I i • '.::•h=tf:!-,c.:.'_:SeJ!t2__em_..:.:..,:_ber_J_6.:.... _195_S ______T_H_. E __ I_S_R_A_E_L_I_T_E __ P_R_:_E_S_S ______--,- _____:_:,Ne~ °!_!ar_._Edition _ Page 3 . Israeli Artists, Musicians Develop Vigorous and Distinct Style A COLORFUL AND COMPREHENSIVE review of deve!. opments and trends in Israeli art and music was publish I Israeli Art· Gains Many New Ftjends ir ~~... THEY'RE FORGING ed recently in a special "Culture in Israel" issue of the 1 well-known periodical Israel Speaks, published in New 1 York. We are sure our readers will join with The Is For Jewish State. in Travels Abroad :-, raelite Press in expressing our deep appreciation to Israel Speaks for permission to reprint a number of the i11ter By ALFRED WERNER I tial. and, excellent draftsm~ · that himself or gloomy colors m . the 11 · AN 'ISRAELI' ART New York. ' he is, renders the contours with an land of hope, the land of Tomor-11 esting and informative articles in that issue, and also for ; energetic hand. · . row?" Why not--0nly fools are I . By MORDECAI ARDON ing re.ality into iu compoMnt parts the co-operation in providing w with the pictures of r .. ~r. w• ..,.r 11 a_ w.llknown ! The ubra Moshe Castel, a Sefardi always happy, and Mokady's fig.· L · and reassemblillg it illto new cent Israeli art, and of leading musicians, which accom critic and art historian. . , who, only in his mid-forties, is the , ures, landscapes, still lifes belong 11 MordecaJ Ardon (Bronstein), 1 aesthetic entities-a new reality. panied the articles. May we direct our readers' atten , The reception gi\'en to Israeli l youngest of the Seven, artistically j to the realm or the soul which, like ! an outstanding Israeli artllt (1ft But ill Israel, the face of the tion to the advertisement on Page 6, which affords the ' artists in the United States, the . went the opposite way: from a sort I the ~• has ~ny a dark and , "Bethlehem" behr•'I, 11 .adviHr til reader an exceptional opportunity to "sample" Israel j impression they llavi: made on the i of roi_nantic "realism" to pure ab- Imystenous seething beneath the !: ': en art to th• lsra•II Ministry of land was • l appearing on the U• ; American public, and the experi-' straction. . · surface. Id I nd c ltu tul.!I' canvase& in a faithful impra- Speaks through a special introductory offer. We know I ucet on a u r•. ;slonlstic Image. Yet e\'en then a · you will enioy this unique h1bloid-form newspaper.- i en·ce those of ~em privileged to l His early work-illteriors of old • WOODCUT MASTER i · Jerusalem. number of the elect we~e lending , Editor's Note. • . . accompany thell' ptctures on the ISafad houses and synagogues, 1 · long journey have accumulated, painted in strong jeweled colors-- A very serious man, with a truly 1 The art of Israel is routed in the , an ear lO' the reverberations of the ------..-: land of Israel and ill illhabitanll. : new movements abroad. durillg their stay in AJµerica, have is widely appreciated by collectors, philosophical mind, is Miron Sima, I::,•· ·'. This principle has been apparent I At the end of World War I, we from the very out.set. and has ' received word ol. the new exprea 1 pro\·en true throughout the three i sionism, of cubism and of futurism :!: a:~~~f~a:. ~a;~~ ;r::i~l:~ia~i~!~:a :;~ea~r:~:~;~w1~ ,.\.·.·:.._[.·.:_ .:..·i;:.: ... • On the credit side there is the latest, non-figurative canvases he showed in New York: Refugees , .. major periods in the development 1 -and were prepared for their o( urael art. : accession. enthusiastic response of the Ameri• promise much fot the future. and •:Mourning. a Dead Haganah Fifty years have passed ~hlce : AGAIN THE LA ND SC A PE ~hf!~~~- :r~=~:m~!r:3!~ ,d~~a1~!~n ~!ns~~~ ::b:~t Fi~t:~to~, where he spe~t many ('/:£.}). Prof, Boris Shatz pl~ted the fJrSl, changed. The lowlands rejoiced ill • . graphic ai:tists; some of the best! by the Museum of Modern Art--a , months of rnte~e study, Sima pro- 1 ~piing or our art with the, fou_nd• : a coat or many colors; the "days of museu1115 m t~e country have not! great honor for an artist. There Is : duced a portfoho of ten large ~d. L. ·::c.-:i~~~}i . 1ng of Bf:zalel, the ~ountry 5 first : creation" blossomed, rnany-hued, ill art school. The uphng . took root. , squares and rectangles, rectangles blouomed and ga<'e fnut of a de- , elongated a n d fore-shortened cidedly romantic. flavor-;-romanlic / squares large znd small-the n~ [#.urye;~~~:}:i l:,,i.:... [ .•.. :.:.·:.:'.·,l.•~·p;···•·•·:,',,· . in exlernau, senumental m essence l buildings, cubes, water-towers, cyl ~;than to 'cens•.ire;~]*~ many works of art a~, i2:. i. wereirt~~=~i€1;~:: dot absent. ~~f . · ,, ,· -lllte the heartA of the vanguard i lnders, capped with hemispheres. were acquired by private collec- f W~ttanthe aBrtisthlt hhas g1vend uJs ID, UNLIKE THE VERSATILE ft),';\if" of brae! on the threshold of our The world was caJrt In geometric tors Christians as well as Jews· or IDS ce, e e em an eru• W•~t· ' ' al t N. ht · · · Sima, there are several Israeli ar- f/;" century, molds, as it was in the world art the artists .who came here for a ~ ~m a f ig 'h 3:"se magi~ov~io.':15 lists who confine themselves, on ~.~.':\:,\; .,.. . .. Professor Shatz gave expression of the lime. brief stay found the visits th Ameri- . eu O snaps O • symp mes ID the whole, to one medium. ! ,, . •· to their yearning for redemption Cubism takes the artist by storm. can academies, museums and gal- w~ch mysterious colors, applied in r;:;:;:;__.,, ,,, -;,;,,l ~tt in art forn:s compounded of the The 1:onquest need not be seen as lerles most stimula\ing. thick !~yen are comparable to the · There Is Shlmahon Holzman, lo liirll1""'•· ,. "'1,. .- ,.,,,,,,~rc>o!.'""'~ .,.,, , notes ID music, whose light, untortured a·quarelles -Courtesy American Pund vital elements in the treasure- capitulation, but rather .as an at ON THE DEBIT SIDE IS THE for Israel ln1t1tut1on1 hou.se of the nation, ei;peclally as tempt to find apt expression for a Another Expressionist and "ma Israel ls embodied-Israel in the NIMROD I. Danziger fact that only the work of middle gician" is 'Moshe Mokady, but his preaerved In the arts and crafts .of .land and a people in the daily aged artists wllh well-established bloom of its sprillg, in. its youth• the Oriental communities. It was process of renewal, For the day of paintings. are exclusively seU fulness bursting with energy, and and pray in Jerusale..'ll.'1 lllea reputations was shown· here; the portraits, symbolic representations in the dignity of its ancient water Shearim quarters. His blaca and a decorative art, concerned with ! autarchy In the artA Is past beyond wo1 k of the daring ycung men and the flora and fauna of a land newly return, and the fh'Bt index of ar of the artist's soul, regardless of and soil. whites are 1.'!.aded In countlesa women has not yet been presented the subject he chooses. Mokady Vllrieties. aeen and atartllog to the beholder. tisOc matllilty is readiness to ab on this side of the Atlantic. And there are two masters In sorb vital currents in th.e art uses chiefly browns, greys and black and white: Jacob Steinhardt Few artists in black and white BUT THE GLOW OF ROMANCE Very little Israeli sculpture has blacks which ordinarily suggest centers of the world. .reached the United States, and not and Ann• Tlcho. Steinhardt's chief can mate us realize RB . fully as and the pangs of creation in pri>se gloom, hopelessness, melancholy, medium is the woodcut, and his Steinhardt that white can be a actuality are not easily mated. The At first glance, the work of our enough· of the output of the mod• depression.. . artists seems too much like that favorite "models" are the old schol- stark cruel color, or a tender and workaday world began to take hold, ern silversmiths, ceramicists and "Why should an Israeli artist,• ars in fur caps, broad-brimmed lyrical one, and that black can be as It must when a land arises from of foreign counterpart&, but closer weavers to fonn a basis for an scrutiny reveals that even then I heard a gallery villitor ask, "avail hats.and long gabardines who study either soft or dramatic, either deep the alumber of centuries and a opinion. or britUe. people is reborn. some of our masters had already Under the name ·of "Israeli art,;, begun to ferret out the. unique ele Anna Tlcho, however, Uie only A few artlats freed tbemaelves gallery owners have on various Israeli woman that so far baa ex-. meotll which characterize the land occasions lumped together, lo from the narrow straits of romantl• and its Inhabitants. The "M~diter• hiblted in the United States, is at cbm and set their easels opposite group shows, mediocre or even bad her best in drawing with a pointed ranean" landscape slowly but sul'e products by non-entitles depicting hidd!lde and treetop, meadow and ly becomes "Israeli." pencil, a pen or chalk, thicket, and the last vestiges of land and people In a cheap picture postcard manner. She emphasizes through precise romanticism evaporated under the "DAYS OF DESTINY" and meticulous definition, all in a 1kies of Canaan and its searing sun. Questionable, too, ls the continu With the War of Independence ing use of the term "Israeli". for face, a tree or a landscape, cor These artists dipped their brushes responding to the "face," the in the myriad colors of the impres and the establishment of Israel, the -Courtesy Amtrlcen Fund for Israel ln1lllut1oh1 men and women, whatever their "days of creation' became the "days artistic qualities, who left the Holy '-'tree," the "landscape" 1be carries sionists, and began painting Jltedi WOMEN EMBROIDERERS Avala Gordon in her soul, terranean landsclipes--tbat ls, an of destiny." In the new reality, Land for good to settle permanent past, present anLondon, Paris, or New York. I MAY HAVE OVERLOOKED lndigenoiu "Mediterranean" art as had regarded as his function, the one artist or another of those who they conceived it. Immediately present, and the artist The Exprenlonl1tlc •nd Cublstlc strives to express the surrealistic artist now wants to give a spatial Period: Shemi, Gutman, Mokadl, "SEVEN PAINTERS" came to America with their work, RISE OF EXPRESSIONISM and metaphysical aspects of evenu dimension to the interplay of past, Rubin, Zaritzskl, · Janco, Streich• or had samples of It shipped to present and future as fused in the All this cannot, of course, dimln• these ahores. as they occurred. . · man, Castel, Lltwinowskl, Aroch, lsh the impact of Israeli art on Impressionism came late, when He is no longer satisfied with the new reality created with the estab• Wechsler, Kahana, Sebba and But this is the aum of DIJ' find• lishment of the State, America, nor detract from the logs: . these "products . or · artiaUc the leader, of the arts were already simple depiction of a: new setUe• others. glory of its achievements. A spe turning towards cubillm. lo Paril, ment somewhere In Galilee or in talent have gained Israel thousands The Latest Period: Aricha, 'cial 'treat w~ the exhibition of a chosen few were already diuolv- the plains of the Negev. Breaking THE SENSE OF DESTINY AND •'" • ,. .,,; ,. ., ; _{f • ,·••• of new friends. They have won a virtually mystical approach to Tamir, Bezam. "Sev110 Painters of Israel" that . -Courtesy llrHI lpeaka praise from artists, crilies and col reality again sends . the· artists to opened at the Boston Institute of STREET SCENE Yossie Stern s.. ART, Pae- 4 Contemporary Art early lo 1953 the treasure-houses of the past and thereafter toured the country. this time not to the simple folk loristic reserves which had so in Seventy-five oils and '}'atercolors trigued Shatz, but to the archaism were shown. Of th.e artists who participated, all but one had had of Israel's historical emergence one-mun-shows before, or were millenia ago, and to the mysterie~ of the Cabala. scheduled to have them soon thereafter. These artists are still grappling THE SOLE EXCEPTION WAS with their material, but their ac ,. complishments are impressive, and Joseph Zaritsky, the oldest of the international art centers are Le seven; he was born in Kiev in 1891 ginning to note a distinctive, Israeli and' came to Palestine in 1924. He element in our art. is Israel's foremost aquarellisL So much for the three periods Zaritsky may titie his water mentioned above. colors Tel Aviv, Safad, or Kibbutz Yechiam; for those who want pai.nt BACK TO REALISM ing to reproduce physical reJ!llt)', these titles will be of little· help. But the wheel turns--backward. For his works, creations on a high Workaday realities are with us place, are rert1iniscent of the work again: the ma"abara, the tent-camp, of the late Raoul Dtlffy, who felt the· quonset; from city to country, entirely free to "distort" or endow a 3ocial movement; from green with imaginary i,olors whatever ob meadows to sand dunes, a sense of · jects he fell in love with. . challenge. Fresh youn& talents are ! Zaritsky puts on a canvas, with speaking up in the hard tones of a light touch and & refinement of a new realism, firm and vibrant. taste, little more than hints anli Has a new period set in? And what suggestions. In his aquarelles, the will tlie future bring? But no need topography of Israel is still recog to pee"r illto the mist of the future. nizable-but recognizable in the same way one recognizes a lark or ~t · m e j us t reiterate the , a bulliinch by its song. · "periods" as they have emerged, and list several of the names con OF T H E S E V E N, REUVEN nected with each: 1 Rubin Is most widely known in The Romantic Period: . Boris i America, for he has crossed the · Shatz, Ab.el Pann. -Courtesy American ·Fund ocean many times, and, in the early -Courtw~~ American Fund tor Israel ln1tltution1 for Israel Institutions BETHLEHEM Mordecai Ardon · T h e Impressionistic P • r i o d: \ forties, even spent several years in WOMAN Anna Ticho New York. He has had successful one-man' shows in all major Ameri can cities. Photographs accompanying His art, often impressionistic in this article through courtesy its approach to nature, though not A Year of Achievement in Music I in its technique; is loval\le, con• I . of American Fund for l1rHI By DAVID ROSOLIO message of Israel to many thou- devoted to music in Israel and its I Institutions. centrating as it does on pictur Tel Aviv. sands of Americans; on the second steady and rapid development for -~~------"" esque aspects of :Dirael, on shep tour, the orchestra visited a num- more than 30 years. herds and harvesters, , on joyous The euthor 11 the music critic ber of European countries and A brief survey of the more im- bouquets or flowers. of Ha'aretz, leading lsrHII dally earned new plaudits as one of the portant m.isical events which took Related to him through his n.wspaper• front-rank orchestras of the world. : place during the last year or so, "traditionnllsm"-a term never to Musical sounds in Israel have be- Kol Zion la-Golab sends, among; may indicate the standard which be used as opprobrium-is Nahum coml' one of the country's most . its daily broadcasts, Israel's folk : musi'c has achieved here and the Gutman who came here last year eloquent expressions. Lo\'e and . songs ~nd. new music into the gr~und upon which it has been with his pictures. Gutman is understandin for music in all its world; IQ , mcre~Ing numbers Is- ·. built. . "almost" a sabra; he was brought as els is cJmm n ill lsra d i rael's musical pieces are accepted , A little over a year ago, the to Paiestine as a· seven-year-old I child by his father, the late Russian h::8 uired for ~he coun e_ 'f:~e ·. in forei~ · bro_adcasting stations, ann_ual fe~tival of the lnternation'.11 and ~ognition all o,·er th~ world.. and Israeli solo1Sts and conductors : SOCiety fo~ Contemporary lllusic Hebrew writer, Shalom Ben Zion. Al present the Israel Philhar- are a_ppearmg on European and took place 1D Haifa. A full week of He has long been known a~ a monic Orchestra ill about to com: Amen~an concert ~tages. con~ert P~:f onnances of ~odern clever illustrator ill black and plete Its second goodwill lour Mll:51c, lnGeed, lS one of the ~usfc, hailrng from countries as white. But he is also an aquarellist abroad. prom1Dent ambassadors of Israel. distant from one another as Japan, of note who, with pleasing, decora 1 Th f. , Brazil, Yugoslavia, South Africa tive eol11rs, reminiscent of old Per e 1rst, two years ago, .,.-ent to THIS COULD NOT HAVE HAP-. d th h' hli ht d sian miniatures, seeks to capture the States and brought the mus,cal pened without the svstematic care anb lhmany o lders, was ig. g e FRICSAY , y e wor pre1D1ere, IQ con- the spirit of the coµntry, especially certante form, of Darium il!il the tranquil. yet ev~r-i:hanging haud's opera "King David" in vicinity of Lake lOnneret. Jerusalem. · . JANCO AND CASTEL Among the works chosen for prizes was the viola concerto by Martel Janco, now "mayor" of j,. the Israeli composer Yosef Thal. the artists' village of Ein Hod, went llfodern music, ill general, is fos to Palestine from Rumania durillg tered in Israel, lhough, of course, the last war. Origillally an ex• the bulk of the concert-going pub ponent of the boldest kind of ab lic. as everywhere, ravors the clnssi- ' stract art, he began, after his ar cal and romantic "standard'· music. ri<'al . in the Holy Land, to dwell CREATING INDIGENOUS more on the physical phenomena of STYLE life. Bui his renderillgs of land Composition is Vigorous: the scapes, of Arabs smoking their specjal problems of creatillg a pipes in Jaffa cafes, of Haganah BEN-HAIM !'ightas, are not a bit naturalistic; MARC LAVRY ~ ISRAELI ML'SIC:, Page 4 I PIATIGORSKY tlte artist select& only the esaen- ARAB FISHERMAN ,.,
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