The Peace Offering

In his autobiography, My Life My Art, Reuven Rubin suggests that art functions as an escape from local political events both for the artist and the public. After the 1936 Arab riots, Rubin held an exhibition in Jerusalem which was received warmly by the local populace. During the War of Independence, Rubin described life under the difficult conditions. "The street where we lived became a part of the front line...one side of the house was constantly exsposed to the bullets of the snipers from Jaffa. We had one room with a partition and behind this I took my easel and, strangely enough, found I was painting with renewed vigor" (Dr M. Heyd, 'Reuven Rubin in Palestine' in The Rubin Museum, Tel Aviv, p. 104). Dr Heyd describes Rubin's attitude towards the harsh reality in Israel: "When the events became grim, Rubin withdrew into a world of art he had originally created as a non-existent dream world, a naive environment that could not accommodate the events of real life" (Ibid).
Painted in 1955, The Peace Offering was created amidst the upheaval of the Nassar Pan-Arabist campaign. The Fedayun terror attacks in the southern desert extended to the outskirts of Tel Aviv, inflicting dozens of civilian casualties each month.

Rubin chose to depict his feeling of hope and aspiration for a calm future. The father, a bronzed man with curly hair, carries a lamb. Rubin had often included this image in his work as early as the 1920s. The lamb usually accompanies members of his family or the artist himself, as part of Rubin's alter image as a shephard. Another reason for choosing to depict a father holding a lamb might be a reference to the Biblical story of the sacrifice of Isaac. The younger boy holds two white doves - the eternal symbol of peace.