Aroch, Arie

Young years

Arye Arokh (name at birth - Leva Niselevich) was born in November 1908 in the city of Kharkov of the former Russian Empire (now Ukraine ). He was the youngest of three children in the family of Rivka-Shulamit and Chaim Niselevich. At that time, the territory of Kharkov was outside the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire.

His father, Chaim Niselevich, was a successful trader and took an active part in Zionist political activities that took place in Russia. In addition, he took part in the creation of the Tarbut gymnasium education system. Parents gave Arya a secular education, including lessons in music, literature and poetry. As a child, he drew a lot. Aroch told in an interview that he began to paint his first paintings with charcoal at the age of six years ^[3] . Some of these drawings were presented at the Kharkov Museum . There are also in the exposition of the famous Israeli museum "Mane Katz" .

Eretz Israel, 1924 - 1934

In 1924 , Leva Nislievich, together with his parents and sister, repatriated to Eretz Yisrael , while his older brother remained in Russia. In 1925 - 1926 he studied art at the Bezalel school . His friends were Avigdor Stematsky , Moshe Castel , Zion Tager , Ezekiel Streichman and others. Among the teachers were artist Shmuel Ben-David , enamel artist Aaron Shaul Shor and Jacob Aisenberg , in whose workshop Leva Nislevich created decorative ceramic tiles. In addition, he became friends with the artist Chaim Glixberg, who taught him the art of oil painting ^[4] .

In 1926 , Nislevich studied at the Herzliya Gymnasium in Tel Aviv . There he received the nickname "Aroh" (translated into Russian - "long"), assigned to him because of his high growth. This nickname was ultimately adopted by him as a surname. In 1929 - 1930 Aroch studied architecture at the Technion . In 1932 , he studied for a short time in a studio opened by Joseph Zaritsky . In addition, he became a member of the Association of Artists and Sculptors and took part in its general exhibition.

After the death of his father in 1932 , Aroch designed a monument at the Trumpeldor cemetery , on which an excerpt from a poem by David Shimoni , teacher Aroch at the Herzliya Gymnasium was engraved. In 1934 , his mother, Rebekah-Shulamit, died.

Paris - Eretz Yisrael - Amsterdam, 1934 - 1939

In 1934 , Arie Aroch left for Paris to study at the Academy of Colarossi . In addition to classes at the academy, he took several lessons of cubism from the artist Fernand Leger . Aroch’s painting “Interior with a Chair” (1935), painted during his stay in Paris, depicts a blue interior made using the technique of quick brush strokes, with a red armchair in the center on which the clothes are laid out. The style of this painting, characteristic of Aroch’s works created during these years, illustrates the influence of moderate expressionism by artists of the “Paris school” , such as Chaim Soutine , Marc Chagall and Mane-Katz . Even in the painting “Portrait”, written in the 30s of the XX century, Aroch used the technique of expressive strokes to form a melancholy image. Unlike the style of other artists, Aroch’s style did not go beyond the artistic image, and his expressive technique was not used to create abstract elements.

Upon his return to Israel , in 1936, Aroh worked as a surveyor . He married Helene Albeck (Alray), whom he met on a ship on his way from Paris, but this marriage was short-lived. As for creativity, Aroch continued to work under the influence of the “Paris school”. He took part in a group exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum and created the scenery for the play “The White Circle” (1936) (edited by Japanese legend Frederick Lube for the Palatka Theater) and the play “The Guards” (1937) (staged by Auver Hadney, Theater “ Gabima ") ^[5] .

In 1938 - 1939 he lived in Amsterdam . In his paintings of this period, such as, for example, Still Life, a Vase and Flowers (1938), the influence of the energetic manner of holding a brush by Vincent Van Gogh is noticeable. In the picture “From the Window” (1938), for example, Aroch depicted the landscape of the Dutch city ​​that he saw from the window. In this and other works, Aroch used emphasized long and wide lines to separate the composition geometrically and planarly. January 21, 1939 in the gallery "Santa Landver" in Amsterdam opened a personal exhibition of Aroch. The exhibition was covered in articles by the local press, which noted the influence of the “Paris school” on his work ^[6] .

Tel Aviv, 1939 - 1948

In 1939, he returned to Tel Aviv and presented his solo exhibition in the Katz Gallery, which contains a selection of works created in Amsterdam. In the works of the 40s, Aroch continued to use the painting style formulated in Holland; compositions of this period are characterized by a trend of clear geometric distributions. During these years, Aroch created mainly landscapes . At the beginning of the decade, Aroch created many landscapes in Zichron Yaakov and Haifa , where he stayed intermittently from 1942 to 1946 , as part of his service in the British Army . In addition, he created costumes for the first military orchestra of Eretz Yisrael , the need for which increased sharply in 1942 - 1943.

During the first half of the decade, Aroch's works were presented at various group exhibitions in Gabima . Participating in the eighth exhibition held in Gabima in December 1942 , Haim Gamzu emphasized the use of color by Aroch and the influence of Van Gogh on his work ^[7] . After this exhibition, Aroch became the winner of the prize for young artists named after Meir Dizengoff . in 1943 he married Deborah Koenig. After the end of Aroch’s military service, in 1946, the couple settled in an apartment on 120 Ha-Yarkon Street, in Tel Aviv, where Aroh set up a small studio in the courtyard.

In 1947 , Aroch’s works were exhibited at the Hashiva exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum. Ten works were presented, including paintings such as Men on the Promenade (1943) and other landscapes. In “Eugen Kolb” favorable reviews about his paintings were published and the transition in creativity from painting of post-impressionism to the tendency of a sketchy landscape style using geometric forms of cubism was described ^[8] . This is also noticeable in Aroch’s early works, such as The Red Bus (1944 - 1946) from the Bus in the Mountains series.

Buenos Aires - Moscow - Jerusalem, 1948 - 1955

In 1948 , Aroch joined the group of artists “New Horizons” . However, since in the same year he was sent by the Jewish National Fund to Buenos Aires , in fact, for a long time he did not represent his work in the group (until 1952). Aroch's exhibition, dedicated to scenes from the life of the biblical character Joseph , was presented in 1949 at the Viau Gallery in Buenos Aires .

The separation from the struggle of the New Horizons artists, adherents of the style of abstract painting, contributed to Aroch's adoption of his own style, reflecting his attempt to formulate a new artistic language. Later, in an interview, Aroch explained the motivation for changing the style: “Despair led me - it was in 1950 or so - to the conclusion that I was not able to create a story. Therefore, I allowed myself this mission ^[9] . This style of painting has long expressed an attempt to cancel the realistic dimension of the description in favor of the tension of the formal and geometric description ” ^[10] . This was reflected in the adoption of a visually expressive style of painting with many built-in functions of “childishness” or “naivety” of art, which was influenced by the work of artists such as Paul Klee , Juan Miro and others.

In 1950 , Aroch joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs . He was sent to serve as a diplomat at the Israeli embassy in Moscow. In December 1951 , Aroch’s son, Jonathan Aroch, was born. In Moscow, he renewed contact with his relatives who lived in the Soviet Union. The works created during his stay in Moscow, reflect the nature of "rigidity" in the style used by him. In his works of this period, the tendency to use dimensional jewelry and decorative elements of painting became noticeable. The work "St. Basil's Cathedral" (1951), for example, is written as a color conditional image of St. Basil's Cathedral . In it, Aroch refused expressionism and cubism in favor of a conditional image of the cathedral building, separated from real space.

In February 1953 , after the severance of relations between the Soviet Union and Israel , Arie Aroch returned to Israel. In 1954 , he moved to Jerusalem on Balfour Street, 1. In November 1955 , he presented a solo exhibition at the Bezalel School of Invalids in Jerusalem, and in December about 28 oil paintings in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art . In addition, in the same year, his painting “Bus in the Mountains” (1955) received the Dizengoff Prize and was acquired by the Tel Aviv Museum. In 1956 , Aroch participated in the exhibition of the Venice Biennale along with artists such as Avigdor Stematsky , Yosel Bergner and Zvi Meirovich (the curator of the Israeli pavilion was Mordechai Ardon ). His works of this period, such as “The Synagogue and Images”, “Moshe from Sarajevo” and “Portrait of the Artist's Father” (all created in 1955), reflect Aroch's special interest in Jewish and family themes.

Old and new horizons, 1959 - 1966

Between 1956 - 1959 Arye Aroh served as the Ambassador of Israel to Brazil . During this period, he rarely painted. In 1959, Aroh was appointed Israeli Ambassador to Sweden . Staying in Stockholm has revived a wide splash of his work. In the period 1962 - 1960 . he created a significant amount of work that was of a character different from the character of the rest of the Israeli paintings of the New Horizons in all that related to the integration of symbolic non-artistic images.

One of the incentives for this creative surge was the exposition of contemporary art exhibitions of that time, presented by the Stockholm Municipal Museum. Among other things, in 1962 , Aroch visited an exhibition of pop art artists with works by Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns . The use of finished objects by American artists as works of art, abstract painting styles - Tashism and Informel (France) inspired Aroch to interpret these styles as a combination of figurative and symbolic images with abstract design to form a new independent style.

Among the famous works of this period is the series of paintings “Zucker”, which Aroch began to create in 1961. These works are based on the image of a sign with a picture of a boot , which Aroch remembered from childhood. He created variations of this image, which are abstract forms inside an oval frame. In an interview, Aroch explained the development of the form as the basis for a “concrete abstraction”: “The form of the shaft was developed as concrete (as opposed to abstract), which has the right to exist, and I wanted to embody an abstract object, an object, as defined earlier " ^[11] .

In 1963 , Aroch returned from Stockholm and settled in Jerusalem . He opened a business with Berta Urdang, director of Gallery Rina in Jerusalem, and presented an exhibition of his current work. In addition, he was appointed head of the Department of Cultural Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served in this position until his retirement in 1971. During one of his business trips to Rome, Aroch acquired a set of Panda oil pastels and began to create a large volume of paintings in this technique, some of which were imprinted in reproductions on the pages of various magazines ( Gidon Efrat claimed that it was Aroch who recorded the name “ Panda "as common to these colors). In 1964 , Arie Aroch presented 34 paintings in the Israeli pavilion at the Venice Biennale, some of which were painted using the Pandas pastel technique. In 1966, an exhibition organized by Rafi Lavi , of 23 paintings written in this technique, was presented at the Masda Gallery in Tel Aviv .

Another series of works on which Aroch worked during the 60s was based on the artistic embodiment of the biblical Creation , Exodus, and the image of Moses with the Tablets of the Covenant as they appear in the illustrations of the Sarajevo Hagad created in the XIV century . In these works, such as The Jewish Motive ( 1961 ), Prayer, The Purple Rainbow (1961), or Creation, Sarajevo Agada (1966), abstract symbols are presented in a metaphysical sense. “In these works,” wrote Gidon Efrat, “Aroch combined Israeli lyrical abstraction, imported from Paris by Zaritsky and his friends, with Jewish folk memory and Judaism ; to connect new horizons with old ones ” ^[12] .

In the paintings “Agrippas Street” (1964) and “High Commissioner” (1966), Aroch created the most significant integrations between the “concrete horizons” of local reality and international commitment to pop art . In the painting Agrippas Street, which withstood more interpretations than all his works, Aroch integrated characters related to his stay at the Bezalel school in Jerusalem , emphasizing a detailed description of the religious and civic characteristics of the authority of the authorities. In the work “High Commissioner”, continuing the practice of displaying these attributes, he used additional iconographic elements based on the history of Western art and intended for use in his much later works. A prominent place among them is the combination of red and blue and duplication of images.

Recent years, 1967 - 1974

Between 1967 and 1970 Aroch participated in many group exhibitions. In 1968, curator Jona Fisher organized an exhibition of 48 of his works at the Israel Museum . In addition, the Israel Museum awarded Aroch the prestigious Sandberg Prize. In 1970, Arie Aroch underwent surgery to remove a tumor in the colon. In 1971, he was awarded the Israel Prize in Painting.

In the last years of his life, Aroch often turned to ars poetics when creating his works of art. In the light of this approach, he created artistic variations based on literary works, for example, “Two” (1968), a series of boat drawings (1968 - 1970), based on the teachings of Christian Reingold and others, confirming that one of the expressions of ars poetics is the image human nature.

In the last period of his life, he planned two monumental projects - a tapestry for the House of the Warrior in Afek and a bas-relief for the library of the Hebrew University . However, a serious illness did not allow Aroch to complete these projects. He died on October 15, 1974 .

For many years, the work of Arie Aroch was perceived as a work of Israeli abstract art. Like the work of many representatives of the New Horizons , the style of his early works was influenced by the post-impressionism and expressionism of the Paris School . Although in his works the images also underwent a process of formal reduction, the abstraction in the formulation of Joseph Zaritsky , the leader of New Horizons , was far from the style of Aroch's artwork. In his interviews, he always sought to emphasize his interest in formalism and forms in the creation of painting. However, many of the forms and abstract images were the result of a “concrete abstraction” in a symbolic sense, preserving the forms created by Aroch.

The technique of painting developed by Aroch, including “ink”, engraving and “nonsense”, from the point of view of rational abstract painting, influenced the work of a number of artists associated in their work with the style of “poverty of material” , led by Rafi Lavi .

Since the 80s, various interpretations of Aroch’s work have appeared. Instead of emphasizing the formal side, art historians began to emphasize the content of Aroch’s work, including elements of the Jewish tradition. The character of Aroch’s work was seen as a combination of local Judaism and universalism . In her article Agrippas v Nimrod (1988), Sarah Breitberg-Semel presented the works of Arie Aroch as a new model for the concept of Israeli design. The article criticizes the perception of the canonical concept of Israeli art in the scientific literature on the example of the sculpture “Nimrod” (1939) by Yitzhak Danziger , in which Breitberg-Semel saw an exclusively nationalistic image. Arie Aroch's painting “Agrippas Street” was proposed as a more worthy alternative, combining “Jewish” values ​​with “Zionist” values ^[13] .

Arye Aroch, although he was a member of the New Horizons, proposed in his works an alternative to "lyrical abstraction . " Instead of informal abstraction - suggested focusing on form; instead of objectivity - works based on personal handwriting; instead of professionalism supporting the method, the use of unusual techniques to create forms; instead of communicating with abstract French art, use citation for images belonging to different concepts of art. So in his works appeared forms of children's drawings - from the use of found objects, from traditional folk images or those that were associated with childhood memories. The work of Arie Aroch, combining various images, influenced the artistic thinking of young artists with its pathos-free uncertainty that characterizes his work and technique (removal, engraving, strokes). Among these artists were Rafi Lavi and Aviva Uri .

• 1924 - 1926 - Bezalel , Jerusalem
• 1926 - 1928 - Herzliya Gymnasium , Tel Aviv
• 1934 - 1935 - Academy of Colarossi , Paris

• 1942 - Dizengoff Prize in Art, Painting and Sculpture, Tel Aviv
• 1955 - Dizengoff Prize from the Tel Aviv Museum
• 1968 - Sandberg Prize, Israel Museum , Jerusalem
• 1971 - Israel Prize in Painting

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• שבא סלהוב, אדם בעקבות עקבותיו, סטודיו , 104, 1999.

•   Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aroch, Arie
• Aroch Arie - article from the Electronic Jewish Encyclopedia
• Arie Aroch's collection of works on the Israel Museum site
• אריה ארוך באוספי מוזיאון ישראל
• אריה ארוך במרכז מידע לאמנות ישראלית, מוזיאון ישראל
• אריה ארוך בארופיאנה
• גדעון עפרת " אוטובוס ושמו תשוקה ", באתר "מכונת קריאה"
• סמדר שפי, " הנביעה הפנימית של אריה ארוך ", באתר עכבר העיר, 5 בדצמבר 2008