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Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation: Beyond the Existing Readings of ’s Paintings

A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Art in Art History

in the Department of the School of Art of the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP)

by

Jennifer Horvath March 10, 2015

B.S. University of Virginia May, 1993

Committee Chair: Kimberly Paice, Ph.D.

Abstract

This study deals with a small body of crucifixion scenes that were rendered by the well- known Russian and Jewish Expressionist artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985). It closely reads these works, made between 1937 and 1952 when Chagall lived in exile in France and the United

States. Extensive scholarship and The Jewish Museum’s exhibition Chagall: Love, War, and

Exile (2013-14), have emphasized ways that these paintings speak to the then-current tragedies and suffering of associated with the Holocaust. This study builds on this established research. Yet, it offers a nuanced reading of the iconographical and compositional strategies that

Chagall uses. Here, the lyrical-expressionist style and dream-like spatial qualities of his early modernist works infuses his painted with the condition of exile. By emphasizing the circulation of the affects of love and hate through a network of signs, Chagall ties the theme of the crucifixion to a life of perpetual exile and to the sense of not belonging that goes with such a life.

As explained in the study, Chagall’s crucifixion scenes relate as much to the suffering of humanity and Jews in the Holocaust as to the hoped-for liberation and subsequent failed promises of the Russian Revolution, to Chagall’s childhood in the Pale of Settlement, and to his lifelong experience of exile and desire to find a place in the world. Five of Chagall’s paintings figure prominently in this study. They include: White Crucifixion (1938), his peculiar paintings of crucifixions with embedded self-portraits including The Artist with Yellow Christ (1938), The

Painter Crucified (1941-42), and Self-Portrait with Clock (1947), as well as his triptych

Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation (1937-1952). The issues of identity, exile, and citizenship that Chagall explored in these paintings, as well as in numerous other works and writing, hardly belong solely in the of history. They remain crucial dimensions of life, today. For these reasons, Chagall’s works continue to invite and elicit our attention.

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iii Acknowledgements

In Fall 2013, I came across an article in an arts journal entitled “Understanding Pope

Francis’s Surprising Affinity for Jewish Art,” (2013) that made comments on the new pope’s affinity for Marc Chagall’s work, White Crucifixion (1938). I was intrigued by the essay, which noted that Pope Francis identified White Crucifixion as his favorite work of art. Further, the article noted that the work was likely a response to a commission, which enticed me to learn more about Chagall’s crucifixion paintings. In my early research, I read that while Chagall did in fact create many Old Testament scenes for commissions, his crucifixion works were not commissioned, but rather a personal choice to paint. I was very interested to learn more about his crucifixion paintings, and thus began my thesis study on these works.

I would like to thank my thesis committee for their support, edits, and feedback throughout my writing. I’d like to give a special thanks to my thesis advisor, Dr. Kimberly Paice for challenging me to incorporate affect theory into my analysis and for pushing me out of my comfort zone into the world of theory broadly. Further, I extend my gratitude to Dr. Lynne

Ambrosini and Dr. Morgan Thomas for providing invaluable insights and much needed encouragement as I reached the final stages of my writing.

I’d also like to extend my appreciation to Sarah Ligner, Curator at the Musée National

Marc Chagall. Her willingness to give me special access to their storage facility was invaluable, in particular being able to view Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation, which was not currently on display when I visited. Having the opportunity to see the painting in private, off the museum wall was not only immensely helpful for my thesis research, but also a rare and extraordinary occasion for any art lover.

And finally, I can’t thank my family enough for supporting me through this career change. My daughters Caroline and Genevieve have been dragged (their words, although hard to

iv have sympathy for being “dragged” to , France…) through museum after museum looking at paintings, and they have been subjected to countless hours of my ramblings about Marc Chagall.

And to my husband Lyle, who shares my love of Chagall’s works, thank you for patiently supporting my academic studies, both financially and emotionally.

v Table of Contents

Introduction 1 Literature Review 2 Methodology 5 Chapter Descriptions 7 Conclusion 9

Chapter 1 – The Condition of Exile 11 Formal Analysis of White Crucifixion 12 Historical and Biographical Context 14 The Crucifixion – Christianity vs. Judaism 17 Displacement, Alienation, and Exile 19

Chapter 2 – Self-Portraiture and Identity 23 The Artist with Yellow Christ 24 The Painter Crucified 27 Self-Portrait with Clock 30 Identity 32

Chapter 3 – The Affects of Hate and Love 35 Formal Analysis of Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation 36 Scholars Interpretations – Political to Personal 38 Affective Economies – Love and Hate 40

Conclusion 45

Bibliography 47

Table 50

Illustrations 51

vi List of Tables

1. Crucifixion Paintings by Marc Chagall

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List of Illustrations

1. Marc Chagall, White Crucifixion, 1938, oil on canvas, 60 ¾ x 55 in., Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.

2. Marc Chagall, The Artist with Yellow Christ, 1938, gouache and charcoal with color chalk on paper, 22 3/8 x 18 ¼ in., private collection.

3. Marc Chagall, The Painter Crucified, 1941-42, gouache and pastel with watercolor on paper, 15 x 22 ¼ in., location unknown.

4. Marc Chagall, Self-Portrait with Clock, 1947, oil on canvas, 33 7/8 x 27 7/8 in., private collection.

5. Marc Chagall, Resistance, 1937-1948, oil on canvas, 66 1/8 x 40 5/8 in., Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice, France.

6. Marc Chagall, Resurrection, 1937-1948, oil on canvas, 66 ¼ x 42 5/8 in., Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice, France.

7. Marc Chagall, Liberation, 1937-1952, oil on canvas, 66 1/8 x 34 5/8 in., Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice, France.

8. Marc Chagall, Study for The Revolution, 1937, oil on canvas, 19 ¾ x 39 3/8 in., Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, , France.

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Introduction

Recognized for his paintings of flying roosters, people floating upside down, and scenes from Russia, Marc Chagall (1887-1985) is best known for his art’s association with fantasy and symbolism and its connections with the artistic movements of Cubism and Fauvism. While many of the subjects he painted are considered whimsical and light-hearted, Chagall also made many works with a serious tone, including his Illustrations for the Bible, a collection of etchings begun in 1930. This series not only brought Chagall closer to his Jewish heritage, but also allowed him to explore Christian themes with the crucified Christ. My study involves a close reading of

Chagall’s crucifixion paintings, which he made primarily in the period from 1937 to 1952 both in

France and the United States. It explores how these works offer a unique understanding of identity and belonging, particularly when read through the lens of recent academic writings on the condition of exile and affect theory. Building on past scholarship that has cast

Chagall’s crucifixion paintings in terms of the tragedies of the Holocaust, my study offers a nuanced reading of Chagall’s iconography and compositional strategies, and examines how these works portray the affects of hate and love and raise issues of identity, exile, and citizenship.

Although Chagall described fond memories of his family and hometown of Vitebsk,

Russia,1 which figure prominently in his paintings, he nonetheless expressed feelings of being an outsider in his home .2 Russian Jews were required to live in a separate region of the country known as the Pale of Settlement, and Chagall went to a Jewish elementary school where he studied the Bible extensively. Fortunately, restrictions in Russia for Jews had lessened at the turn of the 20th century, and Chagall was able to attend a public school following his Jewish elementary education. However, despite these improvements in educational access, Jews still

1 Franz Meyer, Marc Chagall (: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers, 1981), 41. 2 Marc Chagall, My Life (New York: De Capo Press, 1960), 100.

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experienced a life of separation from the broader Russian population.3 I believe this isolation instilled a sense of status for Chagall, which began in his home country and stayed with him as he moved from one country to the next. In 1910, he left Russia for Paris seeking further education and inspiration for his art. Chagall spent four years in Paris before returning to Russia in

1914, only to find himself barred from leaving the country because of the Great War.4 In 1923 he returned to France, but eventually, like many artists, intellectuals, and Jewish individuals, he fled to the United States during World War II (WWII) when the Germans invaded France in 1941.5

Chagall describes his experiences and feelings of exile, first in the Pale of Settlement in Russia, then upon leaving Russia and his family for France in 1910, and again when he was forced into exile in America during WWII. It was during this last period of exile that Chagall painted the majority of his crucifixion scenes.

Literature Review

Within the ample scholarship on the life and works of Chagall, one finds his autobiography of 1922, multiple biographies, numerous exhibition catalogues and books as well as voluminous periodical literature. Despite this extensive body of scholarship, Chagall’s crucifixion scenes have received little attention. The few authors who have examined these works have focused narrowly on the iconographical significance of the crucifix and its meaning in relation to the tragedies of the

Holocaust.

Franz Meyer, Chagall’s son-in-law, an art historian, and one of several biographers of

Chagall, authored Marc Chagall in 1981. Spanning Chagall’s ninety-seven year life, Meyer’s book offers an extensive look at the history and evolution of his art, combining not only an

3 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 41. 4 Ibid, 217. 5 Ibid, 437.

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intimate account of Chagall’s life, but also a robust analysis of the works from his perspective as an art historian. However, despite this extensive exploration, only a few pages are devoted to

Chagall’s crucifixion paintings, and the analysis of these works relies reductively on symbolism, and concludes that the figure of Christ symbolizes Jewish martyrdom.6 Similarly, Professor Ziva

Amishai-Maisels, author of Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the

Visual Arts (1993), argues that Chagall’s crucified Christ symbolizes the sufferings of Jews during the Holocaust.7 Approximately ten years after Amishai-Maisels published Depiction and

Interpretation, Benjamin Harshav, wrote several books about Chagall’s life and art. With an academic background in Hebrew literature and Jewish history, Harshav analyzes Chagall’s crucifixion paintings using semiotics, and his readings extend the symbolism beyond Jewish martyrdom as discussed by other scholars and ties these works to the politics of Fascism and

Communism under Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924).8 These scholars do not address the issues of identity, exile and belonging that I believe were central to Chagall’s artistic approach.

Moving the discussion beyond the events of the Holocaust, Aaron Rosen, a professor in

Hebrew and Jewish Studies at St. Peter’s College of Oxford University, has explored the work of

Chagall in his book, Imagining Jewish Art: Encounters with the Masters in Chagall, Guston, and

Kitaj (2009). Rosen focuses extensively on Chagall’s feelings as an outsider and interprets

Chagall’s crucified Christ as a symbol of personal suffering, reflecting Chagall’s sense of alienation and helplessness in America as the Holocaust escalated overseas.9 Extending this discourse, Susan Tumarkin Goodman, Senior Curator at The Jewish Museum, New York, states

6 Ibid, 416. 7 Ziva Amishai-Maisels, Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts (Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press, 1993), 184. 8 Benjamin Harshav, Marc Chagall and the lost Jewish world: The nature of Chagall’s art and iconography (New York: Rizzoli, 2006), 221. 9 Aaron Rosen, Imagining Jewish Art: Encounters with the Masters in Chagall, Guston, and Kitaj (London: Legenda, 2009), 29.

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that Chagall’s crucified Jesus is represented both in the context of the Jewish Holocaust as well as

Chagall’s forced second exile to America. In her 2013 exhibition catalogue entitled Chagall:

Love, War, and Exile, Goodman argues that Chagall uses the crucifixion as an expression of the

Holocaust, with a highly personal and visual language of symbols that relays an underlying meaning that love overcomes all.10 Both Rosen and Goodman extend the dialogue of the crucifixion scenes from solely a reading of the Holocaust to Chagall’s personal connection to the theme with his exile in America. I rely on their scholarship to further the discourse on the impact of the condition of exile on Chagall’s crucifixion paintings.

To conclude my review of the literature on Chagall’s crucifixion works, I would be remiss to not discuss art historian Meyer Schapiro’s essay “Chagall’s Illustrations for the Bible” (1956).

While his essay focuses solely on Chagall’s Old Testament etchings, Schapiro provides context on

Chagall’s decisions with regards to the biblical themes he chose to portray as well as the personal connection Chagall felt with those sacred figures. According to Schapiro, Chagall’s representations of the Old Testament extend beyond the exclusive domain of religion to the

“totality of existence, the profane and the sacred – family, love, war, power, statehood, and freedom, home and exile.”11 Although Schapiro does not discuss Chagall’s crucifixion scenes specifically, I believe his insight on Chagall’s portrayal of his emotional connection to the Biblical figures in Illustrations for the Bible, which were completed during the same period as Chagall’s crucifixion scenes, is relevant to my study. As I analyze Chagall’s crucifixion paintings, I continue Schapiro’s dialogue on the affect of love and the oneness of humanity, demonstrating that these were critical influences on Chagall’s renderings of the crucified Christ and the surrounding images in his crucifixion paintings.

10 Susan Tumarkin Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 13. 11 Meyer Schapiro, “Chagall’s Illustrations for the Bible (1956),” in Modern Art: 19th and 20th Centuries (London: Chatto & Windus, 1978), 123.

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Methodology

My methodology combines formal and iconographical analyses and incorporates the use of several psychoanalytic and socio-cultural concepts to closely read Chagall’s crucifixion paintings.

Using formal analysis, I explore Chagall’s compositional strategies and devices, including his use of color, his weighting and balance of objects on the canvas, and how his use of fantasy functions within the serious context of a crucifixion scene. I relate these compositional strategies to the themes portrayed in his use of the crucifixion, and add a new dimension by interpreting his works using the psychoanalytic concepts of fantasy, affect, and displacement. Further, I introduce the contemporary theories of Sara Ahmed and her work on affect and emotions, as well as T.J. Demos’ discussion of national identity and the condition of exile to further analyze the meaning of

Chagall’s crucifixion paintings.

In this study, I use several psychoanalytic terms, namely fantasy, displacement, and affect, referring to the definitions as articulated by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Jean Laplanche (1924-

2012) and Jean-Bertrand Pontalis (1924-2013). In this study, the term “fantasy” refers to the pictorial representation of an imagined unreality that is created both consciously and unconsciously. According to Laplanche and Pontalis in their The Language of Psychoanalysis, consciously, fantasy (or phantasy) is a reverie or daydream of future possibilities of basic needs or wishes; unconsciously, it is a symbol to construct the meaning of an idea.12 I explore the concept of fantasy and analyze Chagall’s paintings to understand what his fantastical renderings (with people floating in the air and buildings turned upside down) mean within the serious theme of his crucifixion paintings. I describe displacement utilizing Freud’s definition: the concept that an idea’s emphasis or intensity can be detached from it and passed on to another idea which was

12 J. LaPlanche and J. B. Pontalis, The Language of Psychoanalysis (London: Hogarth Press, 1973), accessed November 5, 2014, http://www.scribd.com/doc/82213528/Laplanche-and-Pontalis-Language-of-Psychoanalysis.

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unrelated originally, but which becomes related to the idea by association.13 In the case of

Chagall’s crucifixion scenes, I explore his use of the crucified Christ figure as a displaced symbol not only of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, but broadly of the suffering of all humanity as well as the symbol of Nazi hatred of the Jews during the Holocaust. Lastly, I use Laplanche and

Pontalis’ definition of affect: the emotional repercussions of an experience, whereby the more traumatic the experience, the stronger the meaning.14 The psychoanalytic definition of affect provides a strong base for interpreting the impact of emotions and trauma on an individual, however they can become problematic as a “psychologization” of an individual. As Freud argued, psychoanalysis isn’t about a cure, but rather a discussion with an individual to understand his thoughts and derive meaning from them.15 As I do not have access to Chagall directly nor do I wish to psychologize him, but rather read a deeper, more complex meaning into his crucifixion works, I broaden the definition of affect utilizing the scholarship of feminist academic, Ahmed.

Taking the concept of affect beyond psychology and into the socio-cultural arena, I refer to

Ahmed’s contemporary work on affect in her book The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2004), in which she joins prior sociologists and anthropologists in arguing that emotions are social and cultural practices, not merely psychological states.16 Ahmed contends that emotions and affects are relational and not simply something that individuals have, but rather they are shaped by the contact we have with objects and other people, as the emotions circulate between bodies. The cultural politics of emotions creates “others” by aligning some people to each other inside a community

13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 Sigmund Freud, The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement (New York, NY: Collier Books, 1963), 16-17. As noted in the Introduction to Freud’s book by editor Philip Rieff, Freud sought to give people the power of insight into their thinking and dreams in order that they have the power to make a decision on how to act based on that insight. 16 Sara Ahmed, Cultural Politics of Emotion (New York, NY: Routledge, 2004), 9. Ahmed aligns with prior sociologists on this theory, such as C. A. Lutz and Abu-Lughod, who authored Language and the Politics of Emotion in 1990. Further source material references can be found in Ahmed’s book.

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and marginalizing others.17 Using Ahmed’s theory on affect and emotion, I demonstrate that

Chagall’s expressionist paintings take an affective turn, no longer expressing only personal emotion or experience, but rather portraying complex and contradictory affects of hate and love across humanity. Chagall’s paintings convey the “other” (Jews, ) through his depiction of the crucified Christ figure and the surrounding images within his crucifixion scenes, and communicate the issues of displacement, exile, and belonging.

Further, I explore T. J. Demos’ writings on dislocation and the condition of exile. I use his definition of “dislocation”: a disturbance from a proper, original or usual place or . As Demos articulates, this dislocation can occur from a geographical situation, national identity or cultural convention.18 Chagall’s painted elements of fantastical flying people, upside down homes, and floating animals reveal the dislocated status of Chagall as an artist in exile. Utilizing these concepts allows me to extend current readings of Chagall’s complex crucifixion paintings, and explore the subtle meanings he rendered in these works.

Chapter Descriptions

In Chapter 1, I explore the condition of exile in Chagall’s crucifixion paintings, with a specific focus on White Crucifixion (1938), a monumental work created while Chagall was living in France. In the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1946, White

Crucifixion is one of Chagall’s most well-known crucifixion paintings. Of all of them, this one has received the most attention in art historical writings and as such offers a good starting point to reflect upon existing interpretations and to enhance the discourse using Demos’ work on the condition of exile. However before delving into the scholarly interpretations of White Crucifixion,

17 Ibid, 4. 18 T. J. Demos, The Exiles of Marcel Duchamp (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2007), jacket cover.

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I begin Chapter 1 by providing historical context on the events of the 1930’s as well as biographical perspective on Chagall’s life leading up to his focus on the crucifixion paintings.

From there, I explore the importance of the crucifixion scene for Christians as well as its meaning for Jews. Finally, I introduce prior scholars’ analyses of White Crucifixion and overlay my investigation into the issues of identity and nationhood to demonstrate how Chagall’s use of recognizable themes, such as the crucifixion and the wandering Jew, evoke Chagall’s sense of dislocation from his home country of Russia.

In the second chapter, I focus on the theme of self-portraiture with an analysis of three of

Chagall’s paintings, specifically: The Artist with Yellow Christ (1938), The Painter Crucified,

(1941-1942) and Self-Portrait with Clock (1947). In each of these paintings, Chagall overtly painted himself into the scene with the crucifixion,19 intertwining personal suffering with the tragic events of war and the Holocaust. Expanding upon the writings of art historians Rosen and

Goodman who bring Chagall’s personal suffering into their literature, I explore the conditions of exile, dislocation, and identity as discussed by T. J. Demos. Through a close reading of each of these paintings, I establish that identity and exile were key influences on Chagall’s renderings of these self-portraits.

In the final chapter, I explore the affects of hate and love, employing the theories of Ahmed around affective economies. I use Chagall’s triptych, Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation (1937-

1952), as the basis for my analysis. This triptych has a unique history, as it was originally one large canvas that Chagall reworked into three separate paintings. Originally titled Revolution

(1937), this work was created in France; however in 1943, while in America, he cut the painting

19 Several scholars state that it is Chagall in these crucifixion scenes, specifically in The Artist with Yellow Christ, Goodman declares the image is “recognizably a self-portrait” of Chagall (Goodman, Chagall: Love, War and Exile, 43) and in The Painter Crucified, “Jesus represents… the artist himself.” (Goodman, Chagall: Love, War and Exile, 51). Finally, in Self-Portrait with Clock, biographer Wullschlager contends that “Chagall painted himself as a red cow holding a palette.” (Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, 431). Further details are provided in Chapter 2.

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into three pieces and recycled the canvas creating a traditional Christian triptych.20 He worked on the triptych for almost a decade, not finishing the last work until 1952, after his post-WWII return to France. I analyze the triptych and demonstrate how Chagall uses his traditional signs and symbols to convey the affects of hate and love. Specifically, I use Ahmed’s work on affective economies, in which she states that as words circulate and repeat, they begin to evoke an image of a particular emotion.21 Using Ahmed’s theory and analyzing Chagall’s triptych, I demonstrate that

Chagall uses his traditional signs (the crucifixion, the wandering Jew, the flying animals) to suggest the affect of collective hate, but then as the triptych’s narrative progresses, it is transformed into the affect of love.

Conclusion

Although significant scholarship has been published about Chagall’s life and art, this study is the first to provide a close examination of his crucifixion paintings using a combination of formal and iconographical analyses and psychoanalytic and socio-cultural theory to provide a nuanced reading of these artworks. While Chagall’s artworks have been shown around the world,

Goodman’s recent exhibition Chagall: Love, War and Exile, which ran from September 2013 to

February 2014 at the Jewish Museum in New York, was the first to bring a significant number of his works from the 1930s and 1940s into one exhibition. With many crucifixion paintings borrowed from private collections and institutions from around the world, the exhibition showcased a body of Chagall’s work that has rarely been seen, and certainly not all in one place.

Goodman revealed the themes of love, war and exile that connected Chagall’s paintings during the

1930s and 1940s. Continuing her discussion on the personal connection Chagall felt to the

20 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 49. 21 Sara Ahmed, “Affective Economies,” Social Text 79, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2004): 119-120.

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crucifixion, my analysis adds to that dialogue by further analyzing the affects of hate and love and the impact of national identity and belonging that are evoked in Chagall’s crucifixion paintings.

Issues of identity and citizenship are not solely the discourse of history, but are relevant concepts in contemporary society, transcending the world of art to everyday life. There are in every country of the world today, and laws continue to be a widely discussed topic, making a discussion of exile and identity as relevant today as it was when Chagall was painting his crucifixion scenes. By re-examining Chagall’s crucifixion paintings and their themes of suffering, this study builds on the interpretation of Chagall’s works and enhances the extant scholarship on his crucifixion paintings.

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Chapter 1 –The Condition of Exile

As Franz Meyer explained in his 1981 biography, Marc Chagall began a new period of symbolism in his art in the 1930s, with a focus on the Bible and a deep interest in Jewish affairs.22

His images of the happy bride and groom in front of the Eiffel Tower and bouquets of brightly colored flowers were replaced with more solemn subjects. This more serious imagery began with the commission from art dealer Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939) for the Illustrations of the Bible

(1930-1939, 1952-1956), a collection of etchings, which would later become book illustrations that were published in 1956.23 As Meyer posits, Chagall learned about the Bible from the stories he’d heard throughout his childhood, and Chagall himself remarked that when creating these etchings, he didn’t choose them from specific biblical scenes, but instead he states, “I did not see the Bible, I dreamed it.”24 According to Meyer, Chagall connected with the biblical figures, seeing them as the spiritual fathers of the Jewish people, as ordinary individuals, like him and his family.25

Chagall’s work on the Illustrations of the Bible was interrupted with the death of Vollard in 1939, but his interest in religious themes continued in other works.

As author and curator Jacob Baal-Teshuva posits, Chagall’s memories of discrimination and anti-Semitism in Vitebsk, coupled with the emerging horrors of the Holocaust left an unforgettable impression on Chagall.26 It was during the Holocaust years that Chagall revisited the theme of the crucified Christ. He created approximately forty paintings with this theme, starting in 1938 and

22 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 409. 23 Schapiro, “Chagall’s Illustrations for the Bible,” 121. According to Schapiro, Chagall was going against the stream of modern art in his creation of the Illustrations of the Bible. At this time, painters did not take to a set theme, but instead preferred the spontaneous. For more details, refer to p. 121-134 of Schapiro’s chapter, “Chagall’s Illustrations of the Bible.” 24 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 384. 25 Ibid, 386. 26 Jacob Baal-Teshuva, Chagall (Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 2008), 152.

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continuing for two decades.27 This chapter presents an examination of White Crucifixion (Figure

1), which was completed in France during the period preceding Chagall’s forced exile to America, when the Nazi’s invaded France in 1941. My exploration of White Crucifixion (1938) begins with a formal analysis of the painting and then discusses the historical situation in which the work was created. From there, I relay both the Jewish and Christian readings of Christ’s crucifixion, and conclude by sharing the interpretations of the painting by noted art historians. Building on their analyses, I offer a more nuanced reading of these crucifixion paintings that enhances the current arguments that the crucified Christ figure is a symbol of Jewish suffering, and explains how the the condition of exile infuses meaning into Chagall’s White Crucifixion.

Formal Analysis of White Crucifixion

In 1938, Chagall painted White Crucifixion (Figure 1), a large work measuring just over 5 feet high and 4 ½ feet wide. Similar to the composition of many of his works, the canvas features a large figure in the center with a collection of disparate scenes floating in space around the perimeter. However, unlike his earlier colorful paintings filled with vibrant hues of blues, reds, and greens, White Crucifixion is almost fully drained of color with the exception of a yellow hue on the Christ figure’s body and small patches of color in the images surrounding the perimeter of the painting. The figure of Christ on the cross dominates the middle of the canvas with his pale, jaundiced body flattened against a white cross to which he is nailed. With his down-turned head and gaunt body, the Christ figure does not present an idealized image of the male body, but rather the body of an average person. His head is wrapped in a white cloth with the shadow of a halo

27 The exact number of crucifixion paintings during this time period is not published in any one source. I have compiled a list of paintings using Franz Meyer’s biography, Marc Chagall and Susan Tumarkin Goodman’s exhibition catalogue, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile to estimate that at least forty crucifixion images were created from 1938- 1959. See Table 1 for details.

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encircling him, and a fringed towel-like garment (a tallith, the Jewish shawl worn during prayer) covers his mid-section. Aramic words replace the INRI28 inscription on the top of the cross and a white ladder rests on the right side of cross, but vanishes into smoke before reaching the ground.

Moving beyond the figure of Christ in the painting, one’s eyes are drawn to the edges of the canvas due to Chagall’s strategic placement of intense areas of colors within the scenes surrounding the crucifixion. Chagall said that his primary aim in a composition was the placement of the objects, and in a speech he gave to the Committee on Social Thought at the University of

Chicago in 1946, he stated:

For me a picture is a surface covered with representations of things (objects, animals, human beings) in a certain order in which logic and illustration have no importance. The visual effect of the composition is what is paramount. Any other nonstructural consideration is secondary… Today people call me a painter of fairy tales and fantasies. Actually, my first aim is to construct my paintings architecturally – exactly as the Impressionists and Cubists have done in their own fashion and by using the same formal means… I try to fill my canvases in some way with objects and figures treated as forms… sonorous forms like sounds… passionate forms designed to add a new dimension which neither the geometry of the Cubists nor the patches of the impressionist can achieve.29

According to Chagall, the structure of the painting is what is critical, with a focus on placing objects and colors in a precise manner to balance the composition aesthetically.

On the far right of the canvas, bright yellow-orange flames engulf a synagogue, likely symbolic of the Nazis destroying synagogues in Munich and Nuremburg from June to August of

1938.30 Moving to the lower right of the canvas one finds Chagall’s iconic wandering Jew, clothed in a bright green cloak fleeing the scene with his sack on his back. According to art historian Ziva

Amishai-Maisels, the wandering Jew symbolizes the fleeing of all Jews, initially from the pogroms

28 The letters “INRI” are initials for the Latin words Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm (Latin uses “I” instead of the English “J” and “V” instead of “U”, ie. Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judaeorum) which translates to Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. INRI was written over the head of Jesus Christ on the cross (John 19:19). 29 Benjamin Harshav, editor, Marc Chagall on Art and Culture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 77. 30 Jackie Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2008), 380.

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and now from the Nazis, or the wandering Jew may represent Chagall himself on the move from one country to the next.31 Along the bottom edge of the work the flames from a menorah glow a yellow-orange, surrounded by a halo of white, and farther to the left, men in blue flee the scene, with looks of fear and confusion on their faces. The man farthest to the left wears a sign around his neck that is now blank, but according to biographer Sidney Alexander, the sign originally said

“Ich bin ein Jude”, “I am a Jew” in German.32 Moving up the left hand side of the canvas, more yellow fire rages from the homes in a burning village, and individuals flee across water in a boat.

On top of the village are men carrying red flags, likely representative of the Russian army. And finally, at the top of the crucifix are a rabbi, two men and a woman floating over the suffering

Christ. Chagall’s limited, but deliberate use of color draws the viewer from the figure of Christ to the images surrounding him, and then back to the haunting central figure of the crucified Christ surrounded by white.

Historical and Biographical Context

By the time he painted White Crucifixion in 1938, Chagall had been living in France for the second time33 for close to fifteen years. His nine years in Russia from 1914 to 1923 were filled with exuberant times with his marriage to Bella Rosenfeld (1915)34 and his appointment as

Commissar for Art in Vitebsk (1918)35 as well as turbulent periods with the Great War (1914-

1919), the Russian Revolution (1917), and his eventual departure from the Art Academy in

Vitebsk (1920) that he had founded.36 During his tenure at the Art Academy, Chagall eagerly

31 Amishai-Maisels, Depiction and Interpretation, 22. 32 Sidney Alexander, Marc Chagall (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978), 316. 33 His first stay in France was from 1910-1914. 34 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 237. 35 Ibid, 265. 36 Ibid, 277.

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embraced the concept of developing a “people’s art school,”37 and he fought for the inclusion of all artistic styles and mediums in the curriculum and its exhibitions. While Chagall welcomed all styles of art, his philosophy was neither shared by his colleagues at the Academy nor by the leaders of Russia. As the Russian Revolution ended in victory for the Bolsheviks, who soon changed their name to the Communist Party, the desire for a dynamic new art as a symbol of the victorious Revolution was beginning to emerge.38 Artists El Lissitsky (1890-1941) and Kazimir

Malevich (1879-1935) promoted constructivist and Suprematist art, and Chagall’s “purple Yiddles and Fiddles” simply did not fit into these frameworks.39 In 1920, Chagall was ousted from his position as the Commissar of Art, and feeling an immense sense of betrayal, he and his family left

Vitebsk for Moscow. Despite his emotional connection to his hometown of Vitebsk, biographer

Sidney Alexander describes Chagall’s feelings as an outsider stating, “Chagall felt more than ever that he had been rejected, he was at the periphery, back in the Pale, Russia had no real place for him.”40

During his time in Moscow, Chagall became immersed as a set designer for the Jewish

Theater and after that as an art teacher at an orphanage outside of the . After the Revolution, thousands of children were orphaned and eventually the government created colonies of approximately fifty boys each and created shares houses and schools for them.41 Chagall was brought in to teach art, and as he shared in his autobiography,

I taught those unfortunate little ones art… they would shout ‘Comrade Chagall, Comrade Chagall…’ I loved them. I was entranced by their drawings, their inspired stammerings, and this lasted until the moment when I was obliged to give

37 Ibid, 268. 38 Alexander, Marc Chagall, 203. 39 Ibid, 205. 40 Ibid, 223. 41 Ibid, 234.

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them up. [And Chagall lamented] What has become of you, my dear little ones? When I think of you, my heart bleeds.”42

Chagall was moved by his experience with these children, and I would surmise he felt a connection to their state of homelessness as he experienced similar feelings of exile throughout his life.

Chagall’s family living conditions while he taught were cramped and dirty. And he eventually realized that he needed to leave. According to Alexander, “[Chagall] had to leave Russia. He knew that now. Russia was no place for him.” 43 And so, Chagall once again left his home country. He moved to Germany in 1922 and then France in 1923.

Upon his return to France, Chagall experienced much success – artistically, financially, and personally.44 From the mid-1920s to mid-1930s, he enjoyed the air of freedom that Paris exuded, but this time with the comfort and happiness of having family at his side.45 However this sense of peace would come to a close by the mid-1930s as anti-semitism became even stronger in neighboring Germany under Adolf Hitler, chancellor of Germany and head of the Nazi Party.

Meanwhile, , with its focus on and totalitarianism, grew in Russia, demanding uniformity and the destruction of individualism. Shortly after attempting to contact his former professor and mentor Yuri Pen in Russia, Chagall was informed that Pen had been murdered by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh

Del abbreviated NKVD), the law enforcement agency of the Communist Party. Wullschlager surmises that his murder likely resulted from receiving a letter from the high-profile defector

Chagall.46 Fearing for his future, Chagall returned his focus to acquiring French citizenship, for which he had been turned down previously. Finally in June of 1937, he became a naturalized

42 Chagall, My Life, 170, 43 Alexander, Marc Chagall, 241. 44 Ibid, 265. 45 Meyer, Chagall, 321. 46 Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, 372.

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French citizen. A month later, the Nazi exhibition “Entartete Kunst” (Degenerate Art) opened in

Munich, Germany, and Chagall was one of several featured artists, noted prominently as both a modernist and a Jew.47 Chagall soon learned of synagogues being destroyed in Munich and

Nuremburg, and thousands of Jews being sent to concentration camps. Shortly after these events, he created White Crucifixion, described by art historian Jackie Wullschlager as “a work of Jewish martyrology that transforms the crucifixion into an emblem of contemporary tragedy.”48 Her interpretation is that the crucifixion becomes a symbol of the suffering of Jews during the

Holocaust, and this perspective is shared by many art historians and biographers of Chagall’s crucifixion paintings, including Meyer, Alexander, Amishai-Maisels and Harshav. Yet, how does an iconic Christian symbol become a part of a Jewish artist’s iconography?

The Crucifixion – Christianity versus Judaism

The story of Christ’s crucifixion, often called the Passion narrative, describes the order of events of Christ’s last week on earth. The story is told through the four Gospels of the New

Testament, which describe in detail the events leading up to Christ’s crucifixion, with painful details of the crowd mocking Jesus, the crown of thorns placed on his head, and the anguish of dragging his cross as the crowd taunted and spat at him. The Passion scenes express intense emotions of guilt, pity, and grief, with which the faithful associate, in order to identify with

Christ’s suffering. Artists have painted this theme for centuries. Early on, artists depicted the theme on commission from various Christian religious entities, but even after artists were free to choose their own subject matter, they have returned again and again to the crucifixion scene.49 For

47 Ibid, 373. 48 Ibid, 380. 49 Jean Sorabella, “The Crucifixion and Passion of Christ in Italian Painting,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, accessed November 16, 2014, http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pass/hd_pass.htm.

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Christians, Christ’s crucifixion represents salvation, with Christ sacrificing himself so that the sins of his followers would be forgiven. According to author and biblical scholar Dr. Marcus Borg, as the symbol of sacrifice for all sins, the cross takes on a personal and individual meaning as an image of transformation, because Christians die and rise with Christ.50 For Christians, Jesus is considered to be the savior of the world. However, Jews have an altogether different view of the significance of Jesus.

As noted by professional Jewish educator Ariela Pelaia, for the majority of Jews, Jesus was not the divine Son of God, nor the Messiah, but rather an ordinary Jewish man and preacher.51

According to Jewish beliefs, the Messiah must meet several requirements, specifically he will: (1) be descended from the house of King David, (2) be an ordinary human being (vs. the Son of God),

(3) bring peace to the world, (4) gather all Jews back to Israel, (5) rebuild the ancient Temple in

Jerusalem, and (6) unite humanity by the worship of the Jewish God and observance of the Torah.

Because Jesus did not meet these requirements, Jews do not view him as the Messiah.52 In general, Jews do not seek to refute Christian teachings as Judaism teaches respect for all people.

However, under Jewish law only a criminal would be crucified. According to scholar Ansar Raza,

Jews consider crucifixion a curse of God, quoting from the Bible in Deuteronomy 21:23, for “He that is hanged is accursed of God.”53 Therefore, despite a respect for all faiths, the symbol of the crucifixion carries a strong negative connotation of being cursed by God.

50 Dr. Marcus Borg, “What is the significance of the cross and the crucifixion of Jesus?” accessed December 15, 2014, http://www.explorefaith.org/questions/cross.html. 51 Ariela Pelaia, “Was Jesus the Messiah According to Jewish Beliefs?” accessed December 15, 2014, http://judaism.about.com/od/judaismbasics/a/Jewish-View-Of-Jesus.htm. 52 Ibid. 53 Ansar Raza, “Crucifixion in the Jewish Literature,” accessed December 19, 2014, http://www.alislam.org/library/articles/Crucifixion-in-Jewish-Literature.pdf.

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Displacement, Alienation, and Exile

Recognizing these incongruent views of the crucifixion between Jews and Christians, the reading of a crucifixion painting by a Jewish artist is a complex task. According to Meyer the images surrounding the Christ figure in Chagall’s White Crucifixion create a frame of “exemplary

Jewish martyrology”54 around the ultimate martyr, Jesus Christ. As Meyer interprets the painting, he notes “This Christ is really crucified, stretched in all his immense pain above a world of horror… But although Christ is the central figure, this is by no means a Christian picture.”55 In

Meyer’s reading, Chagall’s Christ lacks the concept of salvation, and instead is a symbol of the suffering of the Jewish man during the Holocaust.56 Furthering Meyer’s interpretation of the painting, Amishai-Maisels sees the crucifixion not as a symbol of Christian self-sacrificing love or redeeming hope, but a symbol of persecution, oppression, and discrimination.57 She remarks on

Chagall’s extensive use of Jewish motifs in the painting, e.g. the short headcloth (rather than a crown of thorns), the fringed garment (in place of the traditional loincloth), the traditional INRI sign (but non-traditionally translated into Aramic). All of these elements signal the Jewish character of Jesus.58 According to Amishai-Maisels, Chagall used the crucifixion to address

Christians specifically; Chagall didn’t need to explain what was happening to Jews as they were fully aware of the horrors of the Holocaust. Instead Chagall used Christianity’s own symbolic language of the crucifixion to show the persecution not of Christ, but of the Jewish people.59 For both Meyer and Amishai-Maisels, Chagall’s rendition of the crucifixion allows the figure on the cross to serve as a symbol of the suffering of Jews in the Holocaust.

54 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 414. 55 Ibid, 414. 56 Ibid, 416. 57 Amishai-Maisels, Depiction and Interpretation, 184. 58 Ziva Amishai-Maisels, “Chagall’s White Crucifixion,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol 17, No. 2 (1991): 139. 59 Amishai-Maisels, Depiction and Interpretation,183.

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I propose that this suffering that Chagall is rendering in his painting extends beyond the tragedies of the Holocaust and reflects Chagall’s sense of feeling like an outsider. While Chagall chose to leave his home country of Russia for Paris for further artistic opportunities, he continued to paint scenes from his recollections of Vitebsk to keep him close to the place where his family remained and his artistic career began.60 In White Crucifixion, Chagall painted many images of

Vitebsk and his Jewish heritage, including small village homes, a menorah, and Russian Jews with their hardened, worn faces. These figures resemble the people in his Bible etchings, and as Meyer

Schapiro noted about the individuals in Chagall’s Bible etchings,

The faces are profoundly, unmistakably Jewish and render with a convincing accent the physiognomic of Chagall’s people, their piety, concern, and contemplativeness, all without idealization.

I contend that Chagall painted the people that he remembered from Vitebsk, his Jewish people who were a part of his early life and his memories of his hometown, as he yearned to feel a sense of belonging in France.

While Paris was initially foreign to him, the freedom it granted Jews, the introduction to the

Western art world that it provided, and its general air of creativity made it a place of solace for

Chagall. As such he fought hard to gain French citizenship and felt defeated when he was turned down in his first attempt due to his association with the Bolshevik regime in his position as commissar of art in Vitebsk. Despite finally receiving naturalized French citizen status on June 4,

193761, I believe Chagall continued to feel a lack of belonging as an expatriate torn between the two worlds of Russia and France. While I grant that Christ in this painting may represent the suffering of Jews broadly, I believe that the effect of not belonging coupled with Chagall’s

60 Baal-Teshuva, Chagall, 19. Baal-Teshuva quotes Chagall, “The soil that nourished the roots of my art was Vitebsk. […] my paintings are my memories.” And According to Baal-Teshuva, “Chagall remained true to his home Vitebsk his whole life long.” 61 Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, 373.

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complex identity as a Jew, an expatriate, and a foreigner in exile play a critical role in his painting of the crucified Christ.

I contend that the crucified Christ figure in White Crucifixion reflects the horror of Jews being taken to concentration camps as well as Chagall’s sense of displacement in France. The

Christ figure shown in the painting cannot save humanity; the ladder has dissolved into smoke, leaving no means for the Christ figure to be taken from the cross and be resurrected to save his followers. Reflecting on the disparate meanings of the crucifixion between Christians and Jews, I believe that Chagall has displaced the Christian meaning of the crucifixion as salvation with a

Jewish meaning of being cursed. As further support for this conclusion, Sidney Alexander states the “Christ on the Cross was not only the martyrdom of the Jews but the martyrdom of Marc

Chagall.”62 White Crucifixion reflects Chagall’s sense of alienation as well as the suffering of

Jews broadly.

Chagall longed for his home in Russia, but more specifically he longed to feel that Russia wanted him as strongly as he wanted to be recognized as Russian. As Wullschlager notes, Chagall continued to assert his devotion to Russia as he envied the relatives of his teacher and mentor Yuri

Pen who were able to attend Pen’s funeral, despite the fact that Pen was likely murdered by the government of Russia. Further, Chagall lamented that his Spanish contemporaries and fellow residents of France, Joan Miró (1893-1983) and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), were able to represent

Spain in the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937, while he was not allowed to represent

Russia.63 This sense of alienation is reflected in Chagall’s rendering of the fantastical images surrounding the figure of Christ, a collection of historical and contemporary scenes detached and

62 Alexander, Marc Chagall, 320. 63 Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, 372. Wullschlager states that Chagall, “still moaned that Miró and Picasso, Spanish residents of Paris, represented their country in the Spanish Pavilion of the International Exhibition at the Trocadéro in Paris in 1937 while he was not allowed to represent Soviet Russia.”

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floating around the Christ figure. However, unlike the floating images of a happy bride and groom in prior paintings, the floating individuals in White Crucifixion express fear and bewilderment and the homes of the village turned upside down reflect upheaval, distress and disorder. The somber views of burning buildings, mother and child fleeing and armies marching to battle are portrayed surreally, floating weightlessly on the canvas. These larger images are interspersed with subtle smaller images that further reflect Chagall’s sense of isolation and despair – a single overturned chair, a book scattered on the ground (perhaps a Bible), and a man lying alone near the burning village homes. By bringing together images from his hometown of Vitebsk (the menorah, a synagogue, village scenes, and a wandering Jew) and scenes of the Nazi destruction (burning synagogue, people fleeing) in White Crucifixion, Chagall evokes his sense of dislocation and exile from his home country Russia.

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Chapter 2 – Self-Portraiture and Identity

Marc Chagall created many self-portraits over the course of his artistic career. In fact, according to scholar Jonathan Wilson, with the exception of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669),

Chagall painted more self-portraits than almost any painter before him.64 Artists explore self- portraiture for many reasons, and as noted by the National Portrait Gallery in their education series on self-portraits from the 17th to 21st centuries, the self-portrait represents an artist’s most intimate personal legacy, as well as a public tool of self-advertisement.65 The self-portrait is a record of the artist’s physical appearance at a particular point in time, and may also provide a deeper look into the artist’s emotional state at the time of the rendering. Given that self-portraits are rarely commissioned, the artist typically enjoys great autonomy in how each element of such works is portrayed, and each line, shape, and color helps define the artist’s identity.66

Chagall created not only traditional self-portraits featuring the image of him alone, but also made self-portraits within several of his crucifixion scenes. This chapter explores three of such paintings, namely The Artist with Yellow Christ (Figure 2), The Painter Crucified (Figure 3), and

Self-Portrait with Clock (Figure 4). In each painting, Chagall renders himself in a unique form, first as a painter in front of a canvas where he depicts Christ’s image, second as a painter who is crucified on the cross, and lastly, in what appears to be a double self-portrait, he paints himself as both a cow playing the role of artist and as the crucified Christ beside the figure of his first wife

Bella.67 For each painting, I analyze the formal qualities and overlay biographical and socio-

64 Jonathan Wilson, Marc Chagall (New York: Random House, 2007), 170. 65 “Self-portraits from C17th to C21st,” National Portrait Gallery, accessed December 21, 2014, http://www.npg.org.uk/assets/files/pdf/learning/NPG_17-21C_portraits.pdf. 66 Ibid. 67 Several scholars share that it is Chagall in these crucifixion scenes. Specifically, with regards to Artist with Yellow Christ, Goodman declares that the image is “recognizably a self-portrait” of Chagall (Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 43), and in The Painter Crucified, “Jesus represents… the artist himself.” (Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 51). Finally in Self-Portrait with Clock, biographer Wullschlager contends that “Chagall painted himself as a red cow holding a palette.” (Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, 431.)

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cultural perspective to demonstrate how Chagall renders the figure of the crucified Christ to portray his own sense of isolation and exile.

The Artist with Yellow Christ

A relatively small painting, The Artist with Yellow Christ (1938) measures 22 3/8” x 18 ¼” and is currently held in a private collection in New York.68 While information about the meaning is rather limited on most of Chagall’s crucifixion paintings, this work is among the least known, with references in only two of the sources I’ve read.69 Curator Susan Tumarkin Goodman devotes a paragraph in her exhibition catalogue, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile (2013) to this gouache, stating that the work is a recognizable self-portrait of Chagall sitting before a painting of the crucifixion. Goodman describes the figure of Chagall as sitting on a stool in front of the canvas, with palette and brushes in hand, turning away from the sight of his work. She suggests this may be a sense of ambivalence on Chagall’s part in painting such a scene given the Nazi violence against Jews during that time period.70 While the devastation of the Nazi’s actions is most certainly a factor in Chagall’s painting, I believe the impact of identity and the condition of exile are stronger considerations behind the meaning of this work.

In The Artist with Yellow Christ, the artist’s canvas within the painting dominates over three-quarters of the painting’s surface, encompassing the area from the top to the bottom of the painting and from the left edge to beyond the center. The canvas within the painting depicts the figure of Christ in the center with a ladder leaning against the cross on the left side. Unlike the

68 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 42. The Artist with Yellow Christ is held in the collection of Dr. Miklos and Elena Toth, New York. 69 The Artist with Yellow Christ is shown in the exhibition catalogue by Goodman, Chagall: Love, War and Exile, 42. The only other reference I have been able to uncover is a black and white image in a list of over a thousand thumbnail prints in Meyer’s Chagall, in the Classified Catalogue following p. 619. 70 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 43.

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ladder in White Crucifixion that goes nowhere vanishing into smoke, this ladder extends from the side of the cross to the ground below, perhaps embodying a sense of Christian hope that the Christ figure will make his way down from the ladder and become resurrected as the savior of the world?

Unfortunately, this is the only symbol of potential hope that I see present in the image. The Christ figure’s body is a deep yellow color, and a white, fringed tallith wraps around his waist. Similar to the Christ figure in White Crucifixion, the body of the figure is not an idealized muscular body but rather a gaunt, sickly body with the unnatural yellow color furthering the sense of death and hopelessness.

In addition to the despair revealed by the Christ figure, I believe that Chagall has inserted several other images that further symbolize the condition of exile. In the upper right corner of the painting, a window is open and a lone bird flies away into the distance; in the lower right corner of the painting, a single, empty chair rests. With a deep orange color dominating the painting and the inclusion of an open window, it bears a resemblance to Henri Matisse’s Red Room (1908) with its vibrant red color and the inclusion of a window.71 However, unlike the warmth of the red color and the sense of joyous life that is felt in Matisse’s work, Chagall’s The Artist with Yellow Christ evokes a sense of exile. In the canvas within the canvas, a lone wandering Jew is placed to the right of the Christ figure, hunched over walking into the nothingness of the solid orange background. With so many symbols of isolation in this image, Chagall infuses the painting with a sense of dislocation, and this dislocation extends to national identity, cultural conventions and even geographic situation.

At this point in Chagall’s career, he was a well-established artist in France, however his sense of belonging in his adopted country was tenuous at best. As Chagall lamented:

71 “Red Room (Harmony in Red),” The Hermitage Museum, accessed March 10, 2015, http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/01.+Paintings/28389/?lng=en.

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It is amazing the way the French resent foreigners. You live here most of your life. You become a naturalized French citizen, give them twenty paintings for their museum of modern art, work for nothing decorating their cathedrals, and they still despise you. You are not one of them. It was always like that.72

I believe that this dislocation from national identity within France was a constant struggle for

Chagall, who fought hard to escape Russia and become a French citizen, yet never truly felt a part of either country.

In The Artist with Yellow Christ, Chagall uses his expressive style of painting to give new meaning to the traditional cultural convention of the crucified Christ, showing the Christ figure dislocated from geographical place. Chagall’s Christ figure is shown in isolation on the cross versus in the midst of praying or mourning followers; only a single wandering Jew is present, and even that character is unengaged with the Christ figure. Chagall’s painting is reminiscent of Paul

Gauguin’s Yellow Christ (1889), with the unrealistic yellow rendition of the Christ figure’s skin, the flat plane of the painting, the vibrant colors in the surrounding scenes, and importantly the move away from naturalistic observation to an emotional expression. While Gauguin’s painting follows the historic Passion Cycle of Christ whereby fall and the harvesting of crops (shown by the yellows, oranges and reds of the landscape) is equivalent to the crucifixion,73 it was his goal to move away from the objective record and towards an expressive feel in his works.74 Similarly,

Chagall uses his expressive style of painting to convey a sense of isolation, not of Christ but of

Chagall. His painted Christ figure is dislocated from its traditional place on a hill with mourners below, and instead is floating on a flat orange background, paralleling Chagall’s condition of isolation and exile.

72 Wilson, Marc Chagall, 205. 73 “Paul Gauguin, The Yellow Christ, 1889,” Allbright-Knox Art Gallery, accessed January 5, 2015, http://www.albrightknox.org/collection/collection-highlights/piece:gauguin-yellow-christ/. 74 Interestingly, some believe that The Yellow Christ is a self-portrait by Paul Gauguin, showing himself as an independent and courageous artist that is still struggling against the public that is not very accepting of the new avant- garde art. From http://lesiksarthistory.blogspot.com/2012/05/yellow-christ.html. Could there be a parallel with Chagall struggling to be recognized and welcomed as an artist in France?

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The Painter Crucified

Whereas the limited scholarly writings on The Artist with Yellow Christ discuss the Jewish suffering at the hands of the Nazi’s, scholars point to Chagall’s personal connection with the suffering Christ figure in The Painter Crucified (1941-42). According to Goodman, the crucifix as a symbol in this painting takes on a double meaning with Jesus representing both the fate of the

Jewish people as well as the artist himself.75 Similarly, Meyer argues that the Christ figure is no longer the symbol of suffering Jews but instead he is,

… personalized as the symbol of the intensification and deepening of the pain of every single individual, represented as the pain felt by the painter himself through his sympathy with the fate of his and the horrors of war, and at the same time the symbol of the pain inherent in artistic creation. In fact since then Chagall has always had a more intense perception of the ambivalence of creation as such. Though it brings joy and satisfaction, it always involves dedication and self- sacrifice.76

Furthering the evidence of Chagall’s personal suffering during this period is a poem he wrote,

Every day I carry a cross They push me and drag me by the hand Already the dark of night surrounds me You have deserted me, my God? Why? I run upstairs To my dry brushes And am crucified like Christ Fixed with nails to the easel.77

From Chagall’s personal reflections in his poetry to his painting of himself on the cross, scholars effectively argue that the pain Chagall felt during the early 1940s is reflected in this painting. The

Painter Crucified was created from 1941-42, as Chagall was forced to leave France for America to avoid capture by the Nazi’s when the Germans invaded France in May 1941.

75 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 51. 76 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 435. 77 Amishai-Maisels, Depiction and Interpretation, 184. According to the footnote in Amishai-Maisels’ book, Chagall wrote many poems that were variously dated between 1938-1950.

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I believe that Chagall infuses The Painter Crucified with a sense of exile. At just 15” x 22

¼”, The Painter Crucified is one of the smallest in Chagall’s oeuvre, and adding to its mystique, the location of the painting is currently unknown. Despite its small size, the painting is filled with fantastic imagery, some recognizable symbols from Chagall’s earlier works, others startlingly different. Beginning at the top of the canvas, once sees two large royal blue ovals, perhaps meant to be a part of the sky or clouds or even the sleeves of a garment? From those ovals emerge the hands of God, which according to Meyer reflect a gesture of blessing.78 Moving around the edges of the canvas, on the right hand side is an easel with a painting of the Entombment,79 and in the far lower right, similar to The Artist with Yellow Christ, is a single chair. On the chair is what appears to be an open book, for if you look closely at the left-hand side there are two words that cannot be deciphered given their minute size. Shifting to the bottom of the canvas one sees a candelabra holding three burning candles and farther to the left is a female centaur lying on the ground.

As Greek mythology notes, the centaur is a mythical creature that is half human and half horse, and it is said to represent the struggle within a person between good and evil, civilization and barbarism, human and animal.80 For Chagall, I sense the analogous concept would be the struggle between his multiple identities of being Russian and French, Jewish but non-practicing, safe in America while yearning to be in France, dichotomies furthering his condition of exile in

America. Returning to the center with the crucified Chagall figure, the concept of confused identity is furthered with the figure’s legs taking on the appearance of the cross itself as the legs seem to blur into the wooden cross. It appears that multiple metamorphoses are occurring between

78 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 435. 79 Ibid, 435. The Christian story of the Entombment shares that mourners carry the limp, dead Christ from the cross and lay him on the ground. It is not a moment of transfiguration, but of mourning with a sense of gloom as well as hysteria. 80 “Centaur,” New World Encyclopedia, accessed March 10, 2015, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/ centaur.

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the half human, half animal with the centaur, as well as the Chagall figure and the cross. These dual identities further allude to the sense of exile that I believe Chagall felt as he painted these self- portraits as a refugee in America.

Completing the images surrounding the edges of the canvas, one sees upside down houses reminiscent of Chagall’s hometown village of Vitebsk. As noted by Wilson,

It is tempting to read the divisions in Chagall’s canvases also as expressions of his divided psyche, his “crucifixion” as he frequently saw it. He too occupied a field between apparently irreconcilable worlds that could be unified only in his work. In his paintings, past and present, dream and reality, rabbi and clown, secular and observant, revolutionary and Jew, artist and Jew, Jesus and Elijah, man and beast, Vitebsk and Paris, all commingle and merge in a world where not only history and geography, but also the laws of physics and nature have been suspended.81

Moving from the divisions of imagery on the edges of The Painter Crucified and towards the center of the painting is the crucified figure of Chagall. Similar to the Christ figure in previous crucifixion scenes (White Crucifixion and The Artist with Yellow Christ), this individual wears a fringed white tallith. With his left hand affixed to the cross, his right hand is pulled free, holding a palette and brushes. Interestingly, the head of the Chagall figure bears a striking resemblance to the head of the Christ figure in The Artist with Yellow Christ. And perhaps more curious is the comment made by Riciotto Canudo, a magazine publisher and film theoretician living in Paris when Chagall made his first move there, who declared to Chagall that his head resembled that of

Jesus Christ.82 Precisely how this might have played into Chagall’s depictions of Christ and himself on the cross are not known, however I believe Chagall’s complex identity and feelings as an outsider are clearly reflected in The Painter Crucified.

81 Wilson, Marc Chagall, 210. 82 Alexander, Marc Chagall, 140.

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Self-Portrait with Clock

Beginning with his location in front of the painted crucified Christ figure in The Artist with

Yellow Christ to his position as the artist executed in The Painter Crucified, Chagall juxtaposes these two concepts with the creation of Self-Portrait with Clock. Painted in 1947, Self-Portrait with Clock83 was completed while Chagall was living in America. Despite the refuge that

America provided Chagall from the Nazi’s in Europe, he never accepted America as his home. As written by many émigrés during this time, they were “grateful but unhappy,”84 and Chagall was no exception. He never attempted to learn English, and instead accepted his forced exile while clinging to thoughts of both his homeland in Russia and his adopted country of France. Listening to the stories of further Nazi invasions, including the capture of his hometown Vitebsk, Chagall felt immense guilt over being safe in America and separated from his Jewish family and colleagues who remained in Europe.85 He passed each day painting in his studio, commiserating with his wife

Bella Chagall, and looking to the future when they could return to France. In 1944, allied troops entered Paris, and the Chagall’s celebrated the liberation of Paris and the signs that the war was coming to an end. They began to make their plans to return to France, however this dream was cut short when Bella fell ill in the late summer of 1944 and died of a viral infection in a hospital in

New York on September 2, 1944.86

For over six months, Chagall was unable to paint, turning all the paintings in his studio to face the wall, as he mourned the death of Bella. Hearing the news from Europe in the summer of

1945 that the war was over, Chagall’s happiness was overshadowed by his continued grief over the loss of his wife. Finally, close to a year after her death, Chagall began to paint again, and it was

83 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 67. Self-Portrait with Clock is currently held in a private collection. No further details on its precise location are noted. 84 Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, 396. 85 Ibid, 397. 86 Ibid, 416.

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then that he was introduced to Virginia Haggard, who became his housekeeper, and eventually his lover.87 Two years later in 1947, Chagall painted Self-Portrait with Clock.

According to biographer Jackie Wullschlager, Chagall painted himself as a red cow clutching his palette and brushes with Virginia draped over him. The canvas on the easel in the painting depicts “his suffering, spiritual alter ego: a crucified Jesus in a tallith, embraced by Bella as a bride.”88 Goodman states that “the complexity of Chagall’s emotional situation is expressed” in this work, with Chagall’s longing, loss and the conflict he felt after Bella’s death and the beginning of his relationship with Virginia.89 While Wullschlager and Goodman speak to the emotion behind the work, Meyer eloquently describes its formal qualities stating,

From the delicate pale blue, shading into violet, of the background gushes a dense, heady ultramarine accompanied by a far cooler azure. But the dominant note is the red that rises from the painter’s trunk and becomes a neck ending in an animal head. The figure is drawn in accordance with the painter’s human form; but the color deflects it into something different, irrational, and charmingly fantastic. For all that, there is perfect harmony of motif, drawing, and color. As regards the motif, the two parts of the main figure branch out like two boughs growing from the same trunk and allude to the dual nature of all creatures. As regards drawing and color, two regions of expression are superimposed – one subordinate to the blue that respects the delimiting contours; the other to the red that defies all limits. Blue and red operate in accordance with their nature, but this ‘formal’ consistency leads back again to the motif. The dual nature of the principal figure is fulfilled in the contrast of blue and red.90

Extending the concept of the dual nature of the cow as man is the dual nature of Chagall as the artist with Haggard and simultaneously the crucified figure mourning the death of his wife

Bella. This mixed identity calls to mind the work of W.E.B. DuBois and his research on the

87 Ibid, 417-428. 88 Ibid, 431. 89 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 66. 90 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 475-476.

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“double-consciousness,” defined as feeling as though you have more than one social identity, making it difficult to develop a sense of self.91

I consider Self-Portrait with Clock as Chagall’s way of expressing his personal struggles of defining his “self” in the mid-1940’s, specifically as he battled with keeping a connection to his wife Bella with the history they shared of being born Jewish in Russia and living in France, while simultaneously being attracted to Haggard, a younger British woman without a Jewish heritage.

Evidence of this struggle is articulated by Wullschlager when she describes Chagall as being too embarrassed to present Haggard in public, and then specifically hiding her pregnancy with their son David in 1946.92 And Meyer ignores this entire chapter of Chagall’s life in his biography of the artist, with no mention of Haggard anywhere.

Identity

Chagall was no stranger to crises of identity and the feeling of being an outsider. From his early childhood as he questioned his ability to become an artist (where in the Pale of the

Settlement, according to Alexander, “Jewish artists were as rare as dodos, and the few that existed were looked upon with suspicion by their co-religionists”)93 to his time in St. Petersburg where he was jailed simply for being a Jew (Jews were not permitted to be in the capital city without a special pass)94 to his early days in Paris where he fought extreme homesickness.95 I believe

Chagall experienced double-consciousness on several levels: his (as both Russian and

91 Double-consciousness is a concept that W.E.B. DuBois first introduced in his book, The Souls of Black Folk, written in 1903. DuBois used this term with regards to African Americans, whereby he believed that they lived in a society that was oppressive and devalued them as equals; they were challenged to unify their “self” with the African American subculture and their overall American identity. Source of the definition from http://education- portal.com/academy/lesson/double-consciousness-du-bois-definition-lesson-quiz.html. 92 Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, 433. 93 Alexander, Marc Chagall, 26. 94 Chagall, My Life, 83. 95 Ibid, 100.

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eventually French), his religious background (being a Hasidic Jew yet non-practicing in his adult life), and his artistic practice (an expressionist, figurative artist during times of change to constructivist and suprematist art and further to non-figurative, abstract art).

Speaking further to the issue of identity, interestingly, Chagall was not born with the name

Marc Chagall, and sources on this matter quote a variation of potential given names of Moshe /

Moishe / Movsha / Moyshe and surnames of Shagal / Segal / Seagal / Khatskelev. All sources I’ve read note that he changed his name to Marc Chagall when he first arrived in Paris. Meyer states that Chagall’s father changed the surname from Segal to Chagal, and then Chagall added the extra

“L” in order to justify the pronunciation in French.96 Surprisingly, Chagall never mentions his name change in his autobiography, causing me to question whether this was a meaningful concern for him. Psychology addresses the potential significance or insignificance of name changes and contemporary discussions abound given women’s choices to keep or change their name when they marry. A recent article notes the concept of redefining oneself with a new name, as well as the guilt of abandoning a given name and feeling a betrayal to ones roots.97

Given his desires to be associated as French (from his early days of struggling to make it to

Paris to fighting for French citizenship and further fighting for future re-entry as he was fleeing the

Nazi invasion in 1941), I consider the name change to be of significance for Chagall. While I find no personal reflection by Chagall on this topic, his actions suggest that the name “Chagall” carries strong meaning for him, potentially positively (defining himself as a French artist) as well as negatively (leaving his Russian and/or Jewish heritage behind). Without extending this argument

96 From Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, the names noted are Movsha or Moyshe with a surname of Khatskelev (p. 14). From Meyer, Chagall, the surname from Segal to Chagal to Chagall is discussed (p. 21). An online biography at http://www.totallyhistory.com/marc-chagall notes his birth name as Moishe Shagal and another online biography notes variations of Moshe or Moishe and Shagal coming from Segal or Seagal at http://www.abcgallery.com/C/Chagall /chagallbio.html. 97 Layla Revis, “The Effects of Changing Your Name,” The Huffington Post, June 16, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/layla-revis/changing-name_b_3074470.html.

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into a psychologization of Chagall, I conclude this chapter with my conviction that Chagall’s crucifixion paintings are infused with a profound sense of exile, belonging, and dislocation as seen in the symbols of isolation reflected in The Artist with Yellow Christ, the incorporation of scenes from his hometown in Russia in The Painter Crucified, and finally in the double-consciousness reflected in Self-Portrait with Clock.

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Chapter 3 – The Affects of Hate and Love

As noted in the previous chapters, Marc Chagall’s crucifixion paintings are associated with the upheaval of war, the Holocaust, and the suffering of the Jewish people. However, while war and exile are predominant themes, curator Susan Tumarkin Goodman points to Chagall’s expressions of the power of love as transcending the darkness of the Holocaust years.98 This chapter explores Chagall’s triptych, Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation (Figures 5, 6, and 7) created from 1937-1952 and currently located at the Musée National Marc Chagall in Nice,

France.99 Through a close reading of these works, I demonstrate how the affects of hate and love circulate through these paintings, culminating with the painted crucified Christ figure as a metaphor for hate of Jews by the Nazi’s being displaced by a resurrected Christ as a metaphor for the love of all humanity. In Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation, Chagall narrates a personal and collective renewal whereby the dislocated status of Chagall and the Jewish community is replaced with a new national identity.

Beginning with this work’s history, which presents a unique story in and of itself, Resistance,

Resurrection, Liberation was originally the artwork Revolution (Figure 8), which was painted in

1937. A monumental work, Revolution measured over 5 ½ feet high and close to 10 feet wide.

The subject of this original work was the Russian Revolution of 1917, and it depicted the image of uprising and political revolution on its left side, while the right side was filled with an artistic and human revolution of music and love. In the center was Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Russian government, standing upright on one hand, and according to Meyer, it symbolized Lenin’s

98 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 9. 99 Élisabeth Pacoud-Rème, Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice Visitor’s Guide (Paris: Artlys, 2011), 44-45. According to the Visitor’s Guide, this triptych is owend by the Paris, Musée National d’Art Moderne - Centre de Création Industrielle, Centres Georges Pompidou and is on permanent loan at the Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice.

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revolutionary impact between both political and artistic/human revolution.100 Despite its original creation as a praise of the benefits of revolution, Chagall was later disenchanted by the work, as the positive impacts of revolution that Chagall envisioned were not the same that prevailed in

Russia.101 As such, while in America, Chagall tore the canvas into three pieces and replaced the figure of Lenin with a crucified Christ.102

Formal Analysis of Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation

The first panel of the triptych, Resistance, measures 66 1/8” high by 40 5/8” wide. The canvas is dominated by vibrant red, orange, and yellow hues over the top three-quarters of the painting, while the lower quarter is predominantly a deep blue. At the top of the work is the image of a white cow carrying a torch, and in Chagallian style, the cow flies across the canvas. Below the cow is the crucified Christ figure on the cross, and to the left of his head is the profile of a rooster whose one visible eye gazes directly out at the viewer. Similar to prior Christ figures, this version wears a Jewish tallith and a headcloth, and the body is stretched thin, exaggerated by the protruding ribs in the midsection. Surrounding the Christ figure are a myriad of people, ranging from several mothers fleeing with children, to an army of individuals with guns, and one lone wandering Jew with a sack on his back. According to Goodman, in this work, Chagall has transformed the Russian revolutionaries pictured in Revolution into World War II resistance fighters in Resistance, by painting over the previous figures altering their personas.103 Below the cross are the outlines of buildings forming a village with a couple figures interspersed. These figures are simply outlines of bodies that blend in color with the background village scene.

100 Meyer, Marc Chagall, 414. 101 Ibid, 414. 102 Wullschlager, Chagall: Love and Exile, 426. 103 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 53.

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Towards the bottom on the canvas is a dark green grandfather clock, and at the very bottom is the figure of Chagall. Lying on the ground, with his head contorted and palette and brushes from his hand, the Chagall figure appears dead.

The center panel of the work, entitled Resurrection, measures 66 ¼” high and 42 5/8” wide.

In this segment of the triptych, the color palette is similar to that of Resistance, but the orange, yellow, and blue hues are lighter, making this panel of the painting much brighter than the first.

The Christ figure dominates the center of the canvas and stretches from the canvas’ top to bottom.

The figure appears to be unnaturally elongated, almost manneristic, and its skin tone is likewise unnaturally rendered as a pale yellowish-white. Unlike Chagall’s prior renditions of the Christ figure wearing a Jewish headcloth, here the figure wears the traditional thorn of crowns. Again, a multitude of people spill over the limits of the canvas, but unlike the fear that seems to be embodied in the fighting and fleeing figures in Resistance, the people in Resurrection are rendered in a peaceful manner with couples embracing, a man quietly reading a book, and others socializing with one another. Further, a pair of lovers embrace over the top of the village scene in the upper right corner and in the upper left quadrant, a man holds a torch high, potentially as a sign of victory, while another grasps a ladder potentially to retrieve the Christ figure from the cross. Cows and goats appear alongside the villagers, a herring104 is shown at the base of the cross, and a holy man with Torah sits on a chair to the left of the Christ figure. And again the Chagall figure appears, this time turned upside down in blue with palette in hand adjacent to the right side of the

Christ figure.

Lastly, the triptych’s third panel is similar in height to the others, but more narrow in width measuring 66 1/8” high and 34 5/8’ inches wide. In Liberation, vibrant yellow is the main color of

104 Chagall often painted images of a herring in his art as a homage to his father who worked long hours as a laborer in a fish factory. From Chagall, My Life, 3.

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the composition, but interspersed are areas of bold green, blue, red, and purple. The center resembles a bulls-eye, with a deep red circle in the center and two concentric yellow circles emanating from it. The largest figure is a man in green playing the fiddle, who is surrounded to the left by circus performers and to the right by flag-bearers, other musicians, and the figure of

Chagall drawing at his easel. Below, the figures of a happy bride and groom appear floating above several other motifs that appear in many of Chagall’s works, including from left to right: a menorah, rooster, ladder, bouquet of flowers, and a herring. As Goodman notes, in Liberation, the crucified figure is gone and in its place are painters, lovers, and musicians in a happy postwar world.105 The overall theme is one of love, however if you look closely at the upper left corner of the painting, a small white crucifixion is visible, receding into the golden yellow background.

Scholars Interpretations – Political to Personal

Several scholars have analyzed this work and have presented differing views on its meaning, ranging from the painting making a political statement to the painting being a statement of Chagall’s personal suffering. Professor Benjamin Harshav believes the triptych follows the communist narrative that resistance leads to the resurrection of the Jews and finally their liberation by the Red Army.106 Harshav points to the crowds of people in Resistance as the partisans of

World War II and the survivors of the Holocaust. He refers to the rooster peeking behind Jesus’s head and notes that it symbolizes hope of the liberation to come.107 Moving to Resurrection,

Harshav states that the Jewish crucified Jesus takes Lenin’s place, and notes that Chagall is in the painting, depicted in blue upside down along Jesus’s body. As the universal symbol of resurrection, Jesus is portrayed as the resurrection of the Jews in Eastern Europe after the

105 Goodman, Chagall: Love, War, and Exile, 53. 106 Harshav, Marc Chagall and the lost Jewish world, 221. 107 Ibid, 221, 224.

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Holocaust.108 Unlike the Jewish Jesus wearing a headcloth in White Crucifixion as the Jewish martyr persecuted, Resurrection’s Jesus wears the thorn of crowns, portraying the Christian Jesus as the redeemer of hope. In Liberation, the view is optimistic with the happy symbols of joy in the folkloric manner of Eastern Europe, alluding to the liberation by the Red Army.109 Harshav believes that Chagall uses symbolism in the triptych to make a political statement on the events of the Holocaust.

Interestingly, while Harshav points out the image of Chagall in one of the triptych’s panels, he ignores the painter’s image when it appears in the other panels and does not explore the meaning of the self-portraits painted in these works. However, Dr. Aaron Rosen has explored this connection as he has focused his writings on how Jewish painters have made use of a non-Jewish visual heritage to shed light on their own identities.110 This aspect is quite relevant for Chagall with his focus on the Christian crucifixion. As Rosen analyzes the works of Chagall, he focuses extensively on his feelings as an outsider. According to Rosen, Chagall’s Jewishness inhibited his ability to connect with Russian art. When he encountered Western art firsthand in Paris, Chagall was able to approach the art from outside the Western tradition and create a unique art historical narrative that was all his own.111 According to Rosen, Chagall’s crucified cross becomes a symbol of his personal suffering and his sense of alienation and helplessness in America as the Holocaust escalated overseas.112

According to Rosen, Chagall began to look to the crucifixion as an expression of hope for the future. Rosen analyzes the triptych Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation connecting Chagall

108 Ibid, 221. 109 Ibid, 224. 110 “Dr. Aaron Rosen,” St. Peter’s College: University of Oxford, accessed November 12, 2013, http:// http://www.spc.ox.ac.uk/staff/69/staff.html?staffid=271. 111 Rosen, Imagining Jewish Art, 8. 112 Ibid, 29.

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personally to each image. In Resistance, Chagall is shown dying at the bottom of the canvas as he lies on the ground limply grasping his palette. Then in Resurrection, in addition to Christ, Chagall is also resurrected, shown upside down beside Christ with his palette in one hand and his other hand held high. In the concluding scene of Liberation, the Jewish people become revivified after the Holocaust, not by the resurrection of a saving Christ, but by the mortal hands of lovers, painters, poets, and fiddlers. Chagall is now at his easel leading the of his people, and his painting becomes filled again with images of the familiar figures such as the fiddler and the happy bride and groom.113

Affective Economies – Love and Hate

Extending this discussion on the personal connection Chagall felt to the crucifixion, I refer to Sara Ahmed’s theories of affective economies, and in particular the concept that emotions are not solely a private matter, but rather they circulate between bodies and signs and align individuals with communities.114 As Ahmed notes in her essay, emotions work as a form of capital (hence the term economy), and they circulate across both the social and psychic field. Using Marx’s capital theory that money circulates to buy a commodity, she notes that this results in more money, which creates greater value. Ahmed then applies this theory to emotions as signs, and concludes that the movement between the signs converts into affect (like money creates value). The affect doesn’t reside in the person or sign, but is an affect of the circulation between people and signs.115

Using Ahmed’s theories, I believe the triptych’s meaning can be derived by exploring the connection between the affects of love and hate. The Nazi’s extreme hate of the Jews is inherently derived by a love of their nation and their desire to purify and strengthen their country to become a

113 Ibid, 36, 39. 114 Ahmed, “Affective Economies,” 117-119. 115 Ibid, 120.

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world power, as they see the Jews as a threat to that love of nation. The signifier of this hate is the

Jew, and the word Jew as well as symbols of Judaism, such as the menorah, the tallith, and the torah circulate, creating a shared, communal response of hate. Similarly, the crucifixion becomes a signifier, yet the meaning is different depending one one’s religious beliefs. For a Christian, it symbolizes hope, redemption, and a self-sacrificing love; however for Jews it represents the acts of a criminal, and for the ardent believer it is a curse by God. These words and images evoke strong visceral responses by different viewers, and I consider Chagall’s triptych an effort to elicit these responses and reverse the condition of hate to the condition of love.

I believe that Chagall used his painted images in Resistance to evoke the affect of hate towards the Jews as well as the affect of not belonging that Chagall experienced throughout his life. The images evoke the affects of hate and fear with scenes of war, fighting, and frightened mothers fleeing with their children; however embedded within these images are signs of hope.

The resistance fighters are attacking the Nazi movement and the cow flies over the scene carrying a torch to light the way. In this panel, the figure of Christ is shown as Jewish with his headcloth and tallith, and the figure of Chagall lies crumpled in exile at the bottom of the painting, both

Christ and Chagall defeated by the hate of others.

As the narrative of the triptych continues, this collective hate becomes a way to strengthen the community, and I believe Resurrection shows the turning point from hate to love. The colors brighten, going from the darkness of the deep orange and blue in the first panel to the vibrant orange and lighter blue in this panel. Signs of fear are replaced with a sense of calmness. Two individuals embrace over the village, the crowds come together with signs of rejoicing with flags held high, and a holy man sits in the foreground holding his torah peacefully, with no one chasing after him. The crucified Christ figure interlaces the worlds of Christianity and Judaism, with a

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Christian crown of thorns on his head and a Jewish tallith around his waist. The prior crucified

Christ figure as a metaphor for the hate and suffering of Jews is displaced with a resurrected Christ as a metaphor for love and hope. Further the figure of Chagall comes out of his exile, floating upside down beside the Christ figure with his palette in one hand and the other hand held high in victory. Rosen contends that the tryptich represents Chagall’s personal suffering, which I agree with, however I believe Chagall is portraying a scene that extends beyond his personal suffering only.

Finally in Liberation, the triptych completes its evolution from a community of weakness and hate to one of strength and love. The central image is no longer a crucified Christ figure but rather a man playing the fiddle and a floating bride and groom. Surrounding these figures are musicians, painters, flag-bearers, and a parade of circus performers. Chagall has painted himself again, this time at his easel joining the performing artists around him. The scene is one of joy, hope, and community, and I again reflect on the perspective of art historian Meyer Schapiro as he discussed the Bible in the context of modern art in 1956 stating,

The self is at its highest when acting for the community in a superindividual but personal bond. The prophet – the irrepressible man of moral courage, imbued with the most intense awareness of existence – speaks to the whole people. Nothing of this seems to exist in modern art, yet the Bible is in many ways not far from our thought, although the conditions of life are so different. In spite of the brutality that has darkened the last decades, mankind is not less sensitive than in other ages; we feel today more than ever the oneness of humanity and the common need for justice, good will, and truth.116

While Schapiro doesn’t explicitly call Chagall a prophet, I believe he sees Chagall’s Bible etchings as speaking not just to Christians but also to the “whole people.” Similarly, I see Chagall’s triptych addressed to all of humanity.

116 Schapiro, “Chagall’s Illustrations for the Bible (1956),” 122.

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Furthering this address to humanity is the unique background from which the painted figures in Liberation emerge. The background is a vibrant yellow with a red bulls-eye at the center. I’ve found nothing in the scholarly writings of Chagall’s works that address the bulls-eye in this painting. Intriguingly, this mark is touted as the world’s oldest symbol. In the May 21,

1938 edition of The Argus Week-end Magazine, published in , an article’s headline reads

“The Bullseye – World’s Oldest Symbol: Science Traces It to an Age Centuries Before Ours.”

The article notes how the bulls-eye is the only symbol universally found all around the globe, from the United States to Ireland to Egypt to India and China. The bulls-eye sign is older than the cross and more than twice as old as any known religion today. In contemporary society, we use the term

“hit the bulls-eye” colloquially to mean accomplishing something with precision, and the symbol can also stand for a person’s aim in life. Archaeologists and paleontologists have linked the symbol to several meanings: the map of a labyrinth, the sun, the secret of life, and an occult form of target. The article further notes that,

Archaeologists have theoretically asked many times if this concentric symbol, the bullseye was not at some time in the archaic past almost a world-known sign, perhaps the standard of a world grown old after having passed through all the experiences of a struggle toward human brotherhood, through the sickness of many devastating wars and a rise to philosophic and scientific heights, which was finally blotted out by some world catastrophe that left only isolated outposts of humankind to constitute the beginnings of the world we know today.117

While I can’t be certain what Chagall’s intentions were with embedding a bulls-eye into this final panel of the triptych, it’s connections to the “secret of life,” “human brotherhood,” and a “person’s aim in life” fit with my interpretations of the how the affect of hate is transformed to love for all humanity. Further, written in May 1938, this article would have been published precisely at the time when Chagall began painting his crucifixion scenes in earnest.

117 “The Bullseye – World’s Oldest Symbol: Science Traces It to an Age Centuries Before Ours,” The Argus Week-end Magazine, May 21, 1938, accessed January 11, 2014, http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/587234?zoomLevel=2.

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Following the narrative from Resistance to Resurrection to Liberation, I believe Chagall used his familiar symbols to speak not only to the Jewish people but also to all humanity. The affects of hate circulate with intense meaning in the images of war with the resistance army, the terror of the people fleeing, and the suffering of the crucified Christ figure. Moving past the affect of hate, Chagall creates an image of love with the musicians, painters and the happy, bride and groom emanating from a bulls-eye. Using a bulls-eye, a symbol connected to the struggle toward brotherhood, Chagall’s triptych shows how the terrors of war become a way to strengthen the global community. Resistance, Resurrection Liberation seems to suggest the reversal of the condition of hate to the condition of love whereby the crucified Christ as a metaphor for the hate of

Jews by the Nazi’s is displaced with a resurrected Christ and liberated Jews as a metaphor for love for all humanity.

And yet, if one looks closely in the upper left corner of Liberation, there is a small, barely visible sketch of a crucified figure. It is hard to tell if the image was painted over and continues to show through the final layer of paint or if it was purposefully painted onto the canvas. Either way, it is not a focal part of the painting, but I believe it is a reminiscence of Chagall that despite his attempts to find a national identity and fight for all of humanity through his art, his sense of exile always remained a part of him and his works.

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Conclusion

While I believe the tragedies of the Holocaust provide important context for the creation of

Marc Chagall’s crucifixion paintings, I contend that the issues of identity and exile and the affects of hate and love provide a stronger basis from which to interpret these works. As a Jew growing up in the Pale of Settlement in Russia, an expatriate working in France, and a refugee living in

America to escape Nazi capture during WWII, Chagall lived a life of exile. Even in France, the country in which he fought and won citizenship, Chagall still considered himself an outsider, always searching for a national identity that would claim him as strongly as he claimed it. This condition of exile plays an important role in interpreting the meaning of Chagall’s crucifixion paintings.

While Chagall painted the majority of is crucifixion scenes from 1937 to 1952, he continued this theme later in life. The museum that carries his name, The Musée National Marc

Chagall, was initially founded as the The Musée National Message Biblique Marc Chagall (The

National Museum Marc Chagall Biblical Message) in 1973. The inclusion of the words “Biblical

Message” in the title was due to seventeen large-scale paintings inspired by the Bible that Chagall created and donated to the French State. These works remain the core of the permanent collection of the museum today. Painted between 1956 and 1966, these works further showcase Chagall’s connection to the Bible, and while the paintings are based on Old Testament stories, the crucifix appears within one of the works.

Chagall used the crucifix, with its complex, contradictory meanings for Christians and

Jews, to evoke a powerful message that resonated for all of humanity. Through his crucifixion paintings, issues of belonging, identity and citizenship are highlighted through the imagery in his works, ranging from the exile evoked in White Crucifixion in Chapter 1 to the self-portraits

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expressing isolation and a sense of dislocation in Chapter 2. And in the final chapter, I demonstrate that Chagall narrates a personal and collective renewal whereby the dislocated status of Chagall and the Jewish community is replaced with a new national identity. Hate, love, belonging, national identity, citizenship, refugees, exile – these issues informed Chagall’s crucifixion paintings from 1937 to 1952; and over sixty years later, these same concerns are relevant to today’s society.

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Wullschlager, Jackie. Chagall: Love and Exile. New York: Penguin Books, 2008.

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Table 1 Crucifixion Paintings by Marc Chagall Focus on 1930s to 1950s # Title Date Source Page # Pre Golgotha or Calvary 1912 Meyer p. 175 Pre Flayed Ox 1929 Meyer p. 374

1 White Crucifixion 1938 Meyer p. 417 2 The Painter and Christ 1938-40 Meyer Plates in back 3 The Martyr 1940 Meyer p. 418 4 The Crucifixion 1940 Goodman p. 121 5 The Painter Crucified 1940-43 Meyer Plates in back 6 Yellow Christ 1940-43 Meyer Plates in back 7 Christ Carrying the Cross 1941 Goodman p. 44 8 Obsession 1943 Meyer p. 447 9 Descent from the Cross 1940-43 Meyer Plates in back 10 Persecution 1940-43 Meyer Plates in back 11 Crucifixion and Candles 1940-43 Meyer Plates in back 12 Winter 1940-43 Meyer Plates in back 13 Mexican Crucifixion 1941-43 Meyer Plates in back 14 The Crucifix (Between God and The Devil) 1943 Goodman p. 122 15 The Crucified 1944 Meyer p. 456 16 Yellow Crucifixion 1943 Meyer p. 457 17 The Soul of the City 1945 Meyer Plates in back 18 Apocalypse in Lilac 1945/47 Goodman p. 125 19 Resurrection at the River 1947 Meyer Plates in back 20 Self-Portrait with Wall Clock 1947 Meyer p. 477 21 The Falling Angel 1923-33-47 Meyer p. 491 22 Christ in the Night 1948 Goodman p. 82 23 The Boat Exodus 1948 Goodman p. 123 24 The Holy Family 1948-51 Meyer Plates in back 25 Crucifixion by the River 1951 Meyer Plates in back 26 Christ Against Blue Sky 1948-51 Meyer Plates in back 27 Descent from the Cross 1950 Meyer Plates in back 28 Resistance 1948 Meyer Plates in back 29 Resurrection 1948 Meyer Plates in back 30 Liberation 1952 Meyer Plates in back 31 Christ and the Artist 1951 Goodman p. 120 32 The Cock on the Shore 1952 Meyer p. 512 33 The Crucifixion 1950-53 Meyer Plates in back 34 The Crossing of the Red Sea 1954/55 Meyer p. 514 35 Christ on the Cross 1956 Meyer Plates in back 36 Christ with Imprints of Hands 1952/56 Meyer Plates in back 37 Christ and Red Couple 1958/59 Meyer Plates in back 38 The Crucified and Moses 1954/59 Meyer Plates in back 39 Descent from the Cross 1959 Meyer Plates in back 40 The Creation of Man 1956-58 Meyer p. 575

Post Exodus 1952-66 Goodman p. 126 Post In Front of the Picture 1968-71 Goodman p. 127

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Figure 1 Marc Chagall White Crucifixion 1938 oil on canvas 60 3/4 x 55 in. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois

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Figure 2 Marc Chagall The Artist with Yellow Christ 1938 gouache and charcoal with color chalk on paper 22 3/8 x 18 1/4 in. private collection

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Figure 3 Marc Chagall The Painter Crucified 1941-42 gouache and pastel with watercolor on paper 15 x 22 1/4 in. location unknown

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Figure 4 Marc Chagall Self-Portrait with Clock 1947 oil on canvas 33 7/8 x 27 7/8 in. private collection

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Figure 5 Marc Chagall Resistance 1937-1948 oil on canvas 66 1/8 x 40 5/8 in. Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice, France

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Figure 6 Marc Chagall Resurrection 1937-1948 oil on canvas 66 ¼ x 42 5/8 in. Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice, France

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Figure 7 Marc Chagall Liberation 1937-1952 oil on canvas 66 1/8 x 34 5/8 in. Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice, France

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Figure 8 Marc Chagall Study for The Revolution 1937 oil on canvas 19 ¾ x 39 3/8 in. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

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