Paths in the Arava
Shraga Weil
1956
Paths in the Arava is an album comprising a series of eight pencil drawings, accompanied by an introductory booklet and texts written by Prof. Haim Gamzu to accompany the drawings. In this series, Weil gave expression to the spirit of settlement and state-building, and the drawings constitute an artistic documentation of the Negev's landscapes as a setting for a personal and national journey. The term “Path” (mesila) carries a double meaning: it denotes a route, or road, and also signifies the choice of a particular way of life from among possible alternatives.
The album reflects Weil’s conception of the role of art and the artist’s commitment to society and the environment. The landscapes of the Arava, the craters, Masada, Mount Sodom, Ein Gedi, and the Dead Sea appear in Weil’s drawings as expanses of primordial vastness, in which the early stages of the country’s development are already evident—industrialization and the paving of roads. In the first drawing, a truck travels along a paved road through the desert; later, a group of young people of the Palmach generation is shown on its way to the summit of Masada—an act that at the time symbolized heroism and the overcoming of nature, linked the pioneer generation with the heritage of the past, and helped shape a new national identity.
Through airy or densely worked lines, Weil succeeded in capturing moments and details and assembling them into a complete and encompassing image. The drawings possess a dynamic quality generated by the sinuous, rounded line and by the contrasts between light and shadow, between the drawn areas and the blank paper.
Prof. Haim Gamzu (1910–1982)—art critic, founder of Beit Zvi, and the first director of the Tel Aviv Museum—accompanied Weil’s drawings with literary writing that expressed the spirit of the time and intensified both the sense of the sublime landscape and the courage of the young builders of the country.
The album was published by Miclol Press, founded in Tel Aviv in 1937 by Moshe Ben-Eliezer. The press published books in various fields, including scholarly and research works, textbooks, and prose.
The book is part of the Tel Aviv Art Museum Collection and was photographed and indexed with the courtesy of the library staff.
- Pages: 12
- Type of binding: Softcover
- Dimensions (cm): 41x29
- Type of printing: Lithography
- Publication: Miclol
- Place of publication: Tel Aviv
- Supported by: United Artists
- Book photography: Leafing Magazine
Shraga Weil (1918–2009) was a painter identified with the kibbutz movement, born in Slovakia. From a young age, he was active in the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement, and he expressed its principles and worldview in his artistic work.
Weil studied art at the academy in Prague, but his studies were interrupted by the Second World War. He moved to Budapest, where he worked as a graphic designer and forged documents for the Jewish underground—an activity for which he was arrested and imprisoned together with his wife for a year. After the war, he designed books for the HeHalutz and Hashomer Hatzair movements. In 1946, Weil and his wife immigrated to Mandatory Palestine aboard the illegal immigrant ship Theodor Herzl; when the ship was intercepted by the British, they were sent to a detention camp in Cyprus. Weil’s drawings from this period addressed the trauma left by the Holocaust and the longing for the Land of Israel. Upon their arrival in the country, Weil and his wife joined Kibbutz HaOgen, where they lived for the rest of their lives.
Weil espoused the belief that both the artist and art itself bear a responsibility toward society and the environment. The peak of his creative work came during his early years in the kibbutz, against the backdrop of the founding of the state and the War of Independence. His works embodied the pioneering spirit and the ideology of the kibbutz movement. He depicted the collective life of the kibbutz, everyday routines, and in particular, the dining hall, which was also his workplace. The pictorial character of his works from this period reflects his experience as a graphic designer and illustrator: the compositions are constructed of forms delineated by black lines and painted in soft pastel tones, while the bodies are rendered in brown as an allegory for the pioneers’ closeness to the land, their identity and sense of belonging, and as testimony to physical labor under the blazing sun. From the hut allotted to him by the kibbutz as a studio, Weil responded to current events—soldiers of the 1948 generation appeared in his paintings and in publicity posters, primarily for Mapam.
Weil’s style was spiritually akin to early twentieth-century Mexican painting, which focused on political and social themes in a realist-symbolic manner. This approach stood apart from the central current of Israeli art at the time, which turned toward abstraction and marginalized artists who engaged with social issues and realist painting, among them Weil, who strove for a realist art accessible and comprehensible to all.
In 1950, Weil illustrated a Passover Haggadah for the Kibbutz Artzi movement, emphasizing kibbutz life and the spirit of the era, and marking the transition from Jewish tradition to a new Israeli identity. During that decade, he worked as a designer and illustrator of book and periodical covers for Sifriyat Poalim (Workers’ Library), and also designed election posters for Mapam. In 1952, Weil traveled to Paris for a short period to specialize in printmaking and mural painting.
From the mid-1960s onward, symbols and images from Jewish tradition and the Bible began to appear in his paintings, expressing his Jewish roots and serving as metaphors for existential struggle in the world. During the 1960s and 1970s, he designed entrance doors for public buildings, including the Knesset, the President’s Residence, and the façade of the Great Synagogue in Tel Aviv, and he also created the ceiling painting in the Israeli Hall at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
Weil illustrated books, among them The Love of Samson (1952), and produced illustrations for a cycle of poems by Leah Goldberg (a copy is held in the library of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art). He exhibited in numerous exhibitions and was awarded the Dizengoff Prize in 1959. He died in 2009 and was buried in the cemetery of Kibbutz HaOgen.
