Kosso Eloul was born in Russia in 1920, but from the age of four grew up as an Israeli. At the age of 18 he studied sculpture for a year with Yitzhak Danziger, who was considered one of the founders of the Canaanite movement, which advocated the cultural and artistic return to pre-Jewish sources, those which thrived in the Fertile Crescent and the Near East.
At 19, Eloul went to study at the Chicago Art Institute, in New York and in Philadelphia. Upon his return to Israel in 1946 he settled in Emek Yizra’el, and was associated with the New Horizons group, which had declared its intention to implement modernism and mainly the abstract into Israeli art.
Eloul brought to Israel innovation and his strong tendency toward abstract art, which began to take control of the American art world during his studies. He was renowned in the Israeli art world and was awarded the Dizengoff Prize for sculpture in 1951.
In 1959 Eloul represented Israel at the Biennale in Brussels and in the years 1959 to 1960 he participated in the international sculpture symposia in Austria, Germany and Yugoslavia, where he met some of the artists who later took part in the symposium on the ridge of the crater.
Kosso Eloul died in 1995 in Toronto, Canada.
Kosso Eloul’s second piece, not far from ‘Zarathustra’ is reminiscent of an ancient ritual stone pillar.
At the top, the artist carved a deep triangle, which creates a kind of human head facing the landscape. On both sides of the pillar, two longitudinal rectangular shapes are carved creating an abstract image of human anatomy.
Looking at the statue it is difficult to avoid the association of a god or an ancient king overlooking his kingdom – the ancient landscape of the Ramon Crater.
Kosso Eloul obviously is not inviting us to renew ancient rituals; however, the sense of the sublime that the statue resonates with and its location on the cliff edge arouses in the visitor a strong sense of amazement and awe at the landscape and the intensity of the elements that created it.
