The Binding of Isaac

Aharon Kahana

1952

Abstract painting featuring geometric shapes and forms with dark outline.

The Binding of Isaac was painted at a time when Aharon Kahana was developing a new style that favored abstract forms divided by thick lines. His paintings were both an embrace of modern European art and a turn away from it, an attempt to forge a new Israeli art. Kahana and others in the New Horizons art movement drew inspiration from ancient myths and pagan imagery and what they saw as indigenous, Canaanite culture. Known for his paintings with biblical themes, Kahana returned to the subject of Abraham and Isaac a couple of years later in 1954 with a large ceramic wall mural, Sacrifice of Isaac, on the campus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem in Givat Ram.

Credits

From the collection of Shoshana and Avraham Rabani.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 9.

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Creator Bio

Aharon Kahana

1905–1967

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, Aharon Kahana was an Israeli painter known for his work with the New Horizons group. Kahana showed an early mastery of abstraction, studying ceramics in Stuttgart before traveling to Berlin and Paris. In 1934, Kahana immigrated to Palestine, where he painted in a realist manner until 1943. In the 1950s, he developed his signature style: biblical content depicted in geometric forms with sharp defining lines. He also decorated public walls using ceramic techniques. In the 1960s, Kahana helped to found New Horizons and his style shifted to pop art, in harmony with the group’s vision. Kahana’s final works display a softer, more fluid line, more personal expression, and a reembrace of the classical female nude. Kahana died in Paris of a heart attack during the Six-Day War.

Related Guide

Visual and Material Culture in the Mid-Twentieth Century

1939–1973

Jewish visual art flourished and diversified in the postwar period, reflecting the social and political transformations taking place in the world.

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