The betrothed and the Eiffel Tower, 1913 Marc Chagall: 1887-1985
Created in France, currently stands in Musée national Message Biblique Marc Chagall, Nice, France
In this piece, Chagall has many different images literally floating around on the canvas. We see the goat floating near a tree, and the betrothed couple on a chicken. It is full of imagery, the chicken/rooster symbolizes fertility, the fiddler symbolizes the fiddler who played at Jewish weddings in Chagall’s village.The interesting part to me is the Eiffel Tower in the background. We discussed how Chagall didn’t necessarily see Jewishness and non-religious aspects of his life as that separate, and here we see a very clear merging of the two. There is Jewish immagery in the angel near the sun, and perhaps in the young man reading a book near the trees. However, the main Jewish imagery is the chuppah which stands behind the couple underneath the very non-religious icon of the Eiffel Tower. This piece of architecture is famous and clearly has a strong meaning for Chagall, as it shows up repeatedly in his other works. Pairing this symbol of the “city of love” with the Jewish symbol of love and marriage creates an interesting juxtaposition. He also has at least parts of violins in the painting, a way of blending different media (like we saw in the Picasso painting, music and writing is temporal, art is less so).
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/marc-chagall/over-the-town-1918#supersized-artistPaintings-203129
Created in France, currently stands in Musée national Message Biblique Marc Chagall, Nice, France
In this piece, Chagall has many different images literally floating around on the canvas. We see the goat floating near a tree, and the betrothed couple on a chicken. It is full of imagery, the chicken/rooster symbolizes fertility, the fiddler symbolizes the fiddler who played at Jewish weddings in Chagall’s village.The interesting part to me is the Eiffel Tower in the background. We discussed how Chagall didn’t necessarily see Jewishness and non-religious aspects of his life as that separate, and here we see a very clear merging of the two. There is Jewish immagery in the angel near the sun, and perhaps in the young man reading a book near the trees. However, the main Jewish imagery is the chuppah which stands behind the couple underneath the very non-religious icon of the Eiffel Tower. This piece of architecture is famous and clearly has a strong meaning for Chagall, as it shows up repeatedly in his other works. Pairing this symbol of the “city of love” with the Jewish symbol of love and marriage creates an interesting juxtaposition. He also has at least parts of violins in the painting, a way of blending different media (like we saw in the Picasso painting, music and writing is temporal, art is less so).
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/marc-chagall/over-the-town-1918#supersized-artistPaintings-203129
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