Product Description
The celebrated artist Marc Chagall began illustrating the Bible in 1931, and it became his lifelong passion. This extraordinary volume includes more than 130 pages of his finest works, paired with three books from the Old Testament. Chagall's illustrations reflect his Jewish heritage and his view of the complex relationship between God and man, presaging many of the subjects and themes in his later work. Originally published in France, the extensively illustrated, chunky, hand-sized book is a delightful combination of the popular artist's evocative style alongside the most familiar stories from the Bible. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Modernist Approach
Marc Chagall, painter - Informed by the Bible, Chagall found that in the Biblical Universe, men could float through the ether willy-nilly, defying gravity and the laws of physics. Chagall's use of color and whimsical flight of fancy motifs (men and women in loving embraces, floating over houses and livestock), animals floating through the air with smiles on their faces, and so on, are a reminder that religion need not be taken so literally and seriously all the time and that the line between the profane and the Divine is not that thick of a line afterall.

Partial illustrations did not meet expectations
I'm not well qualified to critique the word of God so I'll limit my comments to the illustrations. Many of the illustrations are small segments cut out of larger works of art. It is difficult to appreciate the wonderful paintings of Chagall when you only see 5% of a painting. Otherwise this is a beautiful little book. ... Read more

Product Description
Marc Chagall (1887-1985) is widely regarded as epitomizing the "painter as poet". The worldwide admiration he commanded remains unparalleled by any artist of the 20th century. Chagall's paintings, steeped in mythology and mysticism, portray colourful dreams and tales that are deeply rooted in his Russian Jewish origins. The memories and yearning they evoke recall his native Vitebsk, and the great events that mark the life of ordinary people: birth, love, marriage and death. They tell of a world full of everyday miracles - in the room of lovers, on the streets of Vitebsk, beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Heaven and earth seem to meet in a topsy-turvy world in which whimsical figures of people and animals float through the air with gravity-defying serenity. This art album presents Chagall's work. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Marc Chagall with some of his great art works
Brandnew copy of this great artist,I like all his different art work in this book.

The happy painter of images!
His muse was Bella. He celebrated every anniversary of his wedding with apicture in which he and her appeared.

"The inner world is perhaps, more real than the visible world.", affirmed once.

Almost all his work have consisted in love pictures, sinuous fantasies that seemed to disorient the spectator, where birds, quadrupeds and fishes join to a Ode to Joy. His chosen colors acquire vivid tunes of the rainbow; with them variegates details such tress curdled with exotic flowers, a horse that plays a violin, hen' s eggs inside a gold' s nestle, or a cow that jumps on the ceiling of a house.

You will also see, the his famous etched plates to illustrate the Bible as well as his famous pictorial motive on the roof of Paris Opera.


This detailed and splendid biography has everything you request. "The three candles" has always been one of my favorites works of this notable artist.

It' s pleasantly illustrated with abundant information and wonderful reproductions. Go for it without dilation.

The painting made poetry!

The first little detail that called me powerfully my attention was the his birth date: July 7, just twenty seven years after Mahler's birthday. He was a poet, an individualist, and a lonely artist. Absolutely divorced from this almost genetic standpoint to follow the road about the traditional slave art's autarchy, however, he will always maintain the essential roots of his Jewish ancestors. The vanishing perspectives of the most of his works would seem a dreamy pattern, challenging and daring all kind of conventionalism.

"It must no paint pictures with symbols. When an artwork is really authentic, exist by themselves symbolism in it". That sharp reflection is so narrowed linked with a Robert Bresson 'sstatement: "Let the facts lead to the feelings and not vice versa"

Consider his most famous painting: The three candles, where the lovers couple defy not only the gravity 's acceleration, but are by themselves a real breakthrough with the oppressed human beings. The sad harlequin and the tragic red, the couple is just so far from being happy, they weep the invisible presence of the implacable menace. There' s an incisive line in Fassbinder' s Maria Braun in which she says in imperceptibly to her sister: "All the happy persons seem to be some vulgar, when one is unhappy".

Particularly interesting are the mythic cycle between 1975 and 1977 with those admirable motives. Icaro and Orpheus'myth.
Admirably investigative work and abundant in excellent reproductions of the most selective work of this singular painter.

... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Enhances paintings' meaning through poetry and prose
Chagall dreamed of being a poet, and this lucid, evocative autobiography, written when he was just 35 years old, is a poetic explanation of the milieu from which his paintings emerged.
Chagall tells the story of his life growing up in the Jewish village of Vitebsk and his early transition to early 20th century Paris. He invokes that post-pogrom, post WWI Jewish world view characterized by cynicsm, dark humor and self-solace, all intensified by the horrors of the holocaust.His telling of the past, suspended as he is between World Wars, foretells the future.
Illustrations, poetry and prose converge in this remarkable book.Chagall shows the reader a personal history that shaped his art.In particular, the concept of floating, of beings suspended between here and there, now and then, permeate this book and bring new revelations to the reader when re-viewing Chagall's paintings.

All in all, a delightful and fascinating book.

One Of Those Books
One may hear this many times about Marc Chagall's autobiography My Life but it truly is pure poetry. Reading this book I found I didn't have to think at all. His words just sank into my head. He writes about his childhood and the difficulties growing up poor while struggling to make it as an artist. Every word seems to throw you directly into his very thoughts and feelings as he describes his memories growing up. It's a book I would not expect to come from a man whose voice is heard mainly through his paintings. While it's a delightful treat for his fans, it is also an excellent and inspirational read for those who intend to pursue their own love for the arts. Pictures of his artwork are printed throughout the book lending to it, a part of Chagall that many people know and love him for. But in this piece of artwork it's his words not his paintings that are absolutely captivating.

A lyric story of the artist's youth
This small autobiography is a poetic inspiring work. It tells of Chagall's childhood in Vitebsk and his first youthful efforts as an artist. And it also contains within it the great love story of Chagall's life with his first wife Bella. Chagall writes with intensity and strength much the way he paints. The difficulty of his early years is somehow transcended by his devotion to his artistic vocation. This is a recommended work for all those who care about the relation of the artist to his life, and of the creator of great beauty to his artistic task.

Evocative Word-Pictures
MY LIFE is unlike any other autobiography I've read.Who would have thought of Chagall as a poet?As a master of word pictures?There is not a dry, boring sentence in the entire book.Instead, Chagall paints verbal pictures of his youth, his family, his struggles to become an artist.It's must reading for anyone who aspires to remain an artist (painter, writer, dancer . . .).Although the book reads very, very quickly, the poignant feelings it evokes cannot end so quickly.I am haunted by Chagall's painful youth-the poverty, the discouragement he received from many quarters.And yet the autobiography is inspirational, because as a writer, I know that one cannot let go of an unshakable faith in one's calling.

Marc Chagall, the poetry of reality.
This book is an autobiography by Marc Chagall himself. Its a wonderful exploration of Chagall's jewish-russian memories of his beloved village Vitebsk and of his first encounters with the avant-garde in the Paris ofthe early 20th century. Its a good example of Chagall's sensitivity and ofhis spirituality. It should be a highly readable book for it is full ofpoetry, phantasy and hope. At the same time, the reader will be able tomeet one the 20th century leading colorists. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Kid Inspuration
My classroom loves this one as they can feel the pain and rejoyce in the power of spirit.

Dreamer...
This lovely book is a delightful introduction for children to the life of Marc Chagall. The vibrancy of the gorgeous illustrations (in Chagall style, of course) paired with the simple and charming text, make this a sure winner. Chagall's Jewish roots are lovingly portrayed; from his first days in heder, to the holidays he celebrated with his family. For example, here is the entire text from a vibrant double page spread of his family observing Passover: "The seasons brought wondrous holidays. On Passover, Marc loved the colorful pictures in the Haggadah. He loved the deep violet of the wine in his father's glass. And when he opened the door for the prophet Elijah, silver stars trembled on a velvet spring sky." The illustrations exude a domestic tranquility and beauty and even the choice of typeface for the text is appealing in its simplicity. The reader eventually finds out why Chagall is so unusual: "Marc knew he was different from other boys. He saw things they didn't see. On the Sabbath, enchanted by the singing of prayers, Marc saw houses floating." Chagall's devout family regards image making as a sin, but Marc goes to art school and eventually ends up in Paris after World War II. At the age of 90 he gets his own exhibition at the Louvre--one of the very few living artists to be honored in such a way. You don't have to love art to love this book.
Reviewed by Lisa Silverman

A perfect biography for kids to read
This books accomplishes A LOT! The author has tailored Chagall's story to embrace his experience as a child who doesn't see things as "normal" people do. Any child that has experienced being different will relate. The illustrations beautifully capture Chagall's style and do a great job in preparing children for appreciating his art.

Marc Chagall
I use this book when presenting the artwork "I and the Village" to 4th grade students.I really gives life to my speech and shows the children in vivid color the life of this wonderful artist.

A 2006 Notable Children's Book of Jewish Content
This picture book biography offers a dreamy, almost surreal text accompanied, of course, by Chagall-inspired pictures.The style suits the subject matter well, turning the book into a cross between a biography and a tribute.While it may not be the most useful book for reports, it certainly conveys the personality of Chagall very well and is more likely than a straight biography to get readers interested in the artist's life and work.An endnote provides some more solid facts and historical context, as well as an actual example of Chagall's art.Judaism was prominent in Chagall's life and work, and is thus woven into both text and illustrations of this biography.

This book was named a 2006 Notable Children's Book of Jewish Content by the Association of Jewish Libraries.

To hear a review of this book by a pair of talented third graders, listen to the podcast The Book of Life at www.jewishbooks.blogspot.com (February 2006 episode).

... Read more

Product Description
"If I were not a Jew . . . I wouldn't have been an artist, or I would be a different artist altogether." -Marc Chagall, Leaves from My Notebook.Marc Chagall is one of the most popular artists of the 20th century, famous for his poetic, surreal images that represent a topsy-turvy world, combining fantasy and spirituality with a modernist style. This volume serves as a guide to the iconography of Chagall's best-loved work—in which he frequently included Jewish symbolism and folklore, sometimes overtly, sometimes in hidden, quitemeaningful ways—offering insight into Chagall's Jewish roots and succinct interpretations of his major paintings, from his early masterpieces made in Russia and in Paris to his Yiddish art theater paintings. Harshav illuminates Chagall's most famous paintings of the Jewish shtetl, or provincial Russian town, and highlights the recognizable trademarks of his art, such as the "fiddler on the roof." It also interprets in detail Chagall's theater murals and his beautiful stained-glass windows at the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Although Chagall is not known only as a Jewish artist, his background was the prism through which he saw the world and served as the language of his universally loved art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

worthwhile overview of Chagall's life and art
This book should serve as a worthwhile overview of Mark Chagall's life and artistic output. It covers all the major aspects that would interest the reader; Chagall's influential youth in Vitebsk and later years in America and France as well as a thorough analysis of his paintings. This volume is liberally illustrated with large sized color reproductions of many of his well known works as well as some that are less familiar. I found it an interesting personal observation that, despite my Russian Jewish ancestory, repetitive viewings of Chagall's paintings left me feeling unmoved. This is compared to examining the works ofmaster artists such as Cezanne, Matisse, Rembrandt (to name but a few) where the experience was uplifting and had me in awe of their genius.

I have recently read Jackie Wullschlager's brilliant and penetrating biography of Chagall. This gives a far better portrait of his life, works and personality. Comparatively Harshav's writing is somewhat stilted. Nevertheless this book should appeal to Chagall enthusiasts. The reproductions are good but the stronger colors have a slightly harsh quality.

"If I were not a Jew...I would not have been an artist"
This wonderful and richly illustrated book is an in-depth study of the Jewish roots of Chagall's art. Divided into nine chapters, it explains the cultural context in which Chagall's paintings were created, the outside influences (Leon Bakst, Picasso...), the themes (death, life, wedding, pregnancy...), the early masterpieces of the 1910's and 1920's, the influence of Yiddish culture and the schtetl (the lost Jewish world...), of the theater, in a nutshell what made Chagall one of the greatest artists of the first half of the XXth century (in this respect, one should forget about his later years, the 1960's and 70's, which the book barely studies and when he himself admitted to becoming repetitive if not merely commercial). An indispensable addition to the literature on the artist. ... Read more

Product Description
“When Matisse dies,” Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is.” As a pioneer of modernism and one of the greatest figurative artists of the twentieth century, Marc Chagall achieved fame and fortune, and over the course of a long career created some of the best-known and most-loved paintings of our time. Yet behind this triumph lay struggle, heartbreak, bitterness, frustration, lost love, exile—and above all the miracle of survival.

Born into near poverty in Russia in 1887, the son of a Jewish herring merchant, Chagall fled the repressive “potato-colored” tsarist empire in 1911 for Paris. There he worked alongside Modigliani and Léger in the tumbledown tenement called La Ruche, where “one either died or came out famous.” But turmoil lay ahead—war and revolution; a period as an improbable artistic commissar in the young Soviet Union; a difficult existence in Weimar Germany, occupied France, and eventually the United States. Throughout, as Jackie Wullschlager makes plain in this groundbreaking biography, he never ceased giving form on canvas to his dreams, longings, and memories.

His subject, more often than not, was the shtetl life of his childhood, the wooden huts and synagogues, the goatherds, rabbis, and violinists—the whole lost world of Eastern European Jewry. Wullschlager brilliantly describes this world and evokes the characters who peopled it: Chagall’s passionate, energetic mother, Feiga-Ita; his eccentric fellow painter and teacher Bakst; his clever, intense first wife, Bella; their glamorous daughter, Ida; his tough-minded final companion and wife, Vava; and the colorful, tragic array of artist, actor, and writer friends who perished under the Stalinist regime.

Wullschlager explores in detail Chagall’s complex relationship with Russia and makes clear the Russian dimension he brought to Western modernism. She shows how, as André Breton put it, “under his sole impulse, metaphor made its triumphal entry into modern painting,” and helped shape the new surrealist movement. As art critic of the Financial Times, she provides a breadth of knowledge on Chagall’s work, and at the same time as an experienced biographer she brings Chagall the man fully to life—ambitious, charming, suspicious, funny, contradictory, dependent, but above all obsessively determined to produce art of singular beauty and emotional depth.

Drawing upon hitherto unseen archival material, including numerous letters from the family collection in Paris, and illustrated with nearly two hundred paintings, drawings, and photographs, Chagall is a landmark biography to rank with Hilary Spurling’s Matisse and John Richardson’s Picasso.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Life, work and times brought vividly to life
A splendid book. The portrayal of Chagall the man and of his family life are excellent, and the author has of course been helped by Chagall's own fascinating autobiographical writings. The interpretations of his paintings and etchings are very good - especially on the tension between and/or fusion of Russian and French, Jewish and Christian influences. The cultural and political background and how Chagall responded to them are very well described, particularly the artistic-cum-ideological struggle with Malevich on the one hand and socialist realism on the other during his years in the Soviet Union.We get vivid pictures of the Russian émigré communities in Berlin, Paris and New York.There is a good deal on what happened to other artists, especially Russian ones, during those terrible years.

The allocation of pages is about right also and reflects the importance of his art at various stages of his life: 245 pages on the 22 years- his most creative ones - of his career in pre-war Russia, his first stay in Paris, and his time in war-time and then Soviet Russia; 100 pages on the 21 years of his second stay in France; 50 pages on his seven years in the United States; and about 60 pages on his last 37 years back in Europe during which his art tended to be rather formulaic, with little that was new or creative.Wullschlager dates this deterioration to the death of Chagall's wife and muse Bella in 1944, who, in particular, represented his link with his Russian past; and in this last section she concentrates heavily and interestingly on Chagall's private life, devotes relatively little space to his paintings and then tends to comment on how inferior (though "enduringly popular") many of them were.But he was ready to work in new media - ceramics, tapestries, lithographs and, above all, stained glass.

Chagall was immensely prolific, and it is understandable, if frustrating, that only a relatively few of the very many paintings the author discusses can be illustrated in the book.Many of them are not even illustrated in the massive tome written by Franz Meyer about his father-in-law.With patience many of the missing ones - but certainly far from all - can be found on Google Images.There are 32 colour plates and 159 black and white illustrations (74 of Chagall's works and 85 photographs of people and places).

magnificent chagall biography
Jackie Wullschlager's biograpy is a magnificent achievement. Well researched and engagingly written, it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Hilary Spurling's great Matisse biography.

Chagall, one of the great recyclers in art history, emerges as a shallow and unlikable figure. Born into a impoverished family in a small Jewish community, it seems that he never truely escaped his provincial background. Certainly he sought in his relationships women similar to his powerful and organizing mother. One of the attractions of Chagall's story is reading about his formative years, the associated figures in the Russian avant garde art movement, his time in Berlin, Paris and New York, as well as his dealings with Matisse and Picasso. The latter seem to have tolerated him rather than accepting him as an equal (which he certainly was not).

Wullschlager is a fine writer and obviously knows her subject. Although she presents Chagall's life factually, I got the feeling that there was little sympathy for her subject's personality and nature. This book should appeal greatly to art enthusiasts as well as those interested in modern history.

P.S. On a personal note, when I was attending a Jewish school in South Africa in the sixties, Chagall was revered and placed on the highest pedestal of artistic achievement. How his stocks have fallen over the years compared to many of his artistic compatriots.

Shallo-o-o-w-w-w-w!
After suffering through this baloney I can understand why Jackie doesn't bother to read the books SHE reviews.If there is any insight, any analysis, any INFORMATION from an aesthetic perspective here, I couldn't find it.

I'm wondering why, in a conventional book of English phrases, this dame's little engraved picture isn't juxtaposed to the expression,"full of beans".

Don't waste your time......

A Biography and Food for Thought
This is an amazing story of not only a famous artist but also of a survivor.His achievement in art and his survivorship are feats for the time and place of his life. This author shows how the survivorship helped create the art.

Born on the wrong side of the tracks in the wrong side of the wrong country, Chagall was fortunate to attend school.One would have expected more family pressure on him to pursue a more practical career.He went to St. Petersburg to further his artistic studies, but as a Jew it was not a friendly city.Without residence papers he spent time in jail.He moved to Paris without money, back to Vitebsk to marry Bella at the dawn of the Revolution, then to Moscow after her parents' house was taken by the mobs.In Moscow friends and critics died by starvation, purge or suicidal depression.Chagall, Bella and daughter Ida moved to Germany then to France and then to the US.Each move was fraught with danger and peril.

The author shows Chagall as a product of his time, a Jew from the Pale who fled the revolution, a man of traditional ways.With elegantly written historical background, the book is like course in art appreciation.There are references to many known and some obscure painters and styles.Jackie Wullschlager describes the many color plates and black and whites as well as many paintings and drawings not included in the volume..She gives the background on the art and the conditions under which it was created in a way the reader can understand. She gives a view of Chagall's feelings, values and interior life.

The photos of the young Chagall and Bella have the look of modernity, a look not often seen in vintage photos.Wullschlager describes expressions, for instance, Bella shows weariness, and you look at the photo and while it might not be immediately apparent, upon inspection, you agree.

I expect the Meyer biography of the 1960's and Bella's writings provide the intimate perspective needed a book like this.These source materials go only so far, up to when Vava began keeping a rein on the family's public face.This may be the reason that the last 40 or so years of Chagall's life are compressed into100 pages.

This book is highly recommended for those with an interest in 20th century art.

Insightful and richly detailed, but occasionally dull
Jackie Wullschlager's new biography provides an extraordinary look at the painter's evolution, from a humble Jewish village in Russia, to chaotic St. Petersburg during the revolution, to full flower in Paris and beyond.The depth of detail is astonishing; the illustrations and color plates beautifully illustrate the many stages of Chagall's artistic development; and Wullschlager dissects Chagall's marriages in loving detail, teasing out the complexities of dependence and power that bound (but also enriched) them.There is a fine early example of Chagall telling a buyer that he didn't price his paintings, then asking Bella to negotiate as the buyer (looking in a mirror) noticed Chagall signalling the price to his wife.Much later it fell to Vava, his third wife, "to be the hard exterior front while Chagall played her soft, helpless companion" (504).He always put his inner creative life first.

I like books that are succinct, that use one example or one quotation rather than two or three, and that offer crisp analysis instead of restatement.I skimmed many pages in the book's first half, where the author is finding her direction.Most readers will wish that Knopf had hired a senior editor to go over the book and, especially in the first half, to mark deletions for the author to consider.

That said, this biography incisively shows the horrendous dislocations that an artist risks in abandoning his homeland and his religion, and the ways in which nostalgia for the past became one of Chagall's enduring themes even as he broke new ground in Paris and Vence. ... Read more

Product Description
When the painter Marc Chagall (1887-1985) moved from a small village in Russia to France, he took with him a wealth of memories that would have a great impact on his life's work. Dreams of his Russian home mix with impressions of Paris form his fantastic pictures. This book is an introduction to Chagall's fairy tale world, full of promise, mystery and a certain yearning for a world he had left behind in Russia. The reader never knows where memories end and dreams begin. Life and dreams melt into images full of magic and colour. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Good starter
This is a great introductory book for children learning about art.The pictures are large and the analysis of the paintings are not too in-depth for children.I would recommend this for anyone looking for a primer in Chagall's art.

Good source of color reproductions of Chagall's work
This children's book has a nice selection of works by Marc Chagall.The reproductions are large and in color.The accompanying text is lively and creative, providing poetic, artistic and biographical commentary.Children of all ages and adults with interest in art and art by Marc Chagall in particular should enjoy this book.I found it odd that nowhere in the brief biographical data was there any mention of Chagall's Jewish roots. ... Read more

Product Description
Young Marc Chagall defied family tradition by leaving his Russian village to pursue his art in Paris and the world beyond. Exploring the magic of Chagall's paintings, the author shows how Jewish life and folklore influenced his work, filling it with the spirituality that made Chagall one of the 20th century's most beloved artists. ... Read more

Product Description
No doubt one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Marc Chagall (1887-1985) created a unique world full of pathos, poetry, humor, and enchantment, drawing on vivid memories of his Jewish upbringing in Russia. His original style and his connection to the past endured throughout his seven-decade career, despite the great movements and schools of 20th century art which he saw developing around him. All aspects of Chagall's work are covered here, from paintings to stained glass, tapestries, ceramics, and more.Amazon.com Review
Find out what role Marc Chagall played in the history of20th-century art. This fine volume captures the distinctive creativityof a painter whose images were heavily influenced by literature,religious symbols, and folk tales from his native Russia. You'll enjoymore than 60 reproductions of one of the most original and imaginativegeniuses of 20th-century art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

too small
The Dover Fine Art Stickers books are very small: about 6"x4", containing 4 pages of 4 stickers each. The stickers are okay in appearance, but are small, each less than 3"x2", and when peeled away from their backing sheet do not have a great deal of adhesive power.

A must for every Chagall aficionado.
Part of the Taschen art books this is one of the most comprehensive collections of Chagall work.A must for every Chagall aficionado.

Exceeds expectations
It's easy to love Chagall and still underestimate him.It's easy to think of him as primarily a folk artist.He was not just that and this book gives plenty of evidence.While infused with myth, Chagall was a virtuoso--conscious and sophisticated.He was master of a number of different styles (not to mention, different arts).

I've looked at other collections of Chagall.Perhaps there are better, but I didn't find any.Definitely none this good in this price-range.This book presents many, many gorgeous, high quality, full-page color prints.The text, which I've only looked at here and there so far, has been well written and aided appreciation of the work.

I find printing errors in my copy--light smears running up and down the center of several pages, but they are not so intrusive that I want to return the book and wait for another copy which may or may not have the same marks.

Great value from Taschen as per usual
This book on Chagall is a steal for the price. The illustrations are lush and the text is very readable.

I knocked off a star because I would rather the book was more comprehensive, even if it meant paying more.Still highly recommended though.

A wonderful gift for fans of Chagall.
After viewing the bookI ordered for my husband, he and I loved it so much, I ordered another for my sister-in-law who also absolutely loved the pictures and stories about one of our favorite artists. It makes a great gift for any Chagall fan. ... Read more

Product Description
The life and work of artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985) are presented in this volume. He was born into a poor Jewish family in Vitebsk, Russia, a place whose memory remained a constant source of inspiration. Establishing his reputation in Paris before the First World War, he spent the years 1914-1922 in Russia, but disillusioned by the Revolution, he returned and made France his home. He was influenced by the Cubists and in turn influenced the Surrealists, but his vision and his style were always his own - a unique blend of imagination, symbolism, fantasy and colour based on his memories. In addition to painting, he became a celebrated printmaker and perhaps the greatest modern master of stained glass. In an introduction and in commentaries on the 48 colour plates, Gill Polonsky provides a portrait of this exuberant and versatile genius, a moralist, fantasist, mythmaker and religious artist whose work is a kind of visual poetry, expressing in form and colour his intensely personal vision. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A True Treasure Trove
What a wonderful book this is!The text consists of biographical information about Chagall.It references many of the Plates in the latter part of this book, placing the paintings in context, making them both relevant and accessible.Each of the very well reproduced Plates has further descriptions of the work of art, fleshing out the biographical information.The text and the graphics work unusually well together.If you are appreciative of Chagall's work but are puzzled by it as well, this book is a real treasure trove. ... Read more

Product Description
What color is Paradise? This and other intriguing questions are answered in this delightful look at Chagall's brightly-colored biblical paintings. For Chagall, God was present in all people and all things. In his paintings he therefore mixed together the story of the Bible and the everyday world like the colors in his palette. His great paintings such as the Creation of Man, Paradise and Noah's Ark invite young and old alike to get to know the most beautiful stories of the Book of Genesis. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wonderful introduction for older children
Marc Chagall's paintings are beautiful and intricate, and this book attempts to deliver both reproductions of his paintings and an abbreviated biography.There are a few photographs scattered throughout as well, mostly of Chagall's family.I would warn readers, however, that even though the book is listed as suitable for children ages 4-8, a 4-year-old is not likely to enjoy this book, except perhaps as a free-form discussion tool.The narrative is too dense (short as it is) to hold such a young child's attention. My daughter, 4, is very bright and social, but she still couldn't look at the book with me in a conventional way.Instead we talked about what we saw in the pictures and how the colors blended together and created a mood, sometimes sad, sometimes happy.The book is worth purchasing for an older child, however, and I would recommend it for children at least age 6 and up.It is rather thin, but is filled with wonderful things. ... Read more

Product Description
Novelist and critic Jonathan Wilson clears away the sentimental mists surrounding an artist whose career spanned two world wars, the Russian Revolution, the Holocaust, and the birth of the State of Israel. Marc Chagall’s work addresses these transforming events, but his ambivalence about his role as a Jewish artist adds an intriguing wrinkle to common assumptions about his life. Drawn to sacred subject matter, Chagall remains defiantly secular in outlook; determined to “narrate” the miraculous and tragic events of the Jewish past, he frequently chooses Jesus as a symbol of martyrdom and sacrifice.

Wilson brilliantly demonstrates how Marc Chagall’s life constitutes a grand canvas on which much of twentieth-century Jewish history is vividly portrayed. Chagall left Belorussia for Paris in 1910, at the dawn of modernism, looking back dreamily on the world he abandoned. After his marriage to Bella Rosenfeld in 1915, he moved to Petrograd, but eventually returned to Paris after a stint as a Soviet commissar for art. Fleeing Paris steps ahead of the Nazis, Chagall arrived in New York in 1941. Drawn to Israel, but not enough to live there, Chagall grappled endlessly with both a nostalgic attachment to a vanished past and the magnetic pull of an uninhibited secular present.

Wilson’s portrait of Chagall is altogether more historical, more political, and edgier than conventional wisdom would have us believe–showing us how Chagall is the emblematic Jewish artist of the twentieth century.

Visit nextbook.org/chagall for a virtual museum of Chagall images. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Short Chagall
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.)

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

Icon of Modernism
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.








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Product Description
Marc Chagall's magnificent stained-glass windows installed in the synagogue of the Hadassah-Hebrew Medical Center in Jerusalem are no doubt among the most inspiring and beautiful pieces of twentieth-century art. Originally published in 1967, this is the 3rd edition 1975. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Loved this book
This book was perfect because it gave the information explaining each of the 12 Chagall windows.

If you have seen the windows, you want this book
The title of the review pretty much tells the whole story. The quality of image reproduction is quite good. Of the most interest is the sequence of early drawings, prototypes, and preliminary paintings and collages resulting in the final windows. A fine companion to the experience of seeing (and photographing) the windows in Jerusalem. ... Read more