Chagall & the Tudeley windows
About Marc Chagall
A short biography
Marc Chagall – Moishe Zakharovitch Chagalov – was born in Vitebsk in 1887 (at that time part of the Russian empire, and today in Belarus). He died in Paris in 1985.
He grew up in a devout Jewish family, with no particular connection to the world of art. Despite having no mentor or formal artistic tuition, he showed promise at a very young age. It was his talent that enabled him to leave his shtetl (Jewish village) when young, but features of his birthplace inspired him throughout his career.
Marc Chagall, France, August 1934, image © Roger Viollet via Getty Images
In 1910, he settled in Paris, a move that proved to be a turning point in his career, and became known as Marc Chagall. He frequented several major Academies – La Grande Chaumière, La Palette – and met prominent artists of the time, such as André Salmon, Max Jacob and Blaise Cendras. He also regularly visited the Louvre, where he discovered classical art. Chagall’s “style” was being shaped and his success grew. After a fruitful yet disappointing return to revolutionary Russia after the war, then to Berlin, he returned to Paris and there became one of the century’s most prominent artists.
Marc Chagall’s name and art are naturally associated with music – his best-known work being the ceiling of the Garnier Opera House in Paris. However, he is not specifically an artist that one immediately associates with the world of church art, although in the late 1930s he had designed decorations for churches and sacerdotal clothes. His stained-glassed windows remain a relatively unknown part of his creation today.
A small lexicon
Colours in Marc Chagall’s art
Marc Chagall’s use of colour is a particular and striking feature of his art. In Paris, he had undeniably been inspired by the vibrant colours used in both fauvism and cubism. As he himself said:
While it is tempting to seek significance in his use of such and such a colour, many art historians argue that colours had no particular meaning for Chagall: they existed for themselves, being a way of structuring space, a means of delimiting and differentiating shapes, symbols and motifs[3].
Chagall’s frescoes for the Garnier Opera House in Paris confirm this idea. The ceiling depicts well-known œuvres from the repertoire. Each opera and ballet is represented in a specific palette of colours, the choice of which is at times surprising: the scene showing Stravinsky’s ballet, the Firebird, for example, is painted in yellow, green and red hues. Yet the colour used for the bird itself is green, rather than red or yellow, colours more commonly used to evoke fire.
Blue is the predominant colour in his art; it is thought to be the colour Chagall was referring to when talking about the “colour of love”.
[2] La lumière et la couleur selon Chagall (Light and Colour according to Chagall), France Culture TV Documentary, March 2020.
[3] Bartholomé Girard, “Marc Chagall, le juif voyant”, in : L’Intermède, 04/05/11: https://www.lintermede.com/dossier-couleurs-marc-chagall-et-la-bible-exposition-musee-art-histoire-judaisme.php#:~:text=Les%20couleurs%20n'ont%20pas,encore%20et%20toujours%2C%20le%20dessus.
“Je suis arrivé de ma ville natale Vitebsk, en France, avec un seul but : voir une couleur, nouvelle, inconnue, une couleur qui serait comme un rayon de liberté, source et fondement de l’art.”[2]
“I arrived in France from my hometown of Vitebsk with one aim in mind: to see a new, unknown colour, a colour that would be like a ray of freedom, the source and foundation of art.”
"Dans notre vie, il y a une seule couleur, comme sur la palette d'un artiste, qui fournit le sens de la vie et de l'art. C'est la couleur de l'amour."
“In our life there is a single colour, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the colour of love.”
Symbolism in Marc Chagall’s works
“Celui qui possède la couleur crée une seule religion, la religion de l'amour et de l'humanisme.”[1]
“He who possesses colour creates a single religion, the religion of love and humanism.”
[1] La lumière et la couleur selon Chagall (Light and Colour according to Chagall), France Culture TV Documentary, March 2020.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
King James Bible, Exodus 20:1-17
In Judaism, as stated in the Biblical Second Commandment, it is forbidden to make a representation of God and God’s creatures. Marc Chagall spent his childhood in a house devoid of any images, having been raised in a Hassidic family in which this commandment was strictly observed. Yet Chagall broke away from this commandment early in his career. Nonetheless, one senses a tendency to avoid depicting human figures in some illustrations of biblical subjects, Chagall preferring to depict a myriad of animals or of hybrid creatures – the bestiary on the stained-glass windows for the chapel of the Hadassah Medical Centre in Jerusalem is a good illustration of this. The Tudeley windows are no exception to this tendency, although human faces and figures, as well as angels are also present. Psalm 8, which inspired eleven of the twelve windows, evokes a bestiary which features in several windows.
The Bible, and particularly the Old Testament, is Marc Chagall’s principal artistic inspiration. Although he moved away from his own orthodox background, he kept a very strong attachment to his Jewish identity. Christ is however also often represented in his art. Chagall was fascinated by the figure of Christ, who in his view represented “the man with the most profound understanding of life”[4]. Chagall was deeply spiritual but rejected all dogmatism, considering God above the boundaries of religion.
“Pour moi, la perfection dans l’Art et dans la vie est issue de cette source biblique”[5]
“For me, perfection in art and in life comes from the same Biblical source.”
[4] Marc Chagall, letter from Donation Marc et Valentina Chagall, Musée national Message Biblique Marc Chagall, Nice, 1973
[5] Testimony from Marc Chagall, by Jean Leymarie, in : Daniel Marchesseau, Chagall, Ivre d’Images, Gallimard, 1995, p. 165