Image of the Week: Olive Bark, Eighteen Centuries Old
© D. Yael Bernhard
This illustration from my picture book The Life of an Olive is the second-to-last in the tale of a 2000-year-old olive tree. The book follows the lifespan of the tree beginning in the year 70 C.E., showing a different century on every page, the different people who interact with the tree, and the major historical events that unfold in and around the valley where the olive tree lives – a place in the northern Galilee called Ein Zeitim – Hebrew for "Spring of Olives" (as in a spring of water).
The tree itself is fictitious. For reference, I traveled around Israel and took photos of olive trees of all ages, including close-ups of the bark at five years of age, thirty years, a century, six centuries, and finally an olive tree that is thought to be 2000 years old – in the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, where it is believed Jesus went through his dark night of the soul. "Gethsemane" comes from the Aramaic gad smane, or "oil press."
I did numerous studies of olive trees for this book, including this close-up of bark. I practiced painting olive bark, with its outrageous clefts and unpredictable curves, at all different scales. Notice the little green olives here. Since Jerusalem fell to the Romans, this ancient tree has produced fruit and precious oil.
The above illustration shows the tree in 1892, at the age of eighteen centuries. I had "grown" the tree visually from a tiny seedling at the beginning of the book, all the way through its life. Page by page, I extended, enlarged, and curved the branches a little more. Sometime around the Inquisition, I started to pull the trunks apart, exaggerate cracks and holes, convolute the bark, and bend the limbs further as it began to age.
But no worries for this lucky olive tree. As long as humans continue to prune its wood and harvest its fruit, it will live for many more centuries, possibly even millennia.
I loved painting children in and around my olive tree. The brother and sister you see above have newly arrived in Palestine from Belarus. I can only imagine their story . . . and if I did a good job as an illustrator, so can you.
This illustration is also part of my calendar, The Jewish Eye 5780/2020 Calendar of Art. I sell this calendar both through my webstore ($18 including shipping) and on Amazon ($18 prime).
Note to my readers:
Amazon has repeatedly removed my calendar from its search engine due to an error in its automated system, which apparently sees the calendar grid shown on my Amazon page as promotional text, which is not allowed on product photos. It may be the Hebrew on the grid that is confusing the algorithm. After untold hours and days of frustration, I have not been able to remove the photo or resolve the problem. As of this writing, my calendar is not searchable on Amazon, and as a result, I'm losing sales at a crucial time of year for Jewish calendars. You can still access it by searching for it on Google or by clicking on this direct link. Better yet, if you want a calendar, please order directly from me in my webstore. Amazon takes more and more fees from sellers and lays down more and more compliance rules, while offering less and less support.
Please help by forwarding this post, or the above links, to anyone you know who might be interested in my art. You don't have to be Jewish – or use a printed calendar to keep track of your life – to enjoy this collection of writing and art. View the entire calendar here.
Thank you so much.
Yael
D Yael Bernhard