Potent expressivity and a frank depiction of the body link two great French artists of the late 19th and early 20th-century: Auguste Rodin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Both dared to explore the human form in its full range of emotion and gesture. Each in his own way, Rodin and the younger Toulouse-Lautrec also epitomized the spirit of modern Paris. Rodin was drawn to high culture, literature, and mythology, while Toulouse-Lautrec focused on popular entertainment and the margins of society

In December 1919, following a stormy passage from Odessa, the SS Ruslan landed at the port of Jaffa. This ship is often called the Mayflower of the Land of Israel, since its 600 passengers included many figures who would enter the Zionist pantheon: intellectuals and ideologues, artists and poets, leaders and activists.

The hieroglyphic script that developed in Egypt some 5,000 years ago comprised hundreds of pictures. Over time, the pictures were replaced by a writing system consisting of approximately twenty signs: the alphabetic script that reigns in Western culture to this day. Picturewriting appeared to have been abandoned forever, but in the digital 21st century, the picture – namely, the emoji – has returned in full force.