Marc Chagall: Fantasy, Poetry and Love

By Arnie Greenberg
ultours1@gmail.com

(Pictured above: Marc Chagall, Above the Town, 1914-18; oil on canvas; 54 3/4 x 77 5/8 in.; Collection The State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow; © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris)

There are great works of art displayed in France. The Louvre itself is a place where one can get lost in the creations of special talents.

The d'Orsay offers more than one can expect. France has works by Picasso, Monet, Cezanne, Leger, Matisse, Renoir and Modigliani.

But my greatest joy comes from the modern Museum of the Biblical Message in a quiet neighborhood high above the Baie Des Anges in sunny Nice.

Built around works donated by Chagall, this beautiful, light building shelters works on biblical themes, which Chagall gave to France in 1966. The museum opened in 1973.

Marc Chagall left his poor Russian city of Vitebsk in 1910 and lived in the tiny pie-wedge shaped studios of Alfred Boucher's La Ruche. Here he befriended Modigliani and other newly arrived artists.

He listened, he dreamed, and he learned. What followed was an outpouring of works that incorporate 'love', Chagall's greatest theme. Art was a language to Chagall -- and the message is obvious. When I think of Chagall, I think of warmth, sensitivity and, of course, love.

"In Art and in life,' he wrote, "everything is possible, as long as it is based on love."

This love can be felt when one sees a Chagall work. Whether it's a couple floating in space, a chicken dominating a scene, a village of poor workers dreaming of God or tools of labor, animals as a gift from God, lovers, flowers, violins, goats, angels, goats, acrobats or religious figures, Chagall's message is easy to read.

From the Bible as the greatest poetic work known to man, the sensitive, gentle, loving artist displays the truth of what place love has in ordinary life.

Chagall's works are known throughout the world. In the Pompidou Center in Paris there are countless works known by all art lovers. Chagall's portrait of Bella, his wife, done in black and white and dominating a domestic scene is an exceptional supernatural and vibrant work.

The love for his family, his beginnings and his God are paramount and obvious. Unfortunately, Bella died. Chagall was devastated.

There are treasures to be found in New York and on the ceiling of the Opera of Paris. There are works in Leningrad, Metz, Cologne, Zurich and Chicago.

In Jerusalem's Hadassah-Hebrew Medical Center Synagogue, there is a collection of 12 stained-glass windows designed and created by Chagall and offered to "the Jewish people…that always dreamt of biblical love, friendship and peace among peoples…"

The windows now form a crown for the synagogue. They are Chagall's gift of love and beauty to a world that needs love, always.

But for me, the crowning achievement is that Museum of the Bible in Nice. I visit there often, and it always excites me to explain to people the message of Chagall.

Last year, I visited La Ruche, where Chagall once lived. There I met a very old lady who knew Chagall over 60 years ago.

"You are not an artist," she told him. He was shocked. "Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Anyone who can put wings on a goat is not an artist. He is a poet."

The lady was right. Marc Chagall saw in the Bible the poetry of creation, of life and of love. His paintings glow. They are vibrant with goats, violins and lovers floating in space. Surrealism, perhaps, but we can see his message in his large paintings, his mosaics, his ceramics and his stained glass.

The man who came from humble beginnings rose, after the Revolution, to Director of the Jewish State Theatre and Director of the Art Academy in Vitebsk.

But he returned to the south of France, where he lived all his life except for the brief years in New York from 1941 to 1948 when Europe was at war.

Marc Chagall and his second wife, Valentina, gave to France a spiritual home for the paintings inspired by the Bible. The Museum was built by André Hermant, a desciple of Le Corbusier, on a site donated by the city.

Even the location in the middle of a garden of olive, oak and cypress trees is conducive to the enjoyment of these works. This is an old area of the city, dominated by beautiful homes, gigantic trees, a Roman ruin and fashionable but old hotels.

I wander among the 17 large paintings and think of the message I read in The Creation of Man, The Song of Songs, Jacob fighting the angel or Adam and Eve being expelled from the garden of Eden.

I wander into the concert hall with stained glass windows. I stop before Moses receiving the Tablets. I gaze at the artist's interpretation of Noah and the rainbow. I see animals floating in space, a goat embracing a bride. I see fish, the sign of fecundity, and propagation of the races.

As I leave the Biblical Museum, I stop to study the warm smile on the face of Chagall, whose portrait faces the front door. I see warmth. I see poetry…and I certainly see 'love'.

The National Museum of the Message of the Bible is at Avenue Dr. Ménard 06000 Nice. Tel: (33) 4 93 53 87 20, Fax: (33) 4 93 53 87 39

Group reservations are recommended. The museum is open at 10 a.m. daily, except Tuesdays.