Jars
Meir Natif paints portraits of jars. They lie still before him,
"posing" as if they were human models, and he observes them,
conveying their image onto the canvas with great care and much empathy. The
jars are detached from their surroundings, either floating in space or nearly
filling it up to the brim.
Their secret is invisible, concealed therein. One peers into the jar
unaware of its contents, remaining focused on the surface which embeds the prime
qualities of painting. It is a meditative, slow, inquisitive painting, striving
to explore the mysteries of existence, for which the jar is both a vehicle and
a metaphor.
Meir Natif's jars are old, clay vessels he collects, which are linked to
the past. Natif maintains an ambivalent affinity to the present; he cannot
relate to today's fast pace, which skips over details, generating impotence in
terms of both observation and emotion. As a person he yearns for his childhood
in
Natif's painting is abundant with nuances. The textures are carefully
created, whether on the jar's surface or in the void
surrounding it. Nonetheless, the painting's surface conveys remarkable
simplicity and modesty - a yearning for harmony. The paintings possess a
classicist quality, detached neither from the language and spirit of the
present, nor from a past and a tradition which Natif respects and perceives as
an inseparable part of the fast-paced present.
The paintings reveal a simple existential order, embracing an intricacy
manifested both on the surface and in the vessels' covert, enigmatic content.
The ritualistic repetition of the same element within the same color spectrum
brings to mind a religious ritual, a form of secular religiosity striving to
fathom the secrets of existence, to fuse matter with spirit, to derive power
from observing the world's wonders and attempting to create them anew, time and
again, in the form of jars.
In an earlier series of paintings, chairs and armchairs served as
"models". Like the jars, they too were painted isolated in an empty
space, detached from their surroundings, attesting to the present absence of
that which was concealed within them. In her essay for the catalogue of his
painting exhibition at the Israel Museum*, Talia Rapoport notes that, as opposed to the perception of the
chair as representing human presence, the chair in Natif's paintings does not
represent the absent presence of a particular person, but rather states of the
soul which transcend the personal level, reflecting a universal existential
feeling. The paintings convey a sense of detachment, non-belonging, alienation.
Unlike the alienation emanating from the series of chairs, the jar paintings
impart a sense of closeness. Even though the jars in these paintings too, are
cut off from their surroundings, the sense of absence is not present.
The jars exhibit a powerful presence; albeit secluded - they are not
solitary. Here too, the question of containment emerges; however, while in the
chairs' case the absence of content was clear, in the case of the painted jars
- the question of what is contained within them, remains an open one, like an
unsolved mystery.
The jars' solitude alludes to other jar paintings - such as Morandi's works, which depict a gloomy
"companionship" of vessels. Morandi too,
employed a virtually monochromatic color gamut, and his paintings play the
quiet music of the soul, the melodies of those whose lone togetherness recounts
metaphysical existential difficulties. In comparison to these, Natif's jars
communicate immense vitality. Even though they are painted with restraint and
ascetic frugality, they convey a great deal of power, a sense of belonging, and
self-confidence.
* Meir Natif,
States of the Soul, The