The rope is taut against his head, chafing his palms as he takes one determined step after another. The load on his back is crushing. It is Jerusalem, its culture and history, and yet the old man’s grip is unwavering as he perseveres ahead. He knows what is at stake if he lets the burden fall, if he lets the contents of the sack spill to the ground.
Sliman Mansour’s Jamal Al Mahamel, also called Camel of Hardship, is perhaps his most recognisable work. It is a searing metaphor of displacement. The painting is being posted and reposted on social media as many pay tribute to Mansour, who died on Monday at the age of 79.
Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha poignantly unpacked the painting in his post: “Our Palestinian people today are not only displaced, carrying their cities and villages on their backs. They are also carrying the rubble of their homes, beneath which the bodies of their loved ones remain trapped. They carry their uprooted trees, their burned tents, their destroyed homes, and the remains of refugee camps.”
Mansour understood how to communicate the ineffable through symbols. He knew how to evoke, through metaphor, the Palestinian experience under occupation. This was not only in his compositions and his images, but in the materials he chose to use and those he abstained from.
Here we take a look at six more of Mansour’s works:
Symbol of Hope (1985)
The dove in the painting takes over the night sky, an olive branch in its mouth. Below, a mother looks up in awe, cradling her children in her arms. People are on the rooftops, taking in the marvellous sight. Some are in flight themselves. The painting is uplifting. Created in the years before the First Intifada, it instils hope amid the devastating effects of the Israeli military occupation.
Olive Harvest (1988)
As the First Intifada began, Mansour entered one of the most prolific periods of his career, seeing art and cultural production as a formidable means of resistance. Mansour created several evocative series during this period, including Destroyed Villages, which sought to memorialise the towns that were depopulated and destroyed by Israel.
With this painting, however, Mansour sought to show how harvesting olives was a daily act of defiance against the onslaught, as Palestinians continued to look after and live off their land.
Rituals Under Occupation (1989)
The crowd stretches to the horizon, to the hills that block out the setting sun. The people, stricken with grief, carry a cross. It is wrapped with the Palestinian flag and is as endless as the crowd. There is a lot to unpack in the image. It brings to mind the funerals of those who have died from the decades of Israeli occupation and attack. Mansour was often known to use biblical imagery in his works and here, the crucifix alludes to the burden of Christ, who carried the sins of humanity to Golgotha. There is also hope in the painting – created at the height of the First Intifada. It shows a people coming together to share the burden and not to subsist under its weight.
Shrinking Object (1996)
During the First Intifada, Mansour cofounded the New Visions collective with Vera Tamari, Tayseer Barakat and Nabil Anani. The artists boycotted Israeli art supplies and turned to materials found locally, including mud and henna. Mansour continued the practice even after the end of the First Intifada in 1993, seeing mud as a potent medium to explore the Palestinian experience.
Shrinking Object is one such work. It shows the map of Palestine, drawn in the mud that cracks and fragments as it dries.
The Sea is Mine (2016)
The dove in this painting glares. Produced more than three decades after Symbol of Hope, the hopes for a diplomatic end to the Israeli occupation had become fraught. The figures in the painting march forward on a beach, armed with pens, brushes, books and rifles. The beach is crowded with swimmers, who sit and tan oblivious to the struggle.
The work juxtaposes the lives of Israelis and Palestinians. It brings to mind the beaches that many Palestinians are not allowed to visit. It also alludes to how the same coastline offers wildly disparate experiences for those who live there, separated by mere kilometres. In Tel Aviv, for instance, sunbathers enjoy the Mediterranean coastline, whereas 70km south, in Gaza, some of the worst crimes in modern human history are taking place.
From the River to the Sea (2021)
A woman in traditional clothing wraps her arms around a tree that simultaneously sprouts olives and oranges. The fruits are vibrant, especially considering the muted tones of the painting. Mansour posted the painting on his social media in May to mark the anniversary of the Nakba.
“Today marks the Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948, when over 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and more than 500 villages were destroyed,” he wrote. “It was not a one-time event, but the beginning of a continuing project of displacement and erasure. The Nakba lives on, not as memory alone, but as a present-day reality. We remember, we mourn, and we resist.”
