Painting of the Gardaya synagogue
Collection of photos and research on the structure of the synagogue
As a realist painter I don't trust my imagination, because no matter how disordered it is I won't get the amount of information I can get from observation or a photograph.
Usually I like to draw from a clear picture but this time I agreed to draw the interior of the Great Synagogue of Gardaya from an old blurry black and white photograph. From the moment the client showed me the picture I felt drawn to this special place. In each commissioned painting, I research the environment and history of the subject of the painting, and this time I set out on a fascinating exploration.
The client showed me a video shot recently taken by travelers of the ruins of the synagogue. Unfortunately, today the place is ruined and abandoned, but the stone shell, the columns, part of the walls and a staircase that leads to a water pit of the Mikveh Taharah remain. From the video I had the opportunity to understand the style of construction and the sources of light into the space, which were built in a different style from the surrounding buildings.
The image of the Gardaya synagogue
The video of the ruins of the synagogue taken by travelers
The construction style in Gardaya, low-story houses made of limestone and plaster
Later, the client told me that the members of the community are descendants of those expelled from Spain, which explains the style of construction. The synagogue was used by the Jewish community in the city of Gardaya in Mazab, Algeria, and was built in an Italian style. The history of the community is steeped in glorious Jewish tradition, as well as disasters and pogroms over the generations until the last pogrom that occurred a few days after the Yom Kippur War.
The last residents were rescued with the help of French intelligence. A few days after the Yom Kippur War, the French government warned the residents of riots planned by their Muslim neighbors and sent buses in the middle of the night to rescue them and the last members of the community left Gardaya. Some members of the community immigrated to France and the United States and some immigrated to Israel. They brought with them the silver pomegranates that decorated the synagogue's Bimah along with Torah scrolls and other sacred objects that today decorate the Bimah in the Ohel Yisrael community synagogue in Dimona.
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Descendants of the community expelled from Spain
Photographs of the pomegranates found today in the synagogue of the Ohel Israel community in Dimona, Israel
Photographs courtesy of Patrick Choukrun
Photographs from a family album
After we collected photographs taken at various events in the synagogue, I was able to put together the complete puzzle and understand what I was actually seeing in the blurry photograph. From a colored photo of the wooden benches I got information about the shades of the furniture. From another photo that looked like a family event, I had the opportunity to see the lamps hanging from the ceiling. Fortunately, there was also another picture from which I could understand the structure of the fence of the stage and the pomegranates that decorated it.
The synagogue underwent renovations and changes over the years and the photos the client obtained did not show uniformity regarding the color of the furniture and walls. We had to decide which reconstruction to stick to, and slowly the puzzle was assembled to the last piece. It was very exciting and satisfying for me to go down to the highest resolution and try to represent the synagogue in the most authentic way possible
In this photo there is a lack of clarity about what happened in the synagogue, but for me it is a source of information about the lamps that hung from the ceiling.
This photo is older than the others, but you can see the structure of the stage and the design style quite clearly.
To draw is to observe and understand what you see
Towards the end, I came to a reached a dead-end regarding the occurrence in the area of the benches on the right side in the front plane of the picture. In general, pictures of chairs and sofas challenge me because the presence of multiple seats and legs is quite deceiving. I didn't have a clear image for this specific area, so I decided to draw it as I know from logic, the laws of perspective, light and shadow. The result did not satisfy me.
I decided to try to concentrate as much as possible on the blurred image and draw the spots and shapes at the level of pixels next to each other. I used the Flemish painting method with the imprimatura and zega (painting that starts with one color and goes over it with layers of transparent color). This is how I built the occurrence of the entire area stain by stain until I was satisfied with the result.
When an elderly member of the community told the client that the painting was similar to what he remembered from the synagogue when he was young, I knew I had done work with added value
Chomi Groman