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Landscape Paintings On the whole, David Frumer’s landscape paintings form his most personal body of work, through which it is possible to peekinto his personal and artistic roots. Frumer was born in 1946 in Kibbutz Ramat Hacovesh and lived there until the age of 31. The Sharon of his youth preceded the introduction of malls and steel and glass buildings and wide freeways; it was an agrarian world of fields, orange orchards, big sky, red clay, and pale sand dunes, distinct from the mountainous regions of Jerusalem and the Galilee. Accordingly, Frumer’s landscapes are flat, with high, clear skies predominating the painted surface. Though he often stated that he was emotionally attached to the landscape, his paintings reflect not a trace of sentimentality. The hay bails in the fields are hard and prickly, the light is sharp and almost cruel, the shadows are stark and uncompromising, much like the reputed Israeli mentality. But there is also evidence of love and tenderness: the sand dunes are soft, feminine forms, and the hay bails diminish toward the horizon, creating a sense of longing. Contrary to most of his works, which were expressly conceptual, these landscapes are purely aesthetic. It is no accident that they, more than any other of his works, were created with the intent of earning a living. In the spirit of Matisse, who said that a painting must give pleasure to the eye, Frumer painted this landscapes with the aim of seducing the viewers – and of enticing them to delve into their pockets. It is a measure of their success that all were sold. But this does reflect artistic compromise. Rather, like the works of Matisse, their apparent simplicity brought forth a tremendous talent for composition and color. It is obvious that Frumer took an almost leisurely pleasure in painting them; a pleasure that is passed on to the viewer. As a painter, Frumer was attracted to two late-twentieth century movements: minimalism and photorealism. In the seventies and eighties he created both “white on white” minimalist works and labor intensive pencil drawings that are almost impossible to distinguish from photographs. With his landscape paintings, he managed to successfully merge these disparate sensibilities. Their compositions are usually simple, much like in the early paintings of Brice Marden, which often feature two rectangles joined horizontally. In Frumer’s landscapes these rectangles are the sky and earth, almost completely abstracted save for certain distinct elements and their shadows; hay bails, ruins of a Roman aqueduct, cypresses on a hill, a gentle change in the modulation of sand. The hay bails, both round and rectangular, hark back to the hay bail paintings of Monet. They are basic geometric forms, defined in space by the play of light and shade. The sand dunes, which almost completely cover the Roman aqueduct in Cesaria, bring to mind the subtle skin texture in Alex Katz’ portraits. The wind markings on the sand are depicted through changes in hue so slight and exact the wind can almost be felt. Although Frumer used photographic projection to outline his paintings, he did not aim to copy, but rather, to distill the available visual information. He would then select the minimum of information necessary to instill a precise, authentic feeling: to create a picture that would be essential, pleasurable, and seductive. Hai Knafo
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