Israeli sculpture designates sculpture produced in the Land of Israel from 1906, the year the "Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts" (today called the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design) was established. The process of crystallization of Israeli sculpture was influenced at every stage by international sculpture. In the early period of Israeli sculpture, most of its important sculptors were immigrants to the Land of Israel, and their art was a synthesis of the influence of European sculpture with the way in which the national artistic identity developed in the Land of Israel and later in the State of Israel.
Efforts toward the development of a local style of sculpture began in the late 1930s, with the creation of "Caananite" sculpture, which combined influences from European sculpture with motifs taken from the East, and particularly from Mesopotamia. These motifs were formulated in national terms and strived to present the relationship between Zionism and the soil of the homeland. In spite of the aspirations of abstract sculpture, which blossomed in Israel in the middle of the 20th century under the influence of the "New Horizons" movement and attempted to present sculpture that spoke a universal language, their art included many elements of earlier "Caananite" sculpture. In the 1970s, many new elements found their way into Israeli art and sculpture, under the influence of international conceptual art. These techniques significantly changed the definition of sculpture. In addition, these techniques facilitated the expression of political and social protest, which up to this time had been downplayed in Israeli sculpture.
History
An attempt to find indigenous 19th-century Israeli sources for the development of "Israeli" sculpture is problematic from two points of view. First, both the artists and Jewish society in the Land of Israel were lacking the national Zionist motifs which would accompany the development of Israeli sculpture in the future. This applies, of course, also to non-Jewish artists of the same period. Second, art history research has failed to find a tradition of sculpture either among the Jewish communities of the Land of Israel or among the Arab or Christian residents of that period. In research conducted by Yitzhak Einhorn, Haviva Peled, and Yona Fischer, artistic traditions of this period were identified, which include ornamental art of a religious (Jewish and Christian) nature, which was created for pilgrims and, therefore, for both export and local needs. These objects included decorated tablets, embossed soaps, seals, etc. with motifs borrowed for the most part from the tradition of graphic art.See, Yona Fischer (Ed.), Art and Art in the Land of Israel in the Nineteenth Century (Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, 1979). [In Hebrew]
In his article "Sources of Israeli Sculpture"Gideon Ofrat, Sources of the Land of Israel Sculpture, 1906-1939 (Herzliya: Herzliya Museum, 1990). [In Hebrew] Gideon Ofrat identified the beginning of Israeli sculpture as the founding of the Bezalel School in 1906. At the same time, he identified a problem in trying to present a unified picture of that sculpture. The reasons were the variety of European influences on Israeli sculpture, and the relatively small number of sculptors in Israel, most of whom had worked for long periods in Europe.
At the same time, even at the Bezalel – a school of art founded by a sculptor – sculpture was considered a lesser art, and the studies there concentrated on the art of painting and the crafts of graphics and design. Even in the "New Bezalel", founded in 1935, Sculpture did not occupy a significant place. While it is true that a department of sculpture was set up in the new school, it closed a year later, because it was viewed as a tool to help students learn three-dimensional design and not as an independent department. In its place a department of potterySee, Gideon Efrat, The New Bezalel, 1935-1955 (Jerusalem: Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, 1987) pp. 128-130. [In Hebrew] opened and flourished. There were exhibitions by individual sculptors during these years both in the Bezalel Museum and in the Tel Aviv Museum, but these were exceptions and were not indicative of the general attitude toward three-dimensional art. An ambiguous attitude toward sculpture by the artistic establishment could be felt, in various incarnations, well into the 1960s.
Early sculpture in the Land of Israel
Bezalel and Jerusalem
The beginning of sculpture in the Land of Israel, and of Israeli art in general, is usually designated as 1906, the year of the founding of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts in Jerusalem by Boris Schatz. Schatz, who studied sculpture in Paris with Mark Antokolski, was already a well-known sculptor when he arrived in Jerusalem. He specialized in relief portraiture of Jewish subjects in an academic style.
Schatz's work attempted to establish a new Jewish-Zionist identity He expressed this by using figures from the Bible within a framework derived from European Christian culture. His work "Matthew the Hasmoneum" (1894), for example, depicted the Jewish national hero Mattathias ben Johanan grasping a sword with his foot on the body of a Greek soldier. This kind of representation is connected to the ideological theme of "The Victory of Good Over Evil", as expressed, for example, in the figure of Perseus in a sculpture from the 15th century.See, Alec Mishory, Behold, Gaze, and See (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2000) pp. 53–55. [In Hebrew] Even a series of memorial plaques Schatz created for the leaders of the Jewish settlement is derived from Classical art, combined with the descriptive tradition in the spirit of the Ars Novo tradition. The influence of Classical and Renaissance art on Schatz can be seen even in the copies of sculptures he ordered for Bezalel, which he displayed in the Bezalel Museum as examples of ideal sculptures for the students in the school. These sculptures include "David" (1473–1475) and "Putto with a Dolphin" (1470) by Andrea del Verrocchio.] See, Alec Mishory, Behold, Gaze, and See (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2000) p. 51. [In Hebrew]
The studies at Bezalel tended to favor painting, drawing, and design, and as a result the amount of three-dimensional sculpture turned out there was limited. Among the few workshops which opened at the school was one in woodcarving, in which reliefs of various Zionist and Jewish leaders were produced, along with workshops in decorative design in applied art using techniques such as hammering copper into thin sheets, setting gems, etc. In 1912 a department for ivory design, which also emphasized the applied arts, was opened.Nurit Shilo-Cohen, Schatz's Bezalel (Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, 1983) pp. 55–68. [In Hebrew] In the course of its activities workshops were added that functioned nearly autonomously. In a memo issued in June 1924, Schatz outlined all of the major fields of activity of Bezalel, among them stone sculpture, which was founded primarily by students of the school within the framework of the "Jewish Legion" and the workshop on woodcarving.] Nurit Shilo-Cohen, Schatz's Bezalel (Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, 1983) p.98. [In Hebrew]
Besides Schatz, there were several other artists in Jerusalem in the early days of Bezalel who were working in the field of sculpture. In 1912 Ze'ev Raban immigrated to the Land of Israel at Schatz's invitation and served as an instructor in sculpture, sheet copper work, and anatomy at Bezalel. Raban had trained in sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and later at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. In addition to his well-known graphic work, Raban created figurative sculptures and reliefs in the academic "Oriental" style, such as the terracotta figurine of the Biblical figures "Eli and Samuel" (1914), who are depicted as Yemenite Jews. However Raban's most important work focused on embossments for jewelry and other decorative items.About the jewelry design of Raban, see Yael Gilat, “The Ben Shemen Jewelers’ Community, Pioneer in the Work-at-Home Industry: From the Resurrection of the Spirit of the Botega to the Resurrection of the Guilds,” in Art and Crafts, Linkages, and Borders, edited by Nurit Canaan Kedar, (Tel Aviv: The Yolanda and David Katz Art Faculty, Tel Aviv University, 2003), 127–144. [In Hebrew]
Other instructors at Bezalel also created sculptures in the realistic academic style. Eliezer Strich, for instance, created busts of people in the Jewish settlement. Another artist, Yitzhak Sirkin carved portraits in wood and in stone.
Land of Israel movement
The main contribution to Israel sculpture of this period can be contributed to Abraham Melnikov, who worked outside the framework of Bezalel. Melnikov created his first work in Israel in 1919, after he arrived in the Land of Israel during his service in the "Jewish Legion". Until the 1930s, Melnikov produced a series of sculptures in various kinds of stone, mostly portraiture done in terracotta and stylized images carved out of stone. Among his significant works is a group of symbolic sculptures depicting the awakening of the Jewish identity, such as "The Awakening Judah" (1925), or memorial monuments to Ahad Ha'am (1928) and to Max Nordau (1928). In addition, Melnikov presided over presentations of his works in exhibits of Artists of the Land of Israel in the Tower of David.
The "Roaring Lion" monument (1928–1932) is a continuation of this trend, but this sculpture is different in the way it was perceived by the Jewish public of that period. Melnikoff himself initiated the building of the monument, and funding for the project was attained jointly by the Histadrut ha-Clalit, the Jewish National Council, and Alfred Mond (Lord Melchett). The image of the monumental lion, sculpted in granite, was influenced by primitive art combined with Mesopotamian art of the 7th and 8th centuries A.D.Haim Gamzo compared the sculpture to the image of the Assyrian lion from Khorsabad, found in the collection of the Louvre. See Haim Gamzo, The Art of Sculpture in Israel (Tel Aviv: Mikhlol Publishing House Ltd., 1946) (without page numbers). [In Hebrew] The style is expressed primarily in the anatomical design of the figure.
The sculptors who started to produce works at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s in the Land of Israel demonstrated a wide variety of influences and styles. Among them were a few who went by the teachings of the Bezalel School, while others, who arrived after studying in Europe, brought with them the influence of early French Modernism on art, or the influence of Expressionism, especially in its German form.
Among the sculptors who were Bezalel students, the works of Aaron Priver stand out. Priver arrived in the Land of Israel in 1926 and began to study sculpture with Melnikoff. His work displayed a combination of a tendency toward realism and an archaic or moderately primitive style. His feminine figures of the 1930s are designed with rounded lines and sketchy facial features. Another pupil, Nachum Gutman, better known for his paintings and drawings, traveled to Vienna in 1920, and later went to Berlin and Paris, where he studied sculpture and printmaking and produced sculptures on a small scale which show traces of expressionism and a tendency toward a "primitive" style in the depiction of its subjects.