53. Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Paintings Collection, The Masterpieces (2)
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54. Chagall, Marc
The Lovers
Art and love constituted for Chagall an access to spirituality “I have made these paintings led by this remote dream that, in this house where I leave them, men may try to find
some kind of peace, spirituality, religiosity, a meaning to life.” Love, as universal feeling, and the relationship between men and women are the reflection of the relationship that
binds men to God. Thanks to the transposition into images of this bond of love, recalled from the Song of Songs in the Bible, Chagall’s art reaches its climax and hymn to life.
Love is a divine gift and colors are considered by the artist almost as lovers, able to create a sort of visual orgasms, imaginative visions of parallel realities.
Marc Chagall during his life has gone through a number of historical and personal tragedies, the Bolshevik revolution, the two world wars, the Holocaust, the exile, the death of his
beloved in 1944. Nevertheless, the most powerful message evoked by his paintings is hope, constantly present, which feeds his profoundly optimistic soul. There is always a
potential hidden life, hope and love, as we can see even in the darkest paintings, dating back to times of war; a light emanates from the corner and it will be exalted, in the years
after the world wars, by the explosion of colours, expression of serenity, joy and peace.
55. DUCHAMP, Marcel
L.H.O.O.Q.
1919/1964
The original 1919 version of L.H.O.O.Q is a cheap color photographic reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (ca. 1505), on which Duchamp drew a mustache and beard.
L.H.O.O.Q is an early example of Duchamp's readymades (mass-produced objects defined as works of art simply by virtue of their selection by an artist). This radical new definition
of the art object marked a turning point in the perception and conception of art in the twentieth century. It also expressed the spirit of the Dada movement, to which Duchamp
belonged, as a desecration of the past.
The French pronunciation for L.H.O.O.Q is "elle a chaud au cul" ("she has a hot ass"), and so one of the most sublime-and chaste-portrayals of a woman in the history of painting
becomes sexually suggestive. Duchamp adds a further twist by transforming the sitter's gender from female to male.
The Israel Museum's L.H.O.O.Q replica is one of thirty-eight made by the artist for a limited-edition volume of Pierre de Massot's Marcel Duchamp, propos et souvenirs. This
particular replica is inscribed with a dedication by the artist to the book's publisher, Arturo Schwarz, a close friend, expert on Surrealism, and author of the catalogue raisonne of
Duchamp's oeuvre. This work is part of the collection of Dada and Surrealist art and documentation that Schwarz donated to the Museum in the 1990s
56. SOUTINE, Chaim
Boy in Blue
After settling in France in 1913, Soutine lived in dire poverty for a decade. His fortunes were reversed at the end of 1922, when the American collector Albert Barnes purchased a
large number of his paintings, opening the way to international recognition and greater financial security. It was at this time that Soutine painted some of his most expressive and
colorful canvases, including an extraordinary group of portraits.
Boy in Blue belongs to this group of portraits, which usually depicted individuals who were not close to the artist. Although the emotional distance allowed Soutine a degree of
objectivity, and even though this painting is clearly a representation of a specific person, the projection of the artist’s inner turmoil onto the sitter is very apparent. The
transference of feeling is manifest in the figure’s fluidity and the distorted forms. The composition resounds with elastic S shapes that repeat in the ballooning sleeves, the curve of
the ear, the thigh, and the contorted wrist. The boy’s head seems precariously joined to his shoulders by his pointed chin, and there is a strong emphasis on his oversized ears and
eyes and the enlarged, misshapen hands.
Though great care has been lavished on the brushwork of the face, in areas such as the exposed chest and the lower right background runlets of paint further convey a sense of
mutability. The youth’s optimistic smile is thus belied by Soutine’s formal language, which alludes to the fundamental fragility of the human condition.
57. JAWLENSKY, Alexej von
The Blue Mantilla
From about 1910 onwards, Jawlensky started his series of Head paintings. These were up-close and personal portraits of women whom he knew in his circle. His initial paintings
show women wearing wide brimmed hats, but gradually after spending some time with Matisse and Emil Nolde, he stripped the portraits of all apparel and focused solely on the
form of the head.
The Sam and Ayala Zacks Collection in The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, on permanent loan from the Art Gallery of Ontario
58. CHAGALL, Marc
The Praying Jew
Upon arriving in Paris from his native Russia in 1910, Chagall began acquainting himself with avantgarde painting styles. He absorbed elements of Fauvism and Cubism, combining
them with Jewish and Russian folk motifs in an innovative manner.
Around 1912, he began a series of works depicting aspects of Jewish religious life, as a declaration and demonstration of the potential of a modern Jewish art. In his early
autobiography, My Life, Chagall explained that his models for these pictures had been elderly beggars and itinerant Hasidim.
Shown in profile, the praying figure in this work is executed in a modified Cubist style. Sharp contrasts communicate the emotional tone to the viewer. The rounded forms of the
head, cheek, back, and faceted sleeve coexist with the sharp-edged nose, trousers, shirt, and phylactery. Two Stars of David, one on the cover of a partially visible Torah scroll and
the other free-floating, appear to press in and down on the figure, hemming it in.
The sense of enclosed isolation is enhanced by the darkness of the room, which is lit only by a tiny window and an eerie yellow glow of undisclosed origin.
59. BRAQUE, Georges
Still Life with Mandolin
Starting from as early as 1908, the still life played a dominant role in Braque's output. Some two-thirds of his paintings are still lifes, in which he enlisted a recurring repertoire
of objects in a seemingly infinite diversity of variations.
The mandolin, bowl, and sheet music that appear in Still Life with Mandolin are among his earliest subjects, having already emerged in 1908.
In our painting, the table takes center stage and is tipped forward so as to be almost vertical, while the corkscrew legs are viewed straight on. The legs anchor the composition
to the bottom of the canvas, while the horizontal dado holds it solidly in place on both sides. Three curved lines above the table echo its form. The objects on its top are
arrayed in modified Cubist style, making use of such devices as multiple points of view, intersecting and overlapping planes, shading in light and dark, distortions, and
patterning.
Still Life with Mandolin is one of Georges Braque's major paintings of the 1930s.
60. MIRÓ, Joan
Painting (Spanish Dancer)
In this witty, fanciful painting, Surrealist Joan Miró combines vivid symbols of Spanish dance—a colorful mantilla, a flared skirt, and a pointed shoe—to convey the rhythm and
subtle provocativeness of the dancer. Floating in a cloudlike white patch, a bull-like creature composed of fish- and foxlike elements recalls similar animal forms in Miró’s
fantastical menagerie.
Subverting conventional technique, the artist leaves the majority of the canvas bare, using the white pigment to represent perhaps the dancer’s skirt and to emphasize the surface
of the painting.
Miró’s fascination with Spanish dancers was manifest in at least nine works produced in Paris between 1921 and 1929. They draw on symbols and imagery recurrent in his oeuvre,
yet they are rendered in a profusion of artistic styles, from Realism and Cubism to Surrealism and abstract collage. One of them, Spanish Dancer (1924), also in the Museum’s
collection, conveys a dancer’s spinning movement and costume through a simple, geometric, steplike line and spiraling red dotted line.
In his paintings of Spanish dancers, Miró evoked traditional Catalonian art forms. After World War I, the Catalonia of Miró’s youth was transformed by political change and class
conflict. Reacting against the prevailing militant nationalism, Miró hoped to introduce into modern Catalonia a cultural basis for civic unity. Inspired by Spanish dolls, Catalan
figures, and folk art, with which he surrounded himself during his self-imposed exile in Paris, Miró was making reference to the timeless, bucolic landscape of his childhood.
61. MODIGLIANI, Amedeo
Jeanne Hébuterne, Seated
Modigliani's earliest portraits of 1914 still reveal the influence of Fauve colour. Next follow works in which the Cubist approach to spatial organisation prevails. In 1917
Modigliani formulated his mature style characterised by a synthesis of line and volume. In contrast to other 20th-century artists such as Derain, Picasso, and Gris, Modigliani
always maintained a balance in his representations between the formal structure of the work and a faithful depiction of the sitter's particular appearance.
Among the most important paintings is the Portrait of Léopold Zborowski and the lover of Modigliani Jeanne Hébuterne.
62. MAGRITTE, René
The Castle of the Pyrenees
Belgian Surrealist René Magritte’s masterpiece The Castle of the Pyrenees was commissioned by the artist’s longtime friend, the international lawyer, poet, and author Harry
Torczyner. The unfolding of the commission and evolution of the painting are documented in letters between the two men, which were published by the Israel Museum in 1991.
Though Magritte had complete freedom, the correspondence reveals that his patron was encouraged to express his opinions on the choice of a subject. From a number of drawings
proposed by Magritte, Torczyner selected one of a large rock surmounted by a castle.
Intimately acquainted with the artist’s repertoire, Torczyner added the suggestion of a sky on a clear day and a rough darkish sea “because over the dark sea or ocean there rises the
rock of hope, topped by a fortress, a castle.” As Magritte refined the painting, he decided to exclude other proposed additions so that it would retain the “vigor” and “harshness” he
envisioned.
The Castle of the Pyrenees has become one of Magritte’s best known and most-reproduced images. It embodies the artist’s typical disturbing juxtaposition of familiar objects,
combined with captivating poetry and mystery.
63. RUBIN, Reuven
The Sea of Galilee
Reuven Rubin, one of the most important early Israeli artists, had an overwhelming influence on the emerging art scene in pre-State Israel. When he arrived in Palestine in 1922
at the age of twenty-nine, his palette changed from dark tones to lighter, clear colors inspired by the brilliant Israeli light. His subject matter shifted from religious themes
suffused with suffering and asceticism to bright landscapes and scenes from daily life, in a naive style that expressed the optimistic Zionist ideals of newness and rebirth.
The Sea of Galilee, a typical mid-1920s work in both subject matter and style, brings together motifs that interested Rubin and are also connected to the relations between Arabs
and Jews in Palestine at the time. To the left is an Arab village with houses made of local stone. To the right, surrounded by orchards, are newly built white structures,
representing either temporary housing or hothouses. An electricity cable links the new and the old; two camels are being led along the adjoining road. Like the architecture,
these elements express the contrast between the traditional and the modern.
In 1981 this painting was lost during its return from an exhibition at The Jewish Museum, New York, only to re-emerge years later in the Jaffa flea market. The buyer discovered
Rubin's signature on the canvas and contacted the police. In 2003 the painting was returned to the Israel Museum collection.
64.
The Israel Museum is the largest cultural institution in the State of Israel and is ranked among the world's leading art and archaeology
museums. Founded in 1965, the Museum houses encyclopedic collections, including works dating from prehistory to the present day, in
its Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Jewish Art and Life Wings, and features the most extensive holdings of biblical and Holy Land
archaeology in the world. In just forty-five years, thanks to a legacy of gifts and generous support from its circle of patrons worldwide,
the Museum has built a far-ranging collection of nearly 500,000 objects, representing the full scope of world material culture.
In the summer of 2010, the Israel Museum completed the most comprehensive upgrade of its 20-acre campus in its history, featuring
new galleries, entrance facilities, and public spaces. The three-year expansion and renewal project was designed to enhance visitor
experience of the Museum's collections, architecture, and surrounding landscape, complementing its original design by Alfred Mansfeld
and Dora Gad. Led by James Carpenter Design Associates of New York and Efrat-Kowalsky Architects of Tel Aviv, the project also
included the complete renewal and reconfiguration of the Museum's Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Archaeology Wing, Edmond and Lily
Safra Fine Arts Wing,and Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life.
Among the highlights of the Museum's original campus is the Shrine of the Book, designed by Armand Bartos and Frederick Kiesler,
which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest biblical manuscripts in the world, as well as rare early medieval biblical manuscripts.
Adjacent to the Shrine is the Model of Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period, which reconstructs the topography and architectural
character of the city as it was prior to its destruction by the Romans in 66 CE, and provides historical context to the Shrine's
presentation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Museum's celebrated Billy Rose Art Garden, designed for the original campus by Japanese-American sculptor Isamu Noguchi, is
counted among the finest outdoor sculpture settings of the 20th century. An Oriental landscape combined with an ancient Jerusalem
hillside, the garden serves as the backdrop for the Israel Museum's display of the evolution of the modern western sculptural tradition.
On view are works by modern masters including Jacques Lipchitz, Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, and
David Smith, together with more recent site-specific commissions by such artists as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Mark Dion, James Turrell,
and Micha Ullman.
The Ruth Youth Wing for Art Education, unique in its size and scope of activities, presents a wide range of programming to more than
100,000 schoolchildren each year, and features exhibition galleries, art studios, classrooms, a library of illustrated children's books, and
a recycling room. Special programs foster intercultural understanding between Arab and Jewish students and reach out to the wide
spectrum of Israel's communities.
In addition to the extensive programming offered on its main campus, the Israel Museum also operates two off-site locations: the
Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, an architectural gem built in 1938 for the display of archaeology from ancient Israel; and Ticho
House, which offers an ongoing program of exhibitions by younger Israeli artists in a historic house and garden setting.