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Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation: Beyond the Existing Readings of Marc Chagall's Crucifixion Paintings

Horvath, Jennifer
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1427980680

Abstract Details

2015, MA, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Art History.
This study deals with a small body of crucifixion scenes that were rendered by the well-known Russian and Jewish Expressionist artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985). It closely reads these works, made between 1937 and 1952 when Chagall lived in exile in France and the United States. Extensive scholarship and The Jewish Museum’s exhibition Chagall: Love, War, and Exile (2013-14), have emphasized ways that these paintings speak to the then-current tragedies and suffering of Jews associated with the Holocaust. This study builds on this established research. Yet, it offers a nuanced reading of the iconographical and compositional strategies that Chagall uses. Here, the lyrical-expressionist style and dream-like spatial qualities of his early modernist works infuses his painted crucifixions with the condition of exile. By emphasizing the circulation of the affects of love and hate through a network of signs, Chagall ties the theme of the crucifixion to a life of perpetual exile and to the sense of not belonging that goes with such a life. As explained in the study, Chagall’s crucifixion scenes relate as much to the suffering of humanity and Jews in the Holocaust as to the hoped-for liberation and subsequent failed promises of the Russian Revolution, to Chagall’s childhood in the Pale of Settlement, and to his lifelong experience of exile and desire to find a place in the world. Five of Chagall’s paintings figure prominently in this study. They include: White Crucifixion (1938), his peculiar paintings of crucifixions with embedded self-portraits including The Artist with Yellow Christ (1938), The Painter Crucified (1941-42), and Self-Portrait with Clock (1947), as well as his triptych Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation (1937-1952). The issues of identity, exile, and citizenship that Chagall explored in these paintings, as well as in numerous other works and writing, hardly belong solely in the province of history. They remain crucial dimensions of life, today. For these reasons, Chagall’s works continue to invite and elicit our attention.
Kimberly Paice, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Lynne Ambrosini, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Morgan Thomas, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
58 p.
Art History
Marc Chagall; White Crucifixion; exile; identity; affect; Sara Ahmed

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Horvath, J. (2015). Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation: Beyond the Existing Readings of Marc Chagall's Crucifixion Paintings [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1427980680

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Horvath, Jennifer. Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation: Beyond the Existing Readings of Marc Chagall's Crucifixion Paintings. 2015. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1427980680.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Horvath, Jennifer. "Resistance, Resurrection, Liberation: Beyond the Existing Readings of Marc Chagall's Crucifixion Paintings." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1427980680

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.