Balian Wall, Jerusalem

Marie Balian- the Virgin Mary, Court of Saint James Cathedral, Armenian Quarter Jerusalem 2012

On Marie Balian's Madonna and Jesus in her arms

"A Glimpse of Paradise"
Nurith Kenaan-Kedar
The unique mural "A Glimpse of Paradise" by the Armenian artist Marie Balian, installed on Koresh St., Jerusalem,  was presented in the year 2004 as a gift to the city in which she has been living and  working for the past forty years.
The “Glimpse of Paradise” mural by Marie Balian is monumental in size (4 x 6 m.), and composed of one thousand tiles. The wall is exceptional within the traditions of urban murals and wall paintings of the 20th century.  The artist does not conduct a dialogue with the traditions of historical  murals and  wall paintings, such as in Mexico City, or with the murals of social  protest  known from the city of Los Angeles; nor does she relate to the various other murals that decorate the city of Jerusalem, depicting  scenes from its everyday life in the different neighborhoods,   and  painted by the celebrated workshops of the city of Lyon in France. Rather, Marie Balian’s monumental wall depicts a visionary panoramic landscape offering  a “glimpse  of  paradise” that differs in intent from those other  murals that depict national history, everyday life, and protest.          
Marie Balian's work forms a major chapter in the art history of Armenian ceramics in Jerusalem, as an individual inventive art created within an ancient formal tradition. The dialogue conducted by the artist with this tradition has resulted in a  vibrant work with a unique language, reflecting a magical and idyllic world, one that is dynamic, personal and feminine.
The arrival of the Armenian ceramics artists in Jerusalem constitutes a fascinating chapter in the history of the city. In 1918, the Armenian artist David Ohannessian was invited to Jerusalem  to restore and renovate the tiles of the Dome of the Rock.  Joining the ancient Armenian community of Jerusalem and investigating its complex pictorial traditions, the Ohannessian, Balian, and Karakashian families then chose to remain in the city, despite the Dome of the Rock project soon being abandoned.
In 1922 the painter Megherdich Karkashian, and the potter Neshan Balian  with his students and co-workers, left the Ohanessian workshop  and opened their own workshops.  In their works and the works of their sons a unique formal lexicon emerged,  on the one hand preserving the traditional Iznik and Kutaya  vocabulary of forms they had brought with them, and on the other hand incorporating new motifs indigenous to the Holy Land, such as  Early Christian images, familiar from mosaics in  the Holy Land and Jordan, in which the  6th-century Armenian mosaic dedicated to the unknown  Armenian soldier who had served in the Roman Legions provided a major source of inspiration. Their works also included images adopted from the mosaic floor at the Hisham palace in Jericho. Their unique language reflects the world of these artists as Christian-Armenians and Jerusalemites, and all of them have contributed large murals to the city of Jerusalem.
The  three generations of Armenian artists  have created numerous and important monumental works for a variety of Christian, Muslim and Jewish urban institutions in Jerusalem,  from the decoration of the Armenian churches in Jerusalem and  the Patriarchs' sepulchral gallery in the Armenian cemetery, to museums, religious shrines, and hospitals. At the same time their production of Armenian  ceramic decorations and ceramic wares  established a norm of local aesthetics in  private homes. In addition, Ora Herzog,  the wife of Chaim Herzog,  the then President of Israel, commissioned Marie Balian to  create three imaginative panels for  the official residence of the Presidents of Israel.  
The process of creating "A Glimpse of Paradise" took six full months and required meticulous execution as well as vision and ingenuity. The tiles were designed and painted by Marie Balian herself in the family workshop, with no help from assistant artisans and under difficult conditions. Her strong desire to give to the citizens of Jerusalem a work of beauty, joy and hope, helped her overcome the difficulties. The artist began work by carefully outlining the entire composition on the tiles using charcoal. Each individual tile was then designed and painted separately. Next, the tiles were fired in the kiln and, finally, positioned according to  the overall design, forming the complete oeuvre.
The mural presents a cosmic, idyllic panorama independent of the vibrant urban reality surrounding it – unlike other murals in Jerusalem. Land and sea are united in an undulating diagonal line that crosses the entire piece, framed by two images of trees: a date palm and a cypress, accompanied by lemon and pomegranate trees, flowers and other plants. Gazelles roam in the meadow, and birds nest in the trees. At the bottom of the mural are two peacocks, their tails spread; the tail of a third peacock serves as the focal point of the picture. In the sea, next to two ancient ships, there are flying fish. The trunk of the date palm towers diagonally from the land and its fronds spread over the water, while the long shadow cast by the cypress curves against the sea and is framed by its blue hues.  The cypress and date palm are traditionally represented as symbols of life and eternity. They are commonly found in Early Christian art and in Islamic painting, as imposing iconic components that constitute a complex landscape in itself. Unlike those traditions, however, in which the trees are represented as motionless, Marie Balian has constructed a composition in constant motion, through the use of rounded forms, an undulating line, and transitions to geometric patterns, alongside the free-form depiction of a floral landscape.
Central images that feature in Balian's other works are intensified here and  assigned multi-layered meanings, while new motifs are added. Among these are the symbolic ship in the sea, signifying  the journey of man; the fruit trees accompanying the palm and cypress, depicted as mythical entities; mythical flowers; the peacocks, whose tails resemble an elegant gown, are Christian symbols of Paradise and already featured  in Early Christian art; and  gazelles symbolizing the souls of the believers,  as in the Early Christian  mosaics of Ravenna, Rome and the Holy Land,  coming  to drink at a water source - a symbolic image of Christ.  Marie Balian has given all these images new lives –  and a huge surface –  while subjecting them to her own universe.  
.         In the 1960s, Marie Balian, then a mother of three, became the leading painter of the Balian workshop. Her first works were faithful to the existing traditional repertoire, but she soon began developing her own lexicon of forms. A critical dialogue with tradition is evident even in her earlier works, as is the development of a rich and varied repertory, incorporating forms of symbolic and allegorical significance.
Marie Balian's tile panels of the 1980s (displayed in the Israeli President’s official residence) and the 1990s, represent a consolidated stage of her work. The sources of the forms used are varied and can be traced to numerous pictorial traditions. The composition of the panels includes elements such as trees, flowers, animals and abstract shapes, not related logically to each other;  but, rather, linked on a symbolic level  and together representing  Balian's idyllic and narrative world, her transcendental reality. Her style is evident in the quick, undulating lines and in the frequent contact between the outlines of the various elements in the painting, forming a dynamic, independent network. The events depicted in the panels are simultaneous, forming a lively and dynamic picture.
Relating to her art  Marie Balian said :"Objects in nature are not straight, they are all rounded and twisted, as is the tree and its trunk as the movement of man and water. I see the world in motion and round. The circle as harmonious and its and its movement as ab expression of absolute beauty."
In its physical reality the tiled wall "A Glimpse of Paradise" absorbs and reflects light Its  symbolical essence  is of promise and hope.   Thus its presence creates  a double layered reality  of a a mysterious paradeis in the the urban scene of the  city of Jerusalem.