The Wise Man of Švarco

There is a man who looks at me where I walk my dog in the park.

Near the French embassy, up the street from the university, he stands in a long black coat and hat, peering over a significant beard, maintained with care for decades, or so one can deduce from its stately sweep.

He is a painting on a wall. Less a mural or a portrait than an icon.

The wall marks the boundary of what was the Jewish ghetto in Vilnius, established during the Nazi occupation.¹

This representation, notably greater than life-size, is rendered in a stenciled style. It was placed here as a reminder of the kinds of lives that used to pass not just behind, through, around, and in front of walls like the one it appears on, but also—and perhaps most importantly—with no special regard for such things: unheeded and undetermined by the barriers such walls would become.

This painting—one of many in the area—has been given a nickname: “The Wise Man.” His arms are folded, his hands are tucked into opposing sleeves, his head is tilted knowingly. His posture is one of forbearance, as much as wisdom, or anything else. One feels suffered to look, but not to linger.

I pass him with the briefest acknowledgment and return home. He does not follow me.

This man’s likeness, it turns out, was drawn from an archival photograph.²

Upon learning this, I started to feel whatever life, wisdom, forbearance, and otherwise that the painting purported to represent drain out of that static, flattened artifact.

What of the real man, himself? Did he live in this sector? Or in this city? Was he wise? Did he, in his life, stand for what he has been made to stand for, now? And how, and to whom, did he convey whatever wisdom he might might have possessed?

Of what is this painting a reminder? Perhaps only a reminder to remember — which may be enough, and plenty, for a given moment.³