Landscape Without Frontiers 1981

Alexander Bogen made this painting, "Landscape Without Frontiers", with oil on canvas at an unknown date. It's a non-objective image, which means it doesn't try to depict realistic objects or people. Instead, the artist uses formal elements such as colour and shape to create meaning. The title, however, suggests that Bogen was thinking about the real world, and possibly even a political situation when he made this work. Bogen was born in what is now Belarus, and he fought as a partisan in the Second World War. He later moved to Israel, where he worked as an artist and educator. With that in mind, we might understand this painting as reflecting on the displacement and violence of war, and the hope for a future "without frontiers." To understand this work better, scholars might research the history of non-objective painting, the cultural history of Belarus and Israel, and the biography of the artist. The meaning of art changes with its social and institutional context.