Marc Chagall (Jewish Encounters) (Hardcover)

by Jonathan Wilson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Born Moishe Shagal in 1887, the son of a poor Orthodox Jewish laborer drew lifelong inspiration from his native Vitebsk, Belorussia. Chagall became famous for painting explosively colorful rooftop fiddlers, airborne cows and lovers floating above onion-domed churches, and a tallith-wrapped crucified Jesus. A victim of anti-Semitism who was ambivalent about his role as a Jewish artist, Chagall adorned churches and synagogues with stained-glass windows and often chose Christ as his symbol of martyrdom when depicting Jewish tragedies. Chagall's road to fame is mapped out by Wilson: his exposure, as a St. Petersburg student, to Matisse's dazzling palette; feverishly productive early years in Paris, where he absorbed an array of artistic influences; his immersion in politics in postrevolution Vitebsk, where he founded an art school; his return to Paris, where the legendary Vollard became his art dealer; and his New York exile during the Holocaust, where his beloved wife, Bella, died (he lived on for four more decades). Wilson's critiques (particularly of Chagall's "slippery" identity and his work's supposed sentimentality) are familiar, and this is less a fresh biography than a synthesis of writings by Benjamin Harshav, Chagall and his intimates. But Wilson (A Palestine Affair) is an incisive, lively writer. Domestic photos are included, but the omission of color reproductions of Chagall's oeuvre in this entry in the Jewish Encounters series is frustrating. (Mar. 13)
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From Booklist
Chagall's bewitching paintings of flying lovers, otherworldly cows, and enormous floating bouquets appear to be joyously romantic and exuberantly folkloric, but in fact they are poetic memorials to a doomed world. Chagall, a "master of color" who painted right up until his death at 97 in 1985, survived the brutal anti-Semitism of czarist and Soviet Russia, lost hundreds of paintings during World War I, and barely avoided the concentration camps when he fled Vichy France. Novelist Wilson, whose inventive way with words perfectly matches his subject's topsy-turvy visual lexicon, succeeds in illuminating in fresh and penetrating ways the mysteries and sorrows inherent in Chagall's complex work. He elucidates the influence of Hasidic mysticism, speculates about Chagall's chameleon-like personality and possible sexual ambiguity, eloquently articulates Chagall's "Orphic/Cubist" aesthetic, and revels in Chagall's best works. Wilson also cogently analyzes the Jewish painter's obsession with Christ and unsettling use of the Crucifixion as "an icon of Jewish suffering." Ultimately, Wilson portrays Chagall as an artist trapped between "apparently irreconcilable worlds that could only be unified in his work." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Schocken; First Edition edition (March 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805242015
• ISBN-13: 978-0805242010
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #383,327 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Icon of Modernism, April 13, 2007

By	C. Middleton (Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

The reader turns the first page of this little book to see the 1929 oil on canvas painting, "Lovers" by Marc Chagall. The painting depicts a man and woman seated and embracing; the woman's head turned inward on the man's breast, while the man, an expression of calm and contentment, peers upward, watching a winged angel flying overhead, across a deep purple sky. The painting has the deep and rich signature colour of all Chagall's work, though lacks the intense emotional suffering and ambivalence that makes up so much of his oeuvre, however this painting evokes a mystical love, a true love which, in my opinion, expresses the relationship between the artist and his beautiful wife, Bella.

As part of the Jewish Encounter project, Marc Chagall by Jonathan Wilson is one contribution devoted to the promotion of Jewish literature, culture, and ideas. (One can find all these contributions here on Amazon.)

It can be observed that most of Chagall's work, according to the author, is an expression of his philosophy, his religious sensibility if you will, in the form of the "literalization of metaphors", deeply grounded in the mystical and symbolic Hasidic world and Yiddish folktales, which include in their writings the "repository of flying animals and miraculous events." (P. 13)

It is impossible to label Chagall's work as "Expressionism", but the representation of an acute imagination, coloured in fantasy, depicting highly charged religious symbols, including in several works, Christs Crucifixion in a variety of contexts. What I love about Chagall is the viewer is drawn into the work by its striking colour and busy subject matter and is compelled to study it, because the meaning of the painting must be discovered as it is not apparent on a superficial viewing.

Wilson does a wonderful job of narrating Chagall's life in terms of the major events that the artist experienced, spanning through the Russian revolution, two world wars, the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel. Wilson suggests that in viewing Chagall's paintings against the backdrop of these major historical events will see the artist's work as a response to them, and his personal inner conflict between his "Jewishness" and his focus on Christ's Crucifixion, and also his attempt at secularism in many of his paintings.

My favourite paintings by the artist are his various representations of love that display an ethereal, mystical quality, a sublimeness that to me captures love in their most revealing forms, as Wilson comments,

"Chagall's vision of love, so appealing to the human soul, frequently involves a merging of two faces, or bodies, into one. In this regard he is Platonic, as his figures pursue their other halves in an apparent longing to become whole again. Over and again he paints the myth that Aristophanes recounts in The Symposium." (P.174)

Chagall's life Wilson suggests was an attempt through his art at the reconciliation between two worlds, a genuine effort universalizing or merging opposites, he writes,

"In his paintings, past and present, dream and reality, rabbi and clown, secular and observant, revolutionary and Jew, Jesus and Elijah...all commingle and merge in a world where history and geography but also the laws of physics and nature have been suspended." (P. 210)

Wilson's Marc Chagall is an erudite biography and insightful critical work. Although relatively short in length, manages to capture the artist who is considered along with Picasso and Matisse, one of the icons of Modernism.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Short Chagall, October 28, 2007

By	Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

A nice short study of Marc Chagall's personal life (wives, children, and homes) and of his essential cultural roots including religious inspirations and conflicts. Chagall was fated to live a long life amidst a century of enormous social turmoil and with direct emotional ties to countries in the middle of the storms --- the USSR, France, U.S. and Israel.

Professor Wilson is a fine writer with an eye for the arresting detail. His book is a very good overview of the complex life of a great artist.

(Readers will have to refer to the Internet or art books for the actual paintings referred to in this text---unless happily they have already in person viewed the work of Marc Chagall.)

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Marc Chagall, May 13, 2007

By	B. Quanstrom (Bald Head Island, North Carolina United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This has made a fascinating artist even more interesting; and you can understand the impact of his life on his technique!