Reuven Rubin
Title: Springtime in Ain Karem
Description: REUVEN RUBIN (1893-1974)
Springtime in Ain Karem
signed 'Rubin' in Hebrew and Roman script (lower center)
oil on canvas
25 3/4 x 32 in (65.4 x 81.2 cm)
Painted in 1966
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Carmela Rubin.
Exhibited: Palm Beach, Norton Museum of Art, Rubin, 1967, no. 18.
Rubin recounted his feelings upon seeing Jerusalem for the first time in 1912: "In the little Turkish train that brought me from Jaffa, I had my eyes glued to the window, gazing at the landscape and breathing in the air of Eretz Israel...I was amazed to note that everything looked familiar to me. It seemed as if I knew every rock, every tree, and the desert hills.
As the train came into Jerusalem I felt I was coming home" (C. Rubin, Rubin's Jerusalem Landscapes, Tel Aviv, 1988).
Painted in 1966, Springtime in Ain Karem is instantly recognizable as a classic example from the Jerusalem landscape series of Reuven Rubin's mature oeuvre. The foreground is dominated by russet-colored grasses and olive trees with dark impasto trunks and lush, deep green and silvery foliage. On the winding path, a blanketed donkey and two "minuscule figures...seem to be slightly out of scale, emphasizing the trees even further" (C. Rubin, Home Visit, Tel Aviv, 1998, p. 14).
Rubin creates a sweeping landscape vista through careful use of proportion, compositional elements, and color.
"His layers of paint become richer and more tactile. Yet, in spite of the abundant use of paint, the impression created is vague and hazy. The olive trees blend into the surrounding space" (ibid.). In addition to linear perspective, Rubin has employed the Old Master technique of aerial perspective to create the illusion of depth. The delicate, blurred silver-blue trees of the middle ground and background, as well as the painterly horizontal streaks of clouds at the topmost, liminal edge of the canvas, create a dramatically receding space.
Travels through Israel during the 1920s and 1930s "led Rubin to begin to paint the lyrically conceived landscapes with olive trees and cypress-dotted mountain villages that, although not depicting the actualities of any particular place, so compellingly evoke the spirit and atmosphere of Galilee and Judea and that have become almost synonymous with his name as a painter...He became so fascinated by the olive trees, with their gnarled, twisted, heavy trunks and feathery, silvery-grey leaves, that he painted them again and again under varying atmospheric conditions" (S. Wilkinson, Reuven Rubin, New York, n.d., p. 57). Rubin continued to paint these landscapes which so captivated him throughout his career.
Rubin's depictions of Jerusalem are grand, biblical, and enduring. Ain Karem translates to "Spring of the Vineyard" in Arabic and "Generous Spring" in Hebrew. It was an ancient village southwest of historical Jerusalem and is now a neighborhood of the modern city within Jerusalem District Israel. In 1961, the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital and Hebrew University of Jerusalem were built in this area. The contemporary population of Ain Karem numbers roughly 2,000, and three million visitors flock here each year. Rubin chose not to delineate the busy, modern, twentieth-century city he knew, but rather harked back to an idealized and ancient vision of the region.
Rubin was one of the first Israeli artists to achieve international recognition and was in his creative prime when he painted Springtime in Ain Karem. He was showered with accolades during this period: he was awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1964, Artist of the Year from the University of Judaism Los Angeles in 1971, and the Israel Prize for Painting in 1973. Springtime in Ain Karem was exhibited at the esteemed Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach the year after Rubin completed it. A testament to the importance of his work, Rubin's paintings are found in the permanent collections of major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Jewish Museum, New York; and Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris amongst others.
Medium: oil on canvas
Year of Work: 1966
Size: Height 25.7 in.; Width 32 in. / Height 65.4 cm.; Width 81.2 cm.
Misc.: Signed
Provenance: Rose Klorfein, New York (and sold by her estate: William Doyle Galleries, New York, October 26, 1983, lot 134).
Engel Gallery, Jerusalem.
Private collection, United States (acquired from the above, and sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 19, 2012, lot 52).
Private collection, Miami (acquired at the above sale).
Exhibition: Palm Beach, Norton Museum of Art, Rubin, 1967, no. 18.
Rubin recounted his feelings upon seeing Jerusalem for the first time in 1912: "In the little Turkish train that brought me from Jaffa, I had my eyes glued to the window, gazing at the landscape and breathing in the air of Eretz Israel...I was amazed to note that everything looked familiar to me. It seemed as if I knew every rock, every tree, and the desert hills.
As the train came into Jerusalem I felt I was coming home" (C. Rubin, Rubin's Jerusalem Landscapes, Tel Aviv, 1988).
Painted in 1966, Springtime in Ain Karem is instantly recognizable as a classic example from the Jerusalem landscape series of Reuven Rubin's mature oeuvre. The foreground is dominated by russet-colored grasses and olive trees with dark impasto trunks and lush, deep green and silvery foliage. On the winding path, a blanketed donkey and two "minuscule figures...seem to be slightly out of scale, emphasizing the trees even further" (C. Rubin, Home Visit, Tel Aviv, 1998, p. 14). Rubin creates a sweeping landscape vista through careful use of proportion, compositional elements, and color.
"His layers of paint become richer and more tactile. Yet, in spite of the abundant use of paint, the impression created is vague and hazy. The olive trees blend into the surrounding space" (ibid.). In addition to linear perspective, Rubin has employed the Old Master technique of aerial perspective to create the illusion of depth. The delicate, blurred silver-blue trees of the middle ground and background, as well as the painterly horizontal streaks of clouds at the topmost, liminal edge of the canvas, create a dramatically receding space.
Travels through Israel during the 1920s and 1930s "led Rubin to begin to paint the lyrically conceived landscapes with olive trees and cypress-dotted mountain villages that, although not depicting the actualities of any particular place, so compellingly evoke the spirit and atmosphere of Galilee and Judea and that have become almost synonymous with his name as a painter...He became so fascinated by the olive trees, with their gnarled, twisted, heavy trunks and feathery, silvery-grey leaves, that he painted them again and again under varying atmospheric conditions" (S. Wilkinson, Reuven Rubin, New York, n.d., p. 57). Rubin continued to paint these landscapes which so captivated him throughout his career.
Rubin's depictions of Jerusalem are grand, biblical, and enduring. Ain Karem translates to "Spring of the Vineyard" in Arabic and "Generous Spring" in Hebrew. It was an ancient village southwest of historical Jerusalem and is now a neighborhood of the modern city within Jerusalem District Israel. In 1961, the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital and Hebrew University of Jerusalem were built in this area. The contemporary population of Ain Karem numbers roughly 2,000, and three million visitors flock here each year. Rubin chose not to delineate the busy, modern, twentieth-century city he knew, but rather harked back to an idealized and ancient vision of the region.
Rubin was one of the first Israeli artists to achieve international recognition and was in his creative prime when he painted Springtime in Ain Karem. He was showered with accolades during this period: he was awarded the Dizengoff Prize for Painting and Sculpture from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 1964, Artist of the Year from the University of Judaism Los Angeles in 1971, and the Israel Prize for Painting in 1973. Springtime in Ain Karem was exhibited at the esteemed Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach the year after Rubin completed it. A testament to the importance of his work, Rubin's paintings are found in the permanent collections of major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Jewish Museum, New York; and Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris amongst others.