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Lot Essay
“If all of life moves inevitably towards its end, we must during ours, color it with all our colors of life and hope. Within this love are found the social logic of life and the basis of every religion. For me perfection in Art and life comes from this Biblical source.”
- Marc Chagall (Marc Chagall, quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., Chagall: A Retrospective, New York, 1995, p. 296)
In February 1931, Chagall travelled to Palestine to experience first-hand the land of the Bible and its peoples. Together with his wife Bella and daughter Ida, he toured Alexandria, Cairo and the Pyramids, and thereafter spent the greater part of their journey in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Upon their return to France in April, the artist told a friend, “The air of the land of Israel makes men wise–we have old traditions” (quoted in F. Meyer, Marc Chagall, New York, 1964, p. 385).
Chagall travelled to Israel three more times, in 1951, 1957 and 1969, lastly for the unveiling of a mosaic and three tapestries on Old Testament themes for the newly completed Knesset building in Jerusalem. Chagall worked on a series of monumental Bible paintings during the 1960s, seventeen of which he donated to the French state in 1966. These canvases, together with other museum loans, comprise the collection housed in the Musée national message biblique Marc Chagall in Nice, the first government-sponsored museum in France ever devoted to the work of a then living artist. “The Word is painted,” André Verdet declared. “Painted it attains an epic grandeur, often verging on the sublime, but at the same time it remains familial, grazed by fantasy and winged grace” (quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., op. cit., 1995, p. 298).
- Marc Chagall (Marc Chagall, quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., Chagall: A Retrospective, New York, 1995, p. 296)
In February 1931, Chagall travelled to Palestine to experience first-hand the land of the Bible and its peoples. Together with his wife Bella and daughter Ida, he toured Alexandria, Cairo and the Pyramids, and thereafter spent the greater part of their journey in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Upon their return to France in April, the artist told a friend, “The air of the land of Israel makes men wise–we have old traditions” (quoted in F. Meyer, Marc Chagall, New York, 1964, p. 385).
Chagall travelled to Israel three more times, in 1951, 1957 and 1969, lastly for the unveiling of a mosaic and three tapestries on Old Testament themes for the newly completed Knesset building in Jerusalem. Chagall worked on a series of monumental Bible paintings during the 1960s, seventeen of which he donated to the French state in 1966. These canvases, together with other museum loans, comprise the collection housed in the Musée national message biblique Marc Chagall in Nice, the first government-sponsored museum in France ever devoted to the work of a then living artist. “The Word is painted,” André Verdet declared. “Painted it attains an epic grandeur, often verging on the sublime, but at the same time it remains familial, grazed by fantasy and winged grace” (quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., op. cit., 1995, p. 298).