Please find details of “Homage to Chaim Soutine” by Yosl Bergner
Yosl Bergner is one of Israel’s most distinguished artists. His works are fabulous and mystical. “Homage to Chaim Soutine” is a response to Soutine’s “Flayed Ox” (1925) and his new modernist concept of still life. The artist experimented with deformations through which he conveyed the inner torment. Soutine created a feeling of contiguity of his nerves and perceptions with depicted objects.
According to art historians, Soutine’s interest towards the subject of still life arose due to his childhood impression from strict Jewish dietary laws, requiring the ritual slaughter of fowl and meat. Memories shaped his highly personal and emotional approach. In particular, Soutine stated that gesture, material, colour are as important as depicted objects. “Flayed Ox” by Rembrandt (1655) is motionless in contrast to Soutine’s depiction.
Yosl Bergner turned his flayed ox into an alive sinuous creature. Moreover, resplendent in shades of red the watermelon lying near seems to start its transformation as well. The artist used thick brushstrokes to suggest flesh and liken two depicted incomparable objects. Especially, the visible work with paint expresses the artist’s internal experience and tension. Even the background is saturated with colour transitions and, therefore, appear to actively participate and absorb the attention.
Kings gallery
Please find our selection of works by Yosl Bergner, the artist who showed delicate fusion between sadness and joy. Bergner participated in the Venice Biennale in 1956, 1958, 1962 and was awarded with the Israel Prize for Painting in 1980. In addition, check our blog about his “Candle lighting”.
Kings Gallery is a leading fine art gallery established in Jerusalem in 1995. We strive to collect and sell the highest quality historic and contemporary Israeli and International art. The gallery specializes in artists from the early period of the 1920’s. In addition, Kings gallery features leading up-and-coming young artists who will definitely be prominent names in the next few years.
