Tuesday, February 19, 2013

F is for flotilla

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For fun, enlarge the photo and guess what the flotilla is fashioned from.
(Yes, it's  ABC Wednesday F-Day.)


I saw this at the Israel Museum and found it fascinating.
Materials?  Ready? --
Fishing wire, dental floss, aluminum, and ram's horn!

Israeli Uri Nir, born in 1976, made these ships in 2000.
He calls them  Yom Kippur Flotilla.

Here is how the museum explains:

Ram's horns (shofars) make up the core of Yom Kippur Flotilla.  The shofar, symbolizing the ram that was sacrificed in place of Isaac, is blown on the Jewish Day of Atonement to evoke the Lord's mercy and forgiveness.
In the olden days, the sounding of the shofar would signal entry into war--and, indeed, the title of the work alludes to the Yom Kippur War that broke out in October 1973.
Nir's depiction of the fleet is reminiscent of naval battle scenes from European genre paintings of the 17th to the 19th centuries.
The curvature of the horns resembles the rolling waves, forming an intimate bond between a solid from the realm of terrestrial animals and the flow of the liquid sea.
Finally the shofar constitutes an ancient musical instrument whose sound is produced by blowing it.  Here the carved horns refer to a different type of wind: the marine wind blowing the ships to an unknown destination.
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11 comments:

  1. Let's call it original and creative...

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  2. How very beautiful! It really looks like a fleet of tall ships! I love tall ships! Very creative to use shofars and thank you for the explanation.

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  3. That is so very interesting. Beautiful artwork, and story of it.

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  4. that armada is shipshape!
    ROG, ABC Wednesday team

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  5. So creative! Amazing what can be done with junk. Grin.

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  6. Oh, it is very beautiful and special!
    Creative work

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  7. Very original and interesting art.

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