Ori Reisman 1924-1991

This sensual landscape, painted in the brilliant colors and bright light characteristic of art in Israel, reflects Reisman's preoccupation since the 1960s with women in the landscape. This motif, which he shared with Michael Gross (see Nude/Landscape, lot 104) has engaged artists thoughout art history. However, as opposed to artists who painted women in landscapes, Reisman painted nudes as landscape. Mostly, these figures were painted from the side but sometimes, as in this painting and reminiscent of Gustav Courbet's L'origine du monde from 1866, the nude is depicted from the front, severly foreshortened. Galia Bar-Or discusses these works in the Ein Harod Ori Reisman exhibition catalogue from 1988 and notes: "From the vantage point of the viewer, positioned at the line of the hips cutting across the lower foreground, it appears as if the picture were painted from a man's viewpoint during love making." (Galia Bar-Or,Ori Reisman, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Art, Ein Harod, 1988, page 134 quoted in Ellen Ginton, "Ori Reisman: From Landscape to Man, From the Sacred to the Base, and Back" in Ori Reisman, exhibition catalogue, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, 2004, p. 300).