Sculpture
The art of sculpture flourished in the country due
to the efforts of a few sculptors over a long period of time. While
Avraham Melnikoff (known for his massive stone lion at Tel Hai), and
Ze'ev Ben-Zvi introduced cubism, the more academic school of sculpture,
represented by Moshe Ziffer, Aharon Priver and Batya Lishansky, dominated
the field prior to the establishment of the state.
At the end of the 1940s, the 'Canaanite' ideology
influenced a number of artists, notably Yitzhak Danziger whose figure
of the pagan hero-hunter Nimrod, carved from red Nubian sandstone, is
an attempt to create a synthesis between Middle Eastern sculpture and
the modern concept of the human body, while the forms comprising his
sculpture of sheep resemble those of desert rocks, water canals and
Bedouin tents. Sculpture in the 1950s employed new materials and monumental
scale as it became increasingly abstract, stimulated in part by the
recent introduction of iron and corten steel as a sculptural medium.
The desire to provide a tangible memorial to those
who fell in Israel's wars gave sculpture a new impetus from the 1960s
on, and a great many monuments, primarily nonfigurative, were introduced
into the Israeli landscape. This genre is represented by Yehiel Shemi's
welded steel naval memorial at Achziv, which deals both with the harshness
of nature and the human capacity for violence and destruction, and Dani
Karavan's "Monument to the Negev Brigade"outside Be'er
Sheva, evoking the special character of desert combat.
Under the influence of the French school in general
and expressionism in particular, and utilizing a wide range of materials,
contemporary conceptual artists are creating installations and environmental
sculptures to depict their individual reactions to social and political
realities. Incorporating a powerful play of shapes and symbols, the
works of Yigal Tumarkin express his protest against war through geometric
and figurative abstract forms, while the trend towards geometric minimalism
is especially pronounced in Menashe Kadishman's persistent use of the
images of sheep, which call up both a local pastoral image and a personal
myth symbolizing the helpless victim.
Several Israeli sculptors have gained international
recognition, including Tumarkin, Karavan, Kosso Eloul and Israel Hadany,
whose works can be seen in public and private settings abroad.
Sources: Israeli
Foreign Ministry |