Feast of Passover 1920

Max Weber’s ‘Feast of Passover’ is a print, so the work that went into this would be more carving than, say, brushstrokes. Imagine the artist thinking, and then tentatively at first, cutting into the surface with the tool. I think that the figures and forms in this artwork, which is a kind of modernist take on a family gathering, emerge out of the artist’s interest in expression and in the act of remembering. The process feels as if Weber is digging into the past, and into the grain of the material itself, to try and give shape to a feeling. The artist seems to be thinking about how to depict the emotional resonance of the Seder meal and the way we build shared experiences through ritual. These figures, while not conventionally beautiful, are compelling in their abstract forms; they feel like they have been through things, and that the artist is interested in how we come together to make meaning.