poetic in its regularity,
soothing in its inexorable rhythm.
When I look at Bloom’s paintings, I
don’t see gore, violence, depravity, and
darkness,thoughtherehave been
many who disagree (residents of Buffa-
lo, say, who in 1954 lobbied to have
uBLOOM
Continued fromPageG1
ART REVIEWHYMANBLOOM:MATTERSOFLIFEANDDEATH
At Museumof FineArts,465 HuntingtonAve., throughFeb. 23, 2020.617-267-9300,www.mfa.orgFromtop:“TheBride,” ”Self-
Portrait,” and“FemaleLeg” are
part of anMFA exhibitionthat
showsa youngHymanBloom
literallytakingapart thehuman
formin virtuosicfigurestudies,
musclegroupsstackedand
swollenin furiousaction.A Boston artist who deserves to be famous
PHOTOS © STELLA BLOOM TRUSTCOURTESY,MUSEUM OF FINEARTS, BOSTONBloom’s retrospective at the Albright
Gallery shut down). What I see in-
stead, at his best, is a master painter in
supremebalancebetween intention
and emotion, tracking both on the can-
vas in deliberate, exuberant strokes.
You’ll see art history old and new
here:In Bloom’s 1945 piece “A Leg,”
the severed limb clamped on an exami-
nation table,I saw an echoof another
Abstract Expressionist breakaway,
PhilipGuston, whichI loved.But the
showsaves its best for last, a somber
spacein low lightwherethe artist’s
technical mastery and visceral joy
comingle with vibrant force.
Works herewill imprinton your
psyche: the soft precisionof “Female
Cadaver” from 1953, a nearlife-size
ochre drawing of a woman’s body, split
as though unzippedat the rib cage,
fromclavicle to pelvis — its delicate
shading, its disarming serenity. (The
male counterpart, “Cadaver II,” en-
trails dangling, lacks its quietude, but
stirs in a different way.)
The drawings fill in space between
a seriesof explosivepaintings,as
though to give you a chance to catch
yourbreath. At one end of the gallery
hangs“Cadaver on a Table,” from
1953,a body archedaway from the
viewer, its graying flesh framing the
river of color radiating froma torso
tornopen.At the otherend,“The
Hull,” from 1952, a body lain prone,
chest cavity splayed, ribs poised like a
set of claws as a gloved hand brandish-
es a knife.
They should be awful. They’re not.
They’re mesmerizing, awash in radi-
ant hues— Bloom honoring, maybe,
the earthly vesselthat bearsthe soul.
The interplay between inside and out
is clear: sallow skin givingway to a lu-
minousrealmbeneath, energy re-
leased by the slice of a scalpel.
Looking at these paintings immedi-
ately put me in mindof another frank
and visceral painter, Francis Bacon,
whosetowering presencein the Mod-
ern canon is virtually unrivaled. Bacon
and Bloomshowed together in large
group shows, including one in Boston
in 1960.But they werepairedone-to-
one just once, at a show the sameyear
at the University of California Los An-
geles, which seems odd for so natural
an aesthetic alliance.How did Bacon
boom and Bloomfizzle? Stories are
hardto change oncethey’re told,and
whileBritish Modernismfavored the
body— alongwith Bacon, the fleshy
figuresof Lucian Freud cometo mind
— in the United States, abstraction
reigned supreme.
Had Bloom relocated to be with his
closer kin, might we be telling a differ-
ent story? Maybe. Bloomnever cared
so much for accolades or even approv-
al, lost deep in his own work and pur-
suit of a visceral sublime.“The miracle
of my life,” Bloomoncesaid,is “a state
of mindwhere everything is beautiful.”
He madehimself part of the project.
His “Self Portrait” here, from1948, is a
body freshly flayed and seen from be-
hind,bursting withfiery tones,like a
forest burning in the darkof night.
That was Bloom: Amidthe spectre of
death, never more alive.Murray Whyte canbe reached at
[email protected]. Follow
himon Twitter @TheMurrayWhyte