Painted soon after Ukrainian artist Sonia Delaunay’s arrival in Paris, France in 1905, this early portrait shows her testing the expressive color she absorbed from Post-Impressionism and the Fauves. Before the abstractions and “simultanism” she later developed with Robert Delaunay, she worked with faces exploring if hues can become mood and temperature. A young woman sits against a wallpaper-like field of oversized flowers and curling vines. Her hair is pulled back tightly, with a dark ribbon tucked behind her head, and she wears a simple, rose-pink top that fills the lower half of the canvas. Delaunay builds the face from broad, flattened planes of cool turquoise and slate blue across the forehead and cheek, olive and mossy greens along the jaw and neck, plus warm tan and coral around the nose and eyes so the unidentified woman’s features read clearly even as the colors refuse naturalism. Thin, dark outlines sharpen her eyelids and lips as her eyes look off to our right, steady and self-contained. Behind her, blues, reds, and greens repeat in petals and leaves, echoing the portrait’s patches of color and making figure and background feel woven together. Brushstrokes stay visible in the blouse and background, and the close, decorative setting heightens the feeling of a private, paused moment. The woman’s skin is deliberately nonliteral and mapped in color blocks so the portrait is both likeness and experiment. Shadows appear as shifts from yellow to green, while the floral backdrop presses forward, as if the air itself were patterned. Throughout, her expression stays quietly pensive, with a closed mouth and half-lidded gaze. The title “Finlandaise” may hold a personal echo because Delaunay spent childhood summers in Finland, and the floral field feel like a remembered textile or room, enclosing the sitter in patterned intimacy. In this painting, identity is less documentary than poetic like an invitation to meet a young woman’s presence while letting color speak.

“Finlandaise (Finnish Woman)” by Sonia Delaunay-Terk (Соня Делоне) (Ukrainian-born French) - Oil on canvas / 1907–1908 - The Israel Museum (Jerusalem) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #SoniaDelaunay #СоняДелоне #Delaunay #IsraelMuseum #artText #UkrainianArtist #WomenPaintingWomen

Painted in Vienna a few years before World War I, the portrait reflects Polish-born (Russian Empire), Austrian-based painter Yehuda (also Jehudo) Epstein’s devotion to dignifying everyday Jewish sitters from Eastern-European life. An elderly woman faces us directly, cropped to the shoulders against a soft brown background. Her light beige skin is finely lined at brow, eyes, and mouth as half-lowered lids lend a steady, thoughtful gaze. A pale gray headscarf sits low across her forehead while a heavy tawny-ochre shawl wraps her neck and shoulders, falling in broad, weighty folds. The light is frontal and cool, pooling along the bridge of her nose, cheekbones, and the fine ridge of her upper lip, while the sides sink into quiet shadow. Lean, matte brushstrokes leave the canvas weave visible, heightening her still, intimate, unadorned presence. The shawl’s earthen tones and simple headscarf read as markers of modesty and labor; the close crop and compressed space refuse spectacle, inviting us to read time and experience in the sitter’s features. Around 1910, Epstein was working within an academic realist language while pushing toward psychological presence, an approach that would later undergird his recognition in Vienna and his service as an official artist during the war. Here, the close crop, earthen palette, and the elderly woman’s unwavering look turn age into testimony rather than stereotype. Born in Słonim in the Russian Empire (today Belarus), Epstein trained at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and built his career there, favoring sober realism and psychological attentiveness over Secessionist flourish. His themes spanned ghetto figures, biblical scenes, landscapes, and portraits. During World War I he served as an official Austrian war artist; in 1923 he was appointed Professor at the Vienna Academy. In the mid-1930s, he emigrated to South Africa, extending his practice into a wider diaspora.

“Portrait of Old Woman” by Yehuda Epstein (Polish) – Oil on canvas / 1910 – The Israel Museum, Jerusalem #WomenInArt #OldWoman #art #artText #artwork #BlueskyArt #arte #PortraitofaWoman #YehudaEpstein #JudaEpstein #Realism #AcademicRealism #JewishArt #IsraelMuseumJerusalem #IsraelMuseum #1910sArt

A young dancer steps forward on one foot and the other pointed red slipper lifted. She wears a fitted rose-pink jacket with a deep V neckline and narrow cuffs edged in gold; a long chain drops from her neck to a gold pendant that rests at her waist. Above a short, wine-red overskirt patterned with curling gold tendrils, a broad teal-and-gold sash drapes diagonally, its folds echoing the swing of her movement. Beneath, a vertically striped skirt in turquoise and brown falls to the ankles, parted to reveal layers: a pale cream undergarment stenciled with small floral stars and a pink inner robe trimmed in gold. Her hands are raised with bent wrists and delicately posed fingers, signaling measured rhythm. Long, dark hair streams in loose waves; a few braids frame a luminous light-toned face with kohl-rimmed almond eyes, faint cheek flush, and soft red lips. A low gold crown set with pearls and a feathered aigrette rests over her center-parted hair. She moves across a parchment-colored ground dotted with plants and stones. Created in Isfahan toward the latter part of the Safavid dynasty, this single-figure album leaf (muraqqaʿ) exemplifies Muʿin Musawwir’s refinement: elongated proportions, poised gesture, and meticulous costume detailing in opaque watercolor heightened with gold. As successor to the celebrated Reżā ʿAbbāsī, Muʿin shaped the courtly taste of the later 17th century, producing artwork prized for intimate viewing that circulated alongside calligraphy and poetry, functioning as visual counterparts to lyric verse. Here, choreography becomes arabesque art through the dancer’s angled wrists, pendant chain, and streaming hair to create motion. The restrained setting places emphasis on presence, while jeweled headpiece, sash, and patterned textiles signal urban sophistication. Within Safavid culture, images of dancers, musicians, and lovers offered a cultivated idiom of grace and wit; this leaf crystallizes that ideal with particular clarity.

“Young Woman Dancing” by Muʿin Musawwir (Iranian) – Opaque watercolor and gold on paper / 1670–1690 – The Israel Museum, Jerusalem #WomenInArt #art #artText #artwork #dancer #Musawwir #IsraelMuseum #watercolor #BlueskyArt #WomanDancing #IMJ #artBSKY #IranianArtist #IranianArt #PersianArt #1600s

@israel @mazeldon @photography

#israelmuseum #jerusalem #israel #people #streetphotography #photography

@israel @mazeldon @photography

#israelmuseum #jerusalem #israel #people #streetphotography #photography

#israelmuseum #jerusalem #israel #people #photography

Photo: A large stainless steel sculpture shaped kind of like one of those double-ended shot classes that bartenders use to mix drinks stands on a large piece of pavement. Highly polished, it reflects everything around it in both its bottom and top halves. The bottom reflects the blue sky (and a little semi-circle of pavement it's catching from the top half. The top half reflects the pavement (and a little semi-circle of the sky it picks up from the bottom half). D5100: ƒ/13, 1/640, 30mm, ISO125

Turning the World Upside Down
Sculpture by Anish Kapoor
Crown Plaza, #IsraelMuseum, #Jerusalem
April 2012
#AlphabetChallenge #WeekSforSilver
#EndTheOccupation #FreeGaza

The "Cave of the Treasure" refers to a specific cave in Nahal Mishmar, located in the Judean Desert of Israel. It's known for the discovery of a hoard of Chalcolithic artifacts from around 3500 BCE, which includes copper mace heads, scepters, and other ritual objects. These artifacts were found wrapped in a reed mat, concealed behind a large stone in a crevice within the cave. In 1961, Israeli archaeologist Pessah Bar-Adon and his team unearthed the hoard of artifacts while exploring caves near Qumran. The cave contained over 400 objects, primarily made of copper, along with some ivories and hematite. These included mace heads, scepters, and enigmatic objects like "crowns," according to the Israel Museum. The artifacts illustrate the advanced copper-working skills of Chalcolithic smiths, who were the first people to extensively work with metal. The hoard is believed to have belonged to a shrine at En Gedi, about 12 km away, and was likely hidden in the cave during a time of danger.

The Cave of the Treasure. The Finds from the Caves in Nahal Mishmar A report on the artifacts discovered in the course of the excavations in the caves of Nahal Mishmar, including 429 Chalcolithic objects of copper, ivory and Haematite, found wrapped in a reed mat and hidden in a natural crevice of the cave wall. A sparse stratum of finds from the time of the Bar-Kokhba revolt was also found in the cave.

Ritual hoard of copper objects from the Cave of the Treasure, Nahal Mishmar, present-day Israel, Late Chalcolithic period (4500 – 3500 BC). Israel Museum, Jerusalem

#ancient #copper #objects #middleeast #israel #nahalmishmar #israelmuseum #jerusalem #caveofthetreasure #ritualhoard #jerusalem