Chagall’s Dark Side on Display in New York

TABLET MAGAZINE
By Chavie Lieber
Detail of "Fallen Angel" 
NEW YORK---Most people associate the work of Jewish modernist painter Marc Chagall with with dynamic colors illustrating Eastern European Jewry’s vibrant folk culture. But Chagall also had a deeper, darker side to his art, one that reflected the artist’s tormented conscience after witnessing Europe’s anti Semitism, persecution, and poverty in the years leading up to the Holocaust.
 “Chagall: Love, War, and Exile,” a new exhibit at New York’s Jewish Museum open through February 2, 2014, offers 53 pieces of the artist’s work that explore the darker ethos of Chagall. Focusing on the years between 1930 and 1948, during the rise of fascism and the Holocaust, the exhibit provides a visual reckoning with the emotions that plagued the artist. [link]

Comments

Like most of us, when I think of Chagall, I tend to think of vibrancy but the images from this show reveal a much deeper side of the man. I am also quite moved to know that a turning point in his style from light-fluffy colors to a darker ethos was tied to his growing awareness of the horrors of the holocaust.