Chagall and Music

Accompanying text for the exhibition at the Montreal Beaux-Arts Museum, from 28th January to 11th June 2017 and Los Angeles LACMA, from 23th July 2017 to 7th January 2018Highly illustrated, this book explores a hitherto overlooked topic in Chagall studiesThis book explores the connection between Chagall and music. This intimate relationship, which ran deep in both his family history and the Jewish culture of his native city, was particularly meaningful in Chagall's creations for the stage. His works for the Jewish Theatre (Moscow, 1919-1920) and the ballets 'Aleko' (Mexico, 1942), 'The Firebird' (New York, 1945), 'Daphnis et Chloé' (1958) and 'The Magic Flute' (New York, 1967) celebrate the links he established between music, large-scale set design, and the material design of costumes. Chagall's monumental projects in the 1960s, such as the ceiling of the Paris Opera (1964) and his decorative architectural program for the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center in New York (1966), are a reflection of his notion of 'total art', and his explorations in the universality of music and its translation into the spatial dimension. Music was a constant source of inspiration to Chagall. The subject of his creations, it provided internal rhythm and strength to his compositions, as well as dictating the intensity and ranges of color he used. Offering a fresh approach to iconography, Chagall and Music argues for the intersection of audial and visual art as the mark of Chagall's incessant and brilliant modernity.