Image of the Week: View From Old City Ramparts, Jerusalem
© D. Yael Bernhard
This painting, from my new Jewish Eye Calendar of Art, was done from a photograph I took in 2013. I was walking along the narrow pathway along the top of the massive wall that surrounds Jerusalem's old city. Built five hundred years ago under the Ottoman Empire, the wall defended the city from enemies, with narrow, beveled slits for archers to shoot through. This is the third painting I've done of the spectacular panoramic views seen from this wall – including one done through an arrow slit – which you can view on my old blog platform here.
Israel is a crossroads not only of three continents but also countless empires that have overlapped and clashed over millennia. One's entire concept of time is shaken here. The whole country is an archeological excursion. Thus a panoramic view from the top of the oldest part of this ancient, beloved, sought-after and fought-over city, is a view across eons of time as well as space.
The architecture seen from the ramparts is also a collage of old and new. The white Jerusalem stone that was used as a building block four thousand years ago – and still endures in the cobblestones that line the alleyways of the old city, warped and worn by millions of camel and donkey hooves, leather sandals and heeled boots, wheels of iron, wood, and lately rubber – is still used in modern construction today. The newer buildings stand out as young and flawless, shining in the Middle Eastern sun – but they're built from the same limestone rock as the older ones that have been in place since well before the Common Era began, and stand as silent witness to the long arc of human history that continues to unfold here. From this ancient perspective, the present-day commotion in modern Israel is merely a ripple in a timeline that stretches back, and back . . . the mind boggles in trying to grasp it.
I feel very small, and most transient, in Jerusalem.
These are the thoughts that filled my mind as I painted this picture. I almost regard this as a composition of just this stone, with all the plants and trees, people and animals, gardens and windows merely accoutrements – for those are the passing elements in this picture, while the stones quietly endure.
The flowers and trees were a feast for the eye as well. Tall cypress and palm trees lend their striking forms to the city's unique aesthetic character. In addition to the native flora of this rocky, hilly, sun-baked terrain, many tropical species can be cultivated here. Soaker hoses are quietly set to water the city gardens at night, minimizing evaporation.
If only I could put the echoing of footsteps along those alleyways into my painting, and the cool breeze that blows through the city each evening from the Judean desert. I try to infuse my art with memories of sensations, if only through imagination.
I only work from photographs when the picture is taken for the purpose of visual reference, with a painting in mind already. I have several folders stuffed with visual reference for landscapes, cityscapes, and seascapes. I wish I had several lifetimes to devote myself to these paintings!
This painting is for sale, and will be on view at my art studio sale next month. If you're local, you should have already received an announcement. If you would like information, please respond to this post and let me know.
The Jewish Eye 5782 Calendar of Art is available in my webstore and on Amazon. If you order it from Amazon, please consider writing a review.
You can view the entire calendar here.
A good week to all –
D Yael Bernhard
http://dyaelbernhard.com
children's books • fine art • illustration