Today in WOFI, we visited a museum called “House of Reuven.” Not so surprisingly, the museum was a collection of paintings by Romanian-Israeli artist Reuven Rubin. The artist was born in 1893, in a shtetl in Romania. When Rubin was 19, he moved to Israel to begin his career in art, and enrolled in the Israeli art school Betzalel. Rubin went to study in Paris and Romania over the next decade, but returned to Israel for the rest of his life at age 30 to paint and help establish Israel, specifically Tel Aviv. Rubin lived in Tel Aviv for the rest of his life, and was instrumental in helping its progression to a metropolitan center of commerce and culture.
From the instant I stepped into the House of Reuven, I was entranced. Great art has a hypnotic power, and Rubin’s paintings are certainly great. The first piece we looked at was one of Rubin’s earliest: “Self Portrait with a Flower.” The portrait had what one would expect from a painting titled as such: Rubin’s depiction of himself, facing front, holding a fistful of paintbrushes in one hand and a flower in the either. But what surprised was Rubin’s style. The artist painted his face as very pinched-together, out of proportion with the rest of his body. The painting was rendered in very drab colors, with light brown, brown and dark brown being the colors of choice. The lone bright color was the flower in Rubin’s right hand, symbolic of growth and potential. As a whole, the portrait was very different from what one expects from a self-portrait. And that, certainly, is what would make Rubin happiest of all. Of course, he is dead, so not much would make him happy these days. But fifty years ago? Indubitably.
The Eretz Israel museum was the second museum we visited. Unfortunately, it was significantly less compelling than the House of Reuven. The main exhibit in the Eretz Israel museum was a collection of Israeli family photographs. Now, to be fair, all the photographs were beautiful, and there were a couple that were particularly touching: a Down’s Syndrome couple, for example, and a gay couple with several children. However, the true significance of these photographs is dubious. The idea, one imagines, is that Israel is diverse and has all sorts of families. However, that point could be brought across in any number of ways, and it is hardly worth a large gallery in one of Israel’s most beautiful and prominent museums. One wall of these photographs would have been enough. Three large rooms was overkill defined. Eretz Israel is a beautiful museum, but a budget review is necessary.