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ART AND POLITICS. Cont'd.
I still vividly remember this very particular sentence which goes like this: “ Upon visiting a country for the first time and to enable myself to understand its people, I look up three things:
1- The kind of music they listen to;
2- The kind of literature -and poetry if possible- they read;
3- The art they love and honor.”
So true! In this article, you are going to view the Israeli, the Jewish, the Arab, the Muslim, the Christian, the Near Eastern, the Middle Eastern art. There are a lot of paintings we posted on our pages. Many of them were personally selected by de La Croix himself, because he perfectly understand the message and philosophy of each painting. He lived for a while in the Middle and Near Eastern countries. He speaks their languages (he is fluent in 10 languages). He visited and honored their churches, temples, synagogues, Masjads, mosques, Jawa’meh, centers of prayers and worship. He lived and worked with artists from both sides of the fence. He ate with them, he shared their bread, laughed with them and whipped with them. Obviously, you are going to find AN ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE in the artistic talent and expressions of Jewish and Arab artists. Yet, there is this very thin line of beauty and artistic divinity that tie them and bind them together. This very thin stroke of the artist.
Publisher’s Note: Please excuse us for not listing all the references and resource materials we have consulted and used in our research and in preparing this document because, it would take at least 5 long pages to list them all. In addition to an endless list of references, interviews conducted, news covered, including our visits to over 12,000 websites of Israeli, Jewish, Palestinian, Arab, Middle Eastern and Near Eastern artists living in the area and around the globe. We appreciate your understanding.
Kadish, Moshe Gershuni. Untitled, Moshe Kupferman. The Baby and the Bath, Michal Na’aman.
ISRAEL’S LEADING ARTISTS/PAINTERS
1. Arie Aroch (b. Russia 1908 - 1974) was a seminal figure in bringing Israel from the modern to the contemporary art scene. He was an intellectual and Israel's ambassador to Brazil and Sweden. Aroch was a founder of the New Horizons group, but went on to create art works influenced by Rauschenberg and Twombly. He created a small but incredibly influential body of works which raised the level of art in Israel significantly - taking it from a provincial maker of semi-abstract works to a world class creator of contemporary art. His are among the rarest and most sought after Israeli art works.
The article continues on the following pages.