Yiddish Will Live-The Accent Will Die
TICKTIN, HAROLD
BOOKS David and Bathsheba and Fred and Ginger The Arena of Jerusalem by Ivan Schwebel Adama Books, 1987.125 pp, with 111 color and 50 black-and-white photographs, $39.95 Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv! by...
...Images of actors and actresses, heretofore trapped inside a black-and-white movie set, become part of Tel Aviv's eclectic street life...
...In the book's introduction, the painter recalls that as he watched the procession of Israeli life pass by below, "The Book of Samuel came up to the roof with me...
...In one of the paintings, Tamar is dressed in a predominately red tunic, and stands in the middle of the street...
...At other times, they are separated by the traffic on Jaffa Road or by a group of window shoppers gathered near Kravitz's Department Store...
...The bright light pierces the dark, still blues and blacks of the surrounding buildings...
...The artist underestimates us...
...With a fuller palette, Schwebel utilizes intense reds and greens in "flashes" to represent the Ark of the Covenant with which David parades on Jaffa Road, his nakedness loosely covered by an orange cloak...
...Among the secrets they reveal are the identities of the models for Tamar (his wife Aviva), Uriah (his uniformed soldier son Artemis, and alternatively, a photograph of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics pitcher, Ed Rommel) and King David (the artist himself...
...The fun-filled characters Schwebel brings to "the White city" by the Mediterranean come dressed in tuxedos, evening gowns and swimsuits...
...The stronger of the two books is The Arena of Jerusalem, which depicts the city where the 55-year-old artist has lived since he came to Israel in 1963...
...is delightful to skim...
...The music to which they dance seems to be drifting over to the yellow awnings of the vendors' stalls, or does it emanate from there...
...Biblical figures parade, scheme and lament in the streets of modern-day Jerusalem...
...They are 20th-century legends from the silver screen...
...A gray car drives by her...
...A series of paintings portray David and Bathsheba together on the streets of current-day Jerusalem after dark...
...Evident in these powerful yet motionless paintings of David and Bathsheba is the homage, cited in his journals, that Schwebel has paid to the> street scenes of American painter Edward Copper...
...Over and over again, we see the lovers, frozen in an anticipative moment, illuminated by the glow from display windows and all-night taxi stands...
...Animated sketches and corresponding notations fill Schwebel's journals...
...The events of the other three sections of The Arena of Jerusalem take place in daylight...
...The series of Jerusalem paintings is divided into four sections, all with themes from the story of David...
...From various rooftop perches above Zion Square beginning in the late 1970s, the American-born Schwebel studied and sketched the heart of present-day Jerusalem...
...by Ivan Schwebel Modan Publishing House, Ltd, 1986.96 pp, with 90 color and 34 black-and-white photographs, $39.95 Reviewed by Gayle Weiss Movie stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood are seen embracing and dancing outside the theaters and shops of Tel Aviv...
...In her anguish, Tamar put ashes on her head and rent her garment of many colors...
...Afterwards, he ordered his manservant to put her out and bolt the door behind her...
...We have the opportunity to stargaze as Marlene Dietrich strolls past the Allenby Cinema, Jean Harlow waits alone at a Dizengoff cafe, and Greta Garbo and John Gilbert embrace at the Central Bus Station...
...She divides her time between Jerusalem and Washington...
...True to its coffee-table-book proportions, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv...
...Americans had the opportunity to view a series of handcolored lithographs by Ivan Schwebel at the Hebrew Union College Skirball Museum in Los Angeles last spring...
...The skills of Schwebel's narrative art are likewise employed in his unsettling paintings of David's daughter, Tamar...
...In the other volume, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv!, Schwebel lends truth to the Israeli labeling of Jerusalem as the city where one goes to pray, and Tel Aviv as the one in which to play...
...Shamed, she holds her head with her hand...
...and The Arena of Jerusalem, boldly depicted figures from the distant and recent past live in Ivan Schwebel's paintings...
...remain isolated works, unlike the continuum presented in The Arena of Jerusalem...
...The paintings are reproduced in full color, together with facsimiles from the artist's journals, black-and-white photographs of Jerusalem and biblical quotes that relate to the paintings...
...In a frozen celluloid moment, we are able to share Schwebel's fantasy of Fred and his red-haired partner Ginger, swirling in the balmy air outside the entrance to the Carmel Market...
...Full-color facsimiles of the artist's journals and black-and-white photographs of Tel Aviv accompany the reproductions of the paintings...
...In the same matter-of-fact manner in which David stalks present-day Zion Square, Betty Grable drapes her long legs over the cream-colored sands of Trumpeldor Beach...
...It is far more interesting, not to mention easier, to read Schwebel's words directly from his own hand...
...We are spectators at an impromptu dance in the heat of Tel Aviv, and it is a fabulous sight to witness...
...In these paintings, which show the conquering hero's procession down recognizable streets of today's Jerusalem, Schwebel envelops King David in an aura of biblical time that serves to underscore further his legendary stature...
...With her hand on her head, Tamar left, crying...
...The format for Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv!, is similar to that of The Arena of Jerusalem...
...The artist also shares his comments on painters, poets, film directors and the biblical David...
...The pair is sometimes depicted in each other's arms...
...In two separate volumes, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv...
...Although strong, the paintings of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv...
...Gayle Weiss is the director of the B'nai B'nth Klutznick Museum in Washington, DC...
...So it is throughout the pages of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv...
...The sporadic bursts of bright color among the primarily gray buildings, cars and people evoke the paintings of Larry Rivers...
...In his journal entry of April 3, 1984 (the entire Tel Aviv series was painted in 1984), Schwebel writes, "The danger to the beholder of knowing too much about my models, i.e., Clark Gable, Chaplin, in this or that film, is that [the beholder] gets carried away by recollections of the movie and not by what's happening in the painting...
...A distraction in both books is the transcription of the English text from Schwebel's handwritten notes in the journals...
...In the 1983 tableaus, "Tamar After the Rape," vermilion reds and deep blues fill the skies over drab downtown office buildings...
...As described in II Samuel 13, Tamar was raped by her half-brother, Amnon...
...A principal character in the Book of Samuel, David dominates the paintings even when he is "off canvas...
...But it is in the innovative retelling of David's story, such as the representation of the jubilant victor dancing through the "arena" of Jerusalem, that Schwebel has proven his genius...
...But it is through Schwebel's gripping characterizations of David's triumphs and laments in The Arena of Jerusalem that the reader will feel compelled to become reac-quainted with the words and images of the Book of Samuel...
Vol. 13 • July 1988 • No. 5
