page_title: Culture of Israel
section_title: Visual arts
hierarchical_section_title: Culture of Israel / Visual arts
context_page_description: The roots of the culture of Israel developed long before modern Israel's independence in 1948 and traces back to ancient Israel. It reflects Jewish culture, Jewish history in the diaspora, the ideology of the Zionist movement that developed in the late 19th century, as well as the history and traditions of the Arab Israeli population and ethnic minorities that live in Israel, among them Druze, Circassians, Armenians and others.
  Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish culture and its culture encompasses the foundations of many Jewish cultural characteristics, including philosophy, literature, poetry, art, mythology, folklore, mysticism and festivals; as well as Judaism, which was also fundamental to the creation of Christianity and Islam.
  Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are considered the main cultural hubs of Israel. The New York Times has described Tel Aviv as the "capital of Mediterranean cool," Lonely Planet ranked it as a top ten city for nightlife, and National Geographic named it one of the top ten beach cities.
  With over 200 museums, Israel has the highest number of museums per capita in the world, with millions of visitors annually.
context_section_description: From the beginning of the 20th century, visual arts in Israel have shown a creative orientation, influenced both by the West and East, as well as by the land itself, its development, the character of the cities, and stylistic trends emanating from art centers abroad. In painting, sculpture, photography, and other art forms, the country's varied landscape is the protagonist: the hill terraces and ridges produce special dynamics of line and shape; the foothills of the Negev, the prevailing grayish-green vegetation, and the clear luminous light result in distinctive color effects; and the sea and sand affect surfaces. On the whole, local landscapes, concerns, and politics lie at the center of Israeli art, and ensure its uniqueness.
  The earliest Israeli art movement was the Bezalel school of the Ottoman and early Mandate period, when artists portrayed both Biblical and Zionist subjects in a style influenced by the European Art Nouveau movement, symbolism, and traditional Persian, Jewish, and Syrian artistry.
caption: Tiles in the Bezalel style, 1920s
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