Abstract art became a significant force in the world early in the 20th century. It portrayed disillusionment with a world losing its way.
It challenged the notions of conventional art with wild brush strokes displaying absurdity and confusion.
Who was Marcel Janco and what did he do?
Born in Bucharest Romania in 1895, he displayed artistic talent as a young man when studying the foundations of classical art from his teacher Josef Isser, who continued to influence his work throughout his life.
At the age of 20, Janco went to Zurich to study architecture where he joined a group of young artists performing at the Cabaret Voltaire as part of the avant-garde Dada movement.
The Dada Movement originated during WW1 in Zurich as a rejectionist platform in a world in chaos.
It challenged the conventional society structures and artistic norms with satire and shock. It embraced nonsense and irrationality, reason and logic.
At the Cabaret Voltaire he played an active role in the entire group’s activities, designing costumery and set designs, also participating in shows.
In 1922, Janco returned to Romania where he furthered his artistic skills painting local landscapes, peasants, interiors and classical subjects, but all depicted in a modernistic style.
In 1940, at the start of WW2 and following the rise of fascism and antisemitism in Romania, Janco, together with his family immigrated to British Mandate Palestine.
The Dramatic Change
Already a noted European artist specialising in modernisation in both painting and design within weeks of his arrival, Marcel Janco was swamped by local artists.
The different climate and lifestyle signalled a dramatic change in his creative output.
Whereas European painters were struggling to adopt the principles of modernism with their dark colouration, Janco was enlightened with the bright Mediterranean light and vivid colours.
He travelled around the country and reproduced scenes in vivid colours depicting the landscapes and the people.
As the years passed and independence was finally achieved in 1948, Marcel Janco portrayed to the world in his paintings the struggle and hardships the Jewish people faced in rebuilding their lives in a Jewish state free from terrorism and persecution.
In his paintings he dealt with the pain of immigration from every possible angle such as crowded ships, refugees being stolen from their countries to live in Israel through the darkness of night and tough living conditions in tents and transit camps.
Not just immigrants, but soldiers in battle, the Arabs, landscapes and the Holocaust.
Marcel Janco became a celebrated artist, both in Europe and during his lifetime in Israel.
Not just with modernistic style of painting, but his skills in landscaping and restoration signalled a genuine desire to maintain much of Israel’s rich history.
His work in the creation of Ein Hod Artist Village in the Carmel mountains, together with the preservation and improvements of antiquities in Tel Aviv, Yaffo and Akko reflect his expertise and foresight in beautifying Israel.
