Marc Chagall

 Tonight, because we have the best art history teacher ever, he took us to an exhibit on Marc Chagall and his gothic lithographs and various paintings in his depiction of the bible. Of course, he bribed us out of our warm and comfortable houses with the promise that if we go, we would get extra credit;)

Aside from the exhibit itself, there was a lecture given by Dr. Oliver Leaman, Zantker Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Kentucky. He spoke to us about Chagall, his life and his work. A major theme throughout his lecture was that during Chagall's time, Jews were persecuted strongly by the Christian Church. Thus, how was Chagall able to incorporate Christian images in his bible under such strong regimes?

Chagall was renowned for taking Christian images, but making them particularly Jewish. He tried t transform the traditional Christian imagery into a more universal protest against what he considered unjust. Thus, he would use said Christian imagery to make specific non-Christian points. That was why the crucifix was a common motif throughout his work. Though he wasn't Jewish, his approach to art was as a whole an attempt to invent a new symbolic language which would have the potential to challenge the materialism of the life he saw.

Chagall wasn't like a traditional artist; he was always popular. Chagall wasn't the stereotypical starving artist; I mean, he didn't chop off his ear or anything. He is immediately recognizable, usually by his abstract motifs, where other 20th century artists aren't. Chagall's paintings always try and pull us into a naturalistic environment. He never shied from and was always enthusiastic about using color and being bold with his images. He was a very straightforward and emotional artist.

The exhibit was fascinating, and it was interesting to see the images we would study in person, and be able to have a realistic comparison. I mentioned how our teacher was the best, right? Well, with him, its always an adventure! After the lecture/exhibit walk-through, he took our little group of maybe ten across the street to another church. There, we stood outside in the freezing cold and compared the architecture to things we had studied in class. So there we were, a random group of highschoolers with their art history teacher, in front of a church, at night, screaming out things like, "It's got a baptistery!" or "It's not Romanesque, it doesn't have any arches!" or my favorite, "It has a cross at the top! It's a church! And then, because things only get more fun the longer we stay with our teacher, we decided to go inside (it didn't matter that choir rehearsal was going on, oh no) and continue saying (now in hushed tones) things like, "There's the narthex! And the transept! There's Christ and John and Mary! And the Apostles! Look! Stained glass!"

Basically, this night has reaffirmed my belief that art history is the greets class to ever be taught.

"In the arts, as in life, anything is possible if your heart is in it." - Chagall