From the Journal of the Print World, Spring 2003

Collaborations between artists and writers occasionally produce intriguing, extraordinary books, and the joint commentary of Biblical scholar Ellen Davis and printmaker Margaret Adams Parker has produced not only a new translation of the Biblical Book of Ruth, entitled Who Are You, My Daughter (Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), but also an exceptional portfolio of 20 woodcuts created in response to the new translation.

Parker’s Ruth Portfolio was conceived to fulfill two functions. It is both a Biblical commentary, which carefully avoids falling into the trap of serving as mere illustration, and a commemorative celebration of her daughter’s marriage.

Although many great artists across the centuries have chosen Biblical texts as subject matter, when we think of images that emphasize the human gravity of Hebrew scripture, the names very few artists spring to mind. Margaret Adams Parker has always been drawn to great art that plumbs the depths of the human consequence of divine purpose, the work of Rembrandt and Giotto in particular. The woodcuts of the Ruth Portfolio are executed with great attention to subtle gestures that reveal the protagonist’s inner state. While each of the twenty woodcuts is replete with such evocative imagery, space allows us to consider only three here.

The story of Ruth is about the plight of refugees driven from their homeland by famine. It begins when Naomi, her husband and two young sons choose to leave Israel for Moab (present day Jordan) in order to find a livelihood. When the sons are old enough to marry, they choose Moabite wives, instead of going back to their homeland for wives. After a time Naomi’s husband and two sons die, and she is left with only her daughters-in-law. She speaks to them frankly about the grievous situation they are in, saying that God’s hand has turned against her, and together they lament their common plight.

Parker’s woodcut, entitled And they lifted up their voice and wept still more shows the three women: one standing face-in-hand, clutching another of the trio as the third has fallen to her knees at the feet of the other two. The kneeling figure reiterates the face-in-hand gesture of the standing figure and weeps and leans on the small rock formation supporting her fellow mourners. The women have become anonymous and interchangeable in their all-consuming grief, united as one voice and turning in on themselves. The sparse landscape shows black hills in the distance, and Parker’s black-clad mountain of grieving women shows them finding comfort only on the rock that supports them and in sharing their plight.

The next image in the cycle centers on the verses that follow immediately, including the most famous passage in the book, which Davis translates as follows:

Parker’s Don’t Press Me to Leave You…epitomizes the difficulty of loyal love in trying times. As her sister-in-law, Orpah, walks into the distance, Ruth pleads with her recalcitrant mother-in-law, and shows her face for the first time in the cycle. Parker’s Ruth is taller than Naomi; her eyebrow is arched in a determined parry to Naomi ‘s stubborn refusal to be comforted. Naomi’s demeanor is both frail and closed, as her head droops, her shoulders rise up to her ears, and she clutches her arms to fortify herself against the strength of the younger woman’s efforts to care for her. Naomi is faceless in her grief, as she was in And They Lifted Up Their Voice… Ruth’s large hands gesture tenderly, yet firmly; her head is bent forward determinedly.

In Don’t Press Me to Leave You… the three women have become dark columns. Parker shows Orpah, whose name means "back of the neck", from the back and beginning to lean into her walk, her bundle of belongings on her head, her right arm crooked in support of her belongings. Both Ruth and Naomi are strong verticals with feet firmly planted.

Ruth’s forehead bears three vertical marks, which initially might be perceived as frown marks, except we know from later depictions of her in the cycle that the artist has made her appearance un-Hebrew, by giving her a tattoo on her forehead. Jews are forbidden to disfigure their bodies with tattoos under rabbinic law, and Parker uses the tattoo as a device to identify Ruth as a perpetual foreigner. As the Hebrew text almost always identifies her as "Ruth the Moabite," it is important to emphasize her innate separateness from "God’s Chosen People," and Parker’s tattoo is a particularly apt signifier in this context.

Naomi finally relents and allows Ruth to return to Israel with her, and they return to Naomi’s hometown, an agrarian suburb of Jerusalem, where she still has relatives. They arrive at the time of the barley harvest. The ancient custom of leaving grain for the poor to glean from the fields invites Ruth to the fields of a man named Boaz, who happens to be one of Ruth’s father-in-law’s distant kinsmen. Boaz is single, a man of some status, and older than Ruth. He takes notice of the young woman almost immediately, and, although the narrator and others point her out as a foreigner, Boaz himself always acknowledges her as a member of his family. At their first meeting and later at mealtime he identifies himself as her protector:

Parker’s portrayal of And Boaz Said to Her at Mealtime…, shows the customs of the day. The male workers, doing the bulk of the physical labor, rest in the shade of a makeshift thatched shelter, while the women gleaners sit together in the sun. Contrary to custom, however, Boaz squats down to the seated Ruth to offer her the bowl of grain. Because of their difference in social status, age, etc., society would require that Ruth act in a way subservient to Boaz, rather than the other way around.

Parker reveals the burgeoning change in Ruth’s status (the story ends in her marriage to Boaz and the birth of Obed, King David’s great grandfather) by showing the rapt look on Ruth’s face and Boaz’ eagerness in squatting down before her. Although Ruth is set apart by both her tattoo and her dark dress in this image, the openness of Boaz’ stance and the tension between his raised heels and his sandals betrays his enthusiasm for her. While their fellow workers occupy themselves with lunchtime rest and conversation. Ruth and Boaz have begun to see each other.

Margaret Adams Parker’s Ruth Portfolio is true to the text it portrays, and its imagery expresses the way real people relate to each other. Parker’s messages are direct, clearly stated distillations of the text without being simplistic. The three scenes discussed above show three manifestations of love described in one of the archetypal love stories of all time. These images and seventeen more, which are every bit as interesting, are handsomely presented in a black portfolio crowned with Parker’s elegant, hand-printed frontispiece.