A Man and a Donkey

Donkeys have been present in Litvinovsky’s works since the 1920s as a symbol of the Land of Israel, usually in the context of local Arab life. Sometimes they are also placed near Hasidic Jews. The process of abstraction that characterized the later periods of the artist’s life reduced the figure of the donkey to an archetypal form of an animal. In this group of later works, Litvinovsky returns to the dialogue between man and animal, and presents it in various configurations: a composition that divides the image into two and places the (materialistic) donkey opposite the spiritual man; a man who appears crucified before the donkey in the work filled with Christian symbols, the donkey among them; and in the third, the donkey standing together with the birds, the representatives of the spirit, and a person in front of them in ascension and revelation, perhaps even following the Messiah.