Thelma Appel, New Megiddo, 2014

Thelma Appel

New Megiddo, 2014

Acrylic on canvas

Signed, titled and dated on the back of the canvas by Thelma Appel

This work, called Megiddo Water Tunnel is part of a series of works the artist did called Biblical Journeys, featuring various real and imagined stories and geographical locations inspired by the Old Testament.

Megiddo was once one of the most important cities in the country because of its strategic location, although it was abandoned during the Persian or Greek period. Its tel can be considered the birthplace of modern archeology. This strategic city formerly occupied by the Canaanites (among others) is located on the international trade route which connected Egypt to Mesopotamia. Solomon made this one of his fortified cities.

Megiddo’s strategic location almost guaranteed that it would be site of major battles. The challenge, however, was getting water to this fortress, as the only water source was outside the walls. In the 9th century BCE, a massive water system 36 meters deep and 70 meters long was constructed. Hence, the famous Megiddo Water Tunnel - an amazing feat of engineering for that era. The system was built during the Israelite period in the 8th century BCE during the reigns of Jehoash and Jeroboam II of the northern Israelite kingdom. In its final version it consisted of a 36-meter-deep shaft dug down to the water level and connected to 70-meter horizontal tunnel hewn into the rock. The incline of the tunnel was such that water flowed into the city. Water was drawn into the city from the bottom of the shaft. The spring was blocked off from the outside by a thick wall and then hidden with earth.

(By the way, due to its strategic location intersecting so many civilizations, Megiddo is considered by many to be the site of the final apocalyptic confrontation between the forces of good and evil at the End of Days. Such a struggle is first mentioned in the book of the prophet Zephaniah when destruction will encompass the entire Middle East. The prophet Zechariah also describes a final apocalyptic struggle when nations will wage war against Jerusalem (Zechariah 14). The prophet Ezekiel is the first to mention that these forces coming against Israel will be Gog from the land of Megog. Finally, the Book of Revelation in the New Testament describes Megiddo as being where the forces of good and evil will confront each other in the final battle of Gog of Magog before the arrival of the Kingdom of God. This location is called Armageddon in Greek, which comes from the two words har Megiddo, har being Hebrew for mountain.)

Measurement:
Frame:
36.5 x 48.5 x 2 inches
Artwork:
36 x 48 inches

Thelma Appel biography
A co-founder of the Bennington College Summer Painting Workshop, Thelma Appel is a representational and abstract painter who has been working and teaching for more than six decades. Most recently, she was subject of a 50-year career survey (October, 2019 -February 2020) at the Brattleboro Museum in Vermont, entitled Thelma Appel: Abstract/Observed curated by Mara Williams, and she exhibited at the Mattatuck Museum in Connecticut which acquired one of her fabric collages for their permanent collection. Thelma Appel was raised in Darjeeling, India and educated in London, England, at St. Martin's School of Art (now Central St. Martins) and Hornsey College of Art before emigrating to the United States in the 1960s. Her work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including the Bennington Museum, the Berkshire Museum in North Adams, Mass., the Children's Museum of the Arts in New York City, the Mattatuck Museum, the Brattleboro Museum, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Robert Hull Fleming Museum at the University of Vermont and the University of Pennsylvania Fine Arts Gallery. In 1974 she was awarded a YADDO Fellowship, and in 1975, Thelma Appel, along with the painter Carol Haerer, co-founded the Bennington College Summer Painting Workshop, where many distinguished painters of the day, both abstract and representational, conducted master classes. Among them were Neil Welliver, John Button, Alice Neel, Larry Poons, Friedel Dzubas, Stanley Boxer, Elizabeth Murray and Doug Ohlson – a program that continued until 1980. She has also taught drawing at Parsons School of Design, painting at Southern Vermont College and at the University of Connecticut. Appel’s work has been presented at Art on Paper, Texas Contemporary, Market Art & Design and Art New York art fairs and has been exhibited at Alpha 137 Gallery in New York, Sager Reeves Gallery in Missouri and the Chashama Foundation in New York City.