Image of the Week: Still Life, Rechavia
© D. Yael Bernhard
A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.
– Paul Cezanne
I love still-life painting. One might think inanimate objects make boring subjects, but art can animate them and invest them with meaning. The objects gathered here bear the memories of my first trip to Jerusalem, each representing a place I visited, as well as the apartment where I slept in the lovely neighborhood of Rechavia. The pomegranate came from the Machane Yehuda, the famous outdoor market where fresh produce and spices of every color may be found. The scarf came from Kikau Tzion – Zion Square, a pedestrian mall in the heart of the city. The bottle of olive oil came from Rehov Ben Yehuda, a major avenue lined with shops. My senses were saturated on these excursions, and my imagination was stimulated as I tried to envision centuries past in the ancient city.
Returning to the quiet apartment, I set these objects on a table on the balcony that overlooked the interior courtyard. The sounds of a piano came from an apartment on the other side, and beyond that, the street sounds were faintly audible. Someone’s laundry hung to dry from another balcony, rippling gently in the breeze, along with the leaves of the eucalyptus tree just beyond my reach. A flowering vine with little purple flowers climbed up the tree. These everyday sights and sounds anchored me in this place that was once considered the navel of the world. My impressions of the city trickled down in my mind, filling my thoughts as I started sketching the objects on watercolor paper. I was only able to take a small painting pad with me while traveling.
The resulting gouache painting was a serviceable image of the objects and their background. I wasn’t displeased, but I wanted more. I thought of Cezanne’s still life paintings, so sensual, so full of vitality. Back home in New York two weeks later, I decided to do a second painting of the same subjects. I still had the scarf and the bottle of olive oil, but I didn’t want to work from them directly – I wanted to use the first painting as a stepping stone, to further transform it. I also wanted my objects to be larger than life – a big, bold still life in which every curve would be exaggerated — except for the bottle of olive oil, which serves as a sort of geometric axis, the backbone of the painting.
Everything was enlivened by my subtle exaggerations. The pomegranate became more voluptuous, the scarf almost swirling with fluid patterns. The background became a tapestry of memories – the clay-tiled roofs of Jerusalem peeked out from between the white railings of the balcony, mingling with fluttering eucalyptus leaves. Here I used contrast of scale, shrinking everything in the background to distinguish it from the main subjects in the foreground. To push the painting further from reality, I upended the table and distorted its angle in space, much as Cezanne often did.
By now I had genuine affection for my souvenirs, and took great pleasure in painting them in oils, transforming them into a personal, artistic memorial of my first impressions of Jerusalem that would long outlast the objects themselves. I loved all the gradients, and the two different color palettes of subject and background, joined together by the green bottle just as olive oil itself connects the present to the past. For nothing has consistently shaped the history of Israel like olive trees. Olive oil lubricated the very wheels of Western civilization – and this, after all, was why I went to Israel to begin with: to start researching my future children's book, The Life of An Olive. It would take seven years and three more trips to Israel to bring the book to completion.
Still Life, Rechavia is the image for April 2024 in my newly-published calendar, The Jewish Eye 5784/2024 Calendar of Art – available in my webstore ($20 with shipping included) or on Amazon ($16.95). If you buy it from Amazon, please consider writing a review!
You can view the entire calendar here.
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard
children's books • fine art • illustration
