‘The Birth’ by Mordechai Omer

Towards the late l980s, Kadishman returned to sculpture and painting, where a naturalistic imagery gained new significance and took on a very important dimension in his work.The Birth series appeared toward the end of the I980s. It represents the “Great Mother” who gives life and, at the same time, symbolizes the taking of life. These works are among the most expressive in Kadishman’s oeuvre of that period.  In the Birth Series, the winding line curves in and out, as if trying to express in iron the pangs of birth and the bursting forth of the new born into the world. The pain and anxiety of the mother inherent in the birth process, together with the life-force of the newborn infant, intertwine. Kadishman is perhaps the only artist to relate to the sentence “in sorrow shall you bear children”. In an astonishing manner Kadishman connects the maternal fate with mother topic, one to which the artist has devoted many works in sculpture and painting – “the binding of Isaac”. In his unique treatment of this subject, the artist accords Sarah, the mother, a role of no less importance than of the father Abraham in the intended sacrifice of the son, Isaac. Sarah becomes a modem image of themother of the fallen Israeli soldier – of all soldiers in all Wars.