Jonathan Wilson realized early “that sophisticated art aficionados weren’t supposed to love or even like [artist Marc] Chagall.
“His lovers and his rabbis, his massive bouquets and his violins were equally dubious, equally cloying, not kitsch, but living somewhere dangerously close to that ballpark,” Wilson writes in his 2007 book, “Marc Chagall” (part of the Jewish Encounters collaboration between Schocken and Nextbook).
But there has been increasing interest in Chagall, partially as a result of the discovery of paintings hidden in Soviet museums. That interest has led to Wilson’s 2007 book and a large new biography, “Chagall,” by Jackie Wullschlager (Knopf, hardcover, $40).
Professor of English at Tufts University, Wilson draws Chagall as a complex character who felt ambivalent about his role as a Jewish artist and was defiantly secular. Wilson’s small volume sees Chagall through the lens of Jewish history and politics.
Wullschlager examines Chagall’s life and art through the lens of an art critic. Her sprawling 522-page biography is illustrated with nearly 200 paintings, drawings and photographs.
Wullschlager is chief visual arts critic and cultural correspondent for the Financial Times. She writes in her prologue, “Marc Chagall, pioneer of modern art and one of its greatest figurative painters, invented a visual language that recorded the thrill and terror of the twentieth century…
“In an age with many artists fled reality for abstraction, he distilled his experiences of suffering and tragedy into images at once immediate, simple and symbolic to which everyone could respond.”
Elana Kahn-Oren
Loading ...