American-Israeli artist Schwebel has produced a monumental series of paintings and etchings on material in the books of Samuel and Kings. Examples of Schwebel's paintings of David are accompanied by biblical texts translated by Prof. Everett Fox. Fox, who holds the Glick Chair in Judaic and Biblical Studies at Clark University, is the translator of The Schocken Bible. The most recently published volume, Give us a King! Samuel, Saul, and David (Schocken Books, 1999), incorporates Schwebel's art.

Webcast interview with the artist Schwebel
About the artist


I was introduced to by the American-Israel artist Schwebel in the summer of 1996; he was at the time close to finishing his monumental series of paintings and etchings on the material in Samuel and Kings, which was published in Israel the following year under the title David. It is a unique body of work. Like all great commentaries on the text, it moves back and forth between the past and present; some pieces appear timeless in background and dress, while many others are set in modern Jerusalem, particularly downtown, in the Judean hills, and even in the Bronx of Schwebel's youth.


David plays for Saul (I Sam 16:14-23)
81 x 100 cm 1995
Read the related Biblical verses
and view picture enlarged


David whirls with all his might before the Lord
(II Samuel 6:12-19)
Jerusalem's Zion Square, Jaffa Road
135x160 cm, 1983, 1996
Read the related Biblical verses
and view picture enlarged

The work grew out of the tangled and tragic events of Israel's Lebanon war, but war is not its prominent theme. What makes Schwebel's David series so extraordinary, to my mind, is its emotional power - a power that well matches the impact of text's own. While it was not the artist's goal to connect with the purely religious dimension of the narrative, he has engaged, in the tradition of Western classical art, with the profound character studies found in Samuel. In his Sha'ul and David, we may find, not "modernizing" portraits, but much of the richness of biblical characters in all their pathos and complexity.


"David whirls"
(II Samuel 6:12-19)
Auschwitz arrivals platform
111x151cm, 1992
Read the related Biblical verses
and view painting enlarged


"He saw a woman washing herself"
(I Sam. 11:1- 5)
over New York, 1999
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and view painting enlarged




"He saw a woman washing herself"
(I Sam. 11:1-5)
over Ein Karem, Jerusalem
130x150 cm, 1996
Read the related Biblical verses
and view painting enlarged


My live encounter with Schwebel's paintings, which in the main are quite large and prominently feature the use of color, had the effect of moving my work on The Early Protest immediately in the direction of Samuel. I was literally compelled to shelve my work on Joshua and Judges to concentrate on this one. For one who had previously received his impetus solely from the aural aspect of the test, this visual development was an unusual one, but it was occasioned by Schwebel's success in underscoring the book of Samuel's intense and deep humanity, and by his engagement with its geographical setting. I am grateful to him for his gift to the text and to me.


"David gets Uriyya drunk" (II Sam 11:12-17)
Ben Yehuda Street, Jerusalem
150x160 cm, 1983
Read the related Biblical verses
and view painting enlarged


"The General warns David to cease mourning Absalom"
(II Samuel 19:6-8)
Mahane Yehuda Market, Jerusalem
100 x 100 cm, 1995
Read the related Biblical verses
and view painting enlarged


excerpted

From: Everett Fox, Give Us A King! Samuel, Saul and David: A New Translation of Samuel I and II. New York: Schocken, 1999.

Schwebel, David, The King: From the Books of Samuel and Kings: Painting and Etchings. Jerusalem: A Stabilized Chaos Production, 1998.

Paintings reproduced permission of Schwebel.

KING DAVID Table of Contents

 

 

   
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