Chagall Paints the Exodus for Passover

KATZOFF, JUDITH A.

Chagall Paints the Exodus for Passover AMarc Chagall haggadah has just been released, illustrated with scenes from the Exodus narrative done by the artist in the 1960s.* Perhaps because Chagall's...

...The Hallel and conclusion of the seder are not translated...
...Pucker said that The Story of the Exodus is not considered to be one of Chagall's more important works...
...These were then used as guides in making the lithographs...
...The great prophet's role is downplayed in the traditional haggadah, it is said, because the tradition wants to emphasize that God was the force behind the redemption of the children of Israel...
...The oldest extant version of the haggadah is in the 10th-century siddur of Saadia Gaon...
...Against his father's wishes, he pursued his interest in art...
...Why don't we do the whole Exodus...
...In the 1930s and 1950s, long before his work on the lithographs that now illustrate the new haggadah, Chagall did a series of biblical scenes, including scenes of the Exodus...
...The images in The Story of the Exodus are ' 'not as strong or interesting as the Bible series Chagall did in the 1950s," according to Pucker...
...As the haggadah says, "not by an angel, not by a seraph, not by a messenger, but by the Holy One Himself, blessed be He...
...Available in hardbound and paper-bound versions, the Chagall haggadah uses the traditional text in both Hebrew/ Aramaic and English, with both Sephar-dic and Ashkenazic variations, according to Amiel...
...It's a child's book...
...Chagall Paints the Exodus for Passover AMarc Chagall haggadah has just been released, illustrated with scenes from the Exodus narrative done by the artist in the 1960s.* Perhaps because Chagall's series of 24 lithographs was originally intended to accompany the whole Exodus story rather than a haggadah, many of the illustrations depict a character who, somewhat surprisingly, is almost completely ignored in the traditional haggadah text—Moses...
...Recently, The Story of the Exodus has sold for about $24,000, according to Bernard Pucker, director of Pucker/Safrai Gallery in Boston...
...He was a poet, a musician, an actor—a guy with a lot of feelings...
...You have to mix inks around like a painter," Amiel explained...
...Each copy of the book was signed by the artist...
...U.S...
...It's amazing how many years the traditional text has been preserved with only very small changes," Amiel says...
...Amiel Books is also preparing French, German and Italian editions of the Chagall haggadah...
...The haggadah was first compiled as a distinct work in Babylonia in the seventh or eighth century C.E., by the geonim, the chief religious authorities...
...being Jewish, he was unencumbered by earlier Christian interpretations of biblical themes...
...Deuteronomy 6:21 "And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor, and they made their lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of bondage in the field...
...In 1966, Amiel's company published a limited edition of The Story of the Exodus, a book with English passages from the book of Exodus accompanying the 24 Chagall lithographs...
...Exodus 1:13-14 "Behold, a weeping boy" The daughter of Pharaoh...
...Chagall's original designs were done as gouaches, which are similar to watercolors...
...Old-time lithography involves multiple colors superimposed on each other, all done by hand, all redrawn by hand, all recreated—even the inks are recreated...
...they would buy French newspapers and magazines and sometimes stop to chat...
...He has published a number of books of Chagall's works, including Chagall in Jerusalem (1983) and Homage to Chagall (1982...
...Chagall was raised in an observant, Chasidic-influenced family in Vitebsk, Russia...
...Much of his work reflects Jewish and * Haggadah of Passover with illustrations by Marc Chagall...
...That's why in many of his self-portraits, he painted different sides of his face different colors, to show you that he was not one person but many persons, many personalities with many feelings...
...Amiel recalls the two artists as friendly fellows...
...His was a fresh vision of the Bible in a 20th-century art form...
...For details on ordering this haggadah, see p. 58...
...He was very Jewish—and then very universal at the same time...
...Midway through the project, the artist asked him, "Why do you want to do this haggadah...
...The 250 copies sold immediately for $2,000 each...
...Chagall supervised the making of the separations—the separate drawings for each color of ink in each lithograph...
...Strike the rock and water will issue from it and the people will drink.'" -Exodus 17:M...
...Last year the art world marked the 100th anniversary of Marc Chagall's birth...
...J.A.K...
...He wanted the whole world to be Jews, or the Jews to be part of one whole world...
...She took pity on it and said, This must be a Hebrew child.' Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you?' " —Exodus 2:5-7 "And water will issue from it" "Then the Lord said to Moses...
...But I think he wanted to go beyond that...
...Publisher Leon Amiel says he first met Chagall after World War II, when Amiel worked in a French bookshop in Rockefeller Center that Chagall frequently visited with the artist Marcel Vertes...
...Israel) Steimatzky, 1987...
...In the early 1960s, Amiel asked Chagall to illustrate a Passover haggadah...
...spied the basket among the reeds and sent her slave girl to fetch it When she opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, a weeping boy...
...Chagall's Jewishness' 'came out all the time, whether he wanted it to or not...
...The haggadah is a collection of excerpts from the Bible, Mishnah and Midrash, interspersed with the blessings for performing seder rituals, and ending with Hebrew and Aramaic songs...
...And like actors, musicians and other artists, he wanted to be loved by everybody...
...Chagall, Amiel says, was "a very romantic man...
...He wanted to be everybody's hero...
...biblical themes...
...Of course, that's a romantic dream, but that's the way he felt...
...We were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt" —from the haggadah...
...Amiel Books, 1987...
...In preparing the text for the Chagall haggadah, Amiel compared the texts of Middle Eastern, French, Italian and American haggadol and found few differences among them...
...He felt we should all be one big brotherhood...
...Chagall eventually returned to France, and Amiel opened his own publishing house, where he published art books and works in French...

Vol. 13 • April 1988 • No. 2


 
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