his transition from Post-Impressionism to an emphasis on “constructed forms” and “simplicity of color.” His works from the middle of the decade show a tendency toward schematism and the deconstruction of the scene into geometric parts in the style of the Cubists. This phenomenon can be seen also in earlier works, such as “The Red Bus” (1944-1946), from his series “Bus in the Mountains.” New and Old Horizons, 1959-1966 From 1956 to 1959, Arie Aroch served as the Israeli ambassador to Brazil. Concurrently, he served as Ambassador to Venezuela (1957 - 1958). During these years he didn't paint much. In 1959 Aroch was named the Israeli ambassador to Sweden. His stay in Sweden released a great burst of creative energy in him. Between 1960 and 1962 he began to produce his most significant body of work, which differed from the style of Israeli painting of the other members of “New Horizons” in everything connected to the inclusion of extra-artistic symbolic images. One of the things that motivated this burst of creativity was Aroch's exposure to exhibitions of the contemporary art of that period that were held in the Stockholm City Museum during those years. Among others, in 1962 Aroch attended an exhibition of the works of “Pop Art” artists, including Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. The use by American artists of “modified” Ready-made objects as part of their artistic works, and the abstract styles known as “Tachisme” and the French “Informel,” combined in Aroch's work in a delicate style that became known as “concrete abstraction.” For Aroch and his interpreters the meaning of this style was a combination of figurative images that had a symbolic meaning for the artist, and design as abstraction in order to create a new, independent form. Among his well-known works of this period is a series of paintings known as “Tzakpar” that Aroch began painting in 1961. These works are based on an image from a shoemaker's sign from Aroch's memory, an image of a boot, which Aroch recalled from his childhood. Aroch created variations of this image, arriving in the end at a sort of abstract form placed within an oval frame. In a later interview, Aroch explained the development of this image as the basis for “concrete abstraction”: “The image that developed from the boot looked like a concrete image (as opposed to an abstract one), whose right of existence is the right