Camille Claudel (1864-1943) was born in the Aisne region of northern France into a family of priests, farmers, and the gentry. Her father was a banker. From 1869 until 1876, Claudel was educated at the school run by of Sisters of Christian Doctrine. The family moved to Paris when Claudel was seventeen years old. She showed a strong interest in art, but her mother disapproved of her “unladylike desire to become an artist.” Her father was more encouraging and showed her work to the sculptor Alfred Boucher, who said she was talented and should be encouraged.

Claudel began to study with Boucher in 1881 at the Academie Colarossi, a progressive school. Female students were accepted and even allowed to work from nude male models. In 1882 Claudel rented a studio with Jessie Lipscomb and two other women sculptors. Boucher won the Prix de Rome, an Academy prize that allowed the winner to study in Italy for a number of years. Before leaving he asked fellow sculptor August Rodin to look at Claudel’s work. She began working in his studio in 1883; she was his student, his model, his muse, and eventually became his lover, although he had a life-long partner Rose Beuret.

Claudel and Rodin had a passionate love affair from 1883 until 1891, when their relationship began to deteriorate. Claudel’s family disapproval of her life style, and she was forced to leave the family. Claudel had an abortion in 1892. She ended the affair and moved into her own studio. Claudel and Rodin continued to work together and to see each other until 1898. He famously claimed, “I have shown her where to find the gold in art, but the gold she has found was in herself.”

Claudel was successful as a sculptor, and in 1891 she was selected to be a jurist at the National Society of Fine Arts. Her first plaster model of “The Waltz” was reviewed in 1892 by art critic Armond Dayot, who was working as an inspector for the French Ministry of Beaux-Arts. The figures were originally two nudes, and Dayot found the movement and modeling praiseworthy. However, he found it not appropriate for public display.

Claudel reworked “The Waltz” (1893) by draping the lower torso of the female with an elegant flowing skirt. Dayot described the additions as “a gracious intertwining of superb shapes balanced in a harmonious rhythm among swirling drapes.” He stated that Claudel had great talent. However, when “The Waltz” was presented to the 1893 Salon of the Société National des Beaux-Arts, the authorities criticized its “violent sense of reality” and dismissed it. Claudel made several adjustments to the model over many years. The man once kissed the neck of his partner, but in this piece he gently kisses her cheek.

“The Waltz” (1905) is considered by art historians to be one of Claudel’s most personal works. Like most of Claudel’s sculptures, the work was not cast into bronze until 1905. However, the subject was influenced by her relationship and possible affair with the composer Claude Debussy. The two shared several interests in common, and music historians often speculate which of Debussy’s musical works were directly influenced by the relationship. After Claudel ended the relationship, Debussy wrote: “I weep for the disappearance of the Dream of his (the male figure) Dream.” Debussy kept a small model of “The Waltz” on his piano until his death. 

Claudel and Debussy both admired the work of Degas and of the Japanese Ukiyo printmaker Hokusai. “The Wave” by Hokusai inspired Claudel’s “The Wave” (1897) (onyx, bronze, marble) (24.5’’ x22.2’’). In her work three female figures, cast in bronze, hold onto each other as the wave, carved from onyx, is about to crash over them. Not often employed by sculptors, the use of multiple media adds color to the work. The yellows, greens, and browns of the onyx also reference the colors in Hokusai’s print. The work may speak to the dark destiny of drowning; however, it may also be seen as women frolicking in the waves. Combined with ”The Gossips” (1897), a multimedia work of similar design and composition, the subject matter is lighter.  Her use of multimedia may be inspired by the sculptures of Charles Cordier, a popular contemporary sculptor, who used multicolored marbles.

The plaster model for “Perseus and the Gorgon” (1897) (77’’x 43.7’’ x 35.4’’) was exhibited in the Salon de la Société National des Beaux-Arts in 1899. Rodin continued to aid Claudel financially, and he negotiated with the director of the Société to allow Claudel to show this piece in the 1899 Salon. Claudel hoped the model would lead to a commission. The Countess Arthur de Maigret commissioned a marble copy for her mansion in Paris. The work took four years to complete. Claudel was assisted by Francois Pompon who worked in their studio from 1890-1895. The marble sculpture was presented at the 1902 Salon. Unfortunately, the commission for the marble sculpture had been cancelled as a result of Rodin’s withdrawal of support because he was angered at seeing Claudel’s sculpture “The Age of Maturity.”

Claudel’s selection of a subject from Greek mythology, rather than a theme of her own creation, was likely a result of her financial struggles. Perseus and the Gorgon was typically an Academy subject. The young Perseus was tasked with bringing back the head of Medusa, the monster whose hair was made of snakes and who instantly turned anyone who looked upon her to stone. He was assisted in this task by several of the Olympian gods; Athena gave him a shield, Hermes gave him winged sandals so he could fly a long distance to find her, Hades gave him a cloak of invisibility, and Hephaestus gave him a sword. Claudel depicts Perseus looking into the mirrored surface of the shield to see Medusa, rather than looking directly at her and being turned to stone.  The dead body of Medusa lies at Perseus’s feet. From her severed neck were born two miraculous animals.  One was the winged horse Pegasus whose wings Claudel depicts as the horse is being formed.

Dating any of Claudel’s sculpture is difficult, as many were conceived and altered over her working lifetime. Claudel started all in plaster, and made copies in marble and bronze. Others were cast in bronze by Eugene Blot in 1905. “The Age of Maturity” (1893-1900) shocked and angered Rodin when he viewed it in 1899. Claudel wrote, “One day when Rodin was visiting me, he suddenly stood still in front of this portrait, contemplating it, gently caressing the metal and weeping…” There are several ways to interpret the entire work. Some believe the first two figures represented a middle-aged man wrestling with the figure of old age, fighting against destiny. Is the young female, originally a separate work titled “The Implorer” (1898), pleading with old age to let the younger man go? Or is this a highly personal representation of their tempestuous love affair? Or, is old age not represented by a male but a female, specifically Rose Beuret, who Rodin chose over Claudel? Or does it have others meanings?

“The Age of Maturity” is full of passion, no matter the interpretation, and Claudel’s modeling of the surface is superb. The ripeness and softness of the young woman’s skin is an immediate contrast to the stretched neck tendons, sagging skin, and blood vessels and bones of the middle-aged man’s chest and hand. The face of the old man is a mask of death. This Claudel masterpiece was cast in bronze in 1902, and can be seen in a life-size model in the vast turbine hall of the Musee D’Orsay (first two figures 64’’ tall, single female figure 45” tall). From 1894 until 1898, Claudel had the single female, “The Implorer” (1898) cast into an edition of 59 copies.

Claudel exhibited at the 1903 Salon d’Autumne, an exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Francais. However, she was seen wandering the town, prowling around Rodin’s villa, disappearing for long periods of time, and showing signs of paranoia and schizophrenia. Claudel destroyed many of her works. By 1906, she was living in seclusion in her studio. Her family had never approved her behavior, but her father had always supported her. When he died in March 1913, she was not told of his death. Eight days later, her younger brother Paul admitted her to a psychiatric hospital. If she was able to work, she was fine according to hospital records. She wrote, “I have fallen into an abyss. I live in a world so curious, so strange. Of the dream that was my life, this is my nightmare.” The Paris press, calling her a sculptor of genius, tried in vain to help her.

During the German advance on Paris, Claudel was transferred to another mental asylum farther from Paris. The admittance certificate, dated September 22, 1914, stated she suffered “from a systematic persecution delirium mostly based upon false interpretations and imagination.” Claudel’s mother prevented her from receiving any mail, except from her brother. On several occasions doctors encouraged her mother to have Claudel released. Her mother refused. Over the 30 years of her confinement, her brother Paul visited her just seven times. Her sister Louise visited once. Her mother, who died in 1929, never visited. Fellow sculptor and friend Jessie Lipscomb visited, insisting Claudel was not insane. Camille Claudel died on of an apoplectic stroke on October 19, 1943. She was buried in a communal grave with the bones of destitute persons. The location of her gravesite remains unknown. 

The Camille Claudel Museum in Nogent-sur-Seine was opened in 2017. Approximately 90 statues, sketches, and drawings survive. Twenty additional works from the private collection of Claudel’s sister Louise were sold for $4.1 million in 2017. Rodin and Rose Beuret had a relationship from 1864 until February 1917, when they married. They had one child. Rose died two weeks later. Rodin died on November 17, 1917.

Two of Claudel’s contemporaries, Octave Mirabeau and Louis Vauxcelles, both respected art critics, praised Claudel’s work. Mirabeau called her “a revolt against nature: a woman genius.” Vauxcelles described her as “the only sculptress on whose forehead shone the sign of genius, more virile than many of her male colleagues.”  

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Martin Johnson Heade (b.1819, Bucks County, PA) is a unique American landscape and flower painter. His family ran the Lumberville Store and Post Office. Heade’s first art teacher was Edward Hicks, a folk artist and Quaker minister.  Heade traveled abroad in 1838 to study art and lived in Rome for two years. When he returned to Pennsylvania, he showed his portraits at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at the New York Academy of Design in 1841. He began exhibiting regularly in 1848. An itinerant portrait painter, he traveled along the East coast. He began to do more landscapes starting in the1850s. Heade settled in New York City in 1859 and worked at the Tenth Street Studio, where many of the Hudson River artists worked. Heade painted seascapes, salt marshes, and small horizontal landscapes, concentrating on lighting effects and atmosphere. He became friends with Kensett, Bierstadt, Gifford, and Frederick Edwin Church, whose “Heart of the Andes” (1857) (66’’ x130’’) he saw at the Metropolitan Museum. Heade made his first trip to Brazil in 1863.

Church had visited Brazil two times and created large panoramic landscapes that excited New York art buyers. He advised Heade to do the same. Heade went with a different idea in mind. “The Harbor of Rio de Janeiro” (1864) (19.2’’ x 43.1’’), like all Heade’s paintings, was small and intimate. At sunset, the harbor stretches across the canvas with a few sailboats, a sandy shore with tropical plants in the foreground, and the City spread out below the magnificent mountains. It is quiet and peaceful. The Emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro II, liked Heade’s painting so much he made him a Knight in the Order of the Rose, an imperial order established in 1829. 

Heade went to Brazil with the naturalist Reverend J. C. Fletcher who proposed to use Heade’s illustrations for his book Fletcher’s Study of South American Hummingbirds.  Heade made 20 small paintings titled “The Gems of Brazil” for the book. More than 50 people bought subscriptions, but 200 were needed. The book was never published; however, Heade remained fascinated by orchids and hummingbirds, and he painted dozens of them, all different. “Cattleya Orchid and Three Brazilian Hummingbirds” (1871) (13.7’’ x 17.9’’) (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) illustrates Heade’s attention to the smallest detail, his knowledge of his subject, and his remarkable ability to capture the atmosphere of the Brazilian jungle. 

The Cattleya orchid, called the “Queen of Orchids,” was first discovered in Brazil in 1817, and it was named for English horticulturist and collector William Cattleya. Heade depicts a purple Cattleya orchid in all its splendor. It is one of the largest orchids and grows high in the jungle. Heade depicts the light green leaves necessary for the orchid to bloom. Dark green leaves do not support blooms. Victorian England loved orchids and attributed meanings to most flowers. Purple orchids were the symbol of dignity and authority. Giving a purple orchid to someone showed love and respect. 

The hummingbird closest to the orchid is a ruby-throated hummingbird. The birds fly around their nest which is built on a slender branch, frequently in the fork. They build their small nests high above the ground where they are hard to see. The nests are often mistaken for a knot of wood. Hummingbirds have been popular over the ages and with many cultures. They represent good luck, joy, and love. Christians consider them messengers from God and a reminder to trust in Him.

A Boston Transcript article (August 1863) reported on Heade’s trip to Brazil: “It is his [Heade’s] intention in Brazil to depict the richest and most brilliant of the hummingbird family–about which he is so great an enthusiast–to prepare in London or Paris a large and elegant Album on these wonderful little creatures…He is only fulfilling a dream of his boyhood in doing so.” Brazil has 81 species of hummingbirds.

“Passion Flowers and Hummingbirds” (c.1870-83) (15.1’’ x21.58’’) (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) depicts black and white snow-capped hummingbirds. The iridescent green birds have white throats and bellies, separated by broad green collars, and white snow-caps. They are particularly attracted to passion flowers. Spanish Christian missionaries named the flowers “passion flowers” because they associated specific parts of the flower with the scourging, crowing with thorns, and crucifixion of Christ. The 10 red petals represented the 10 apostles, excluding Judas, and Peter who denied Christ three times. The corona rising from the center of the petals represents the crown of thorns. The styles coming from the center of the corona look like large-headed nails.  

Heade supported Darwin’s theory of evolution explained in his book The Effects of Cross and Self Fertilization in the Vegetable Kingdom (1876). Darwin specifically mentions that hummingbird beaks were adapted specifically to fertilize passion flowers. Heade was the first artist to paint several works paring the two. 

Heade married Elisabeth Smith in 1883, and they settled in St. Augustine, Florida. From 1883 until his death, Heade painted over 150 works.  “View from Fern Tree Walk, Jamaica” (1887) is one of Heade’s largest paintings, measuring four feet by seven feet. It was commissioned by real estate developer Henry Morrison Flagler, also partner of John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Company. Flagler wanted to make St. Augustine the “Newport of the South.” He commissioned Heade to make two paintings, “View from Fern Tree Walk, Jamaica” (1887) and “The Great Florida Sunset” (1887), to hang in the upper rotunda of his Hotel Ponce de Leon. The hotel included seven artists’ studios, one of which Flagler gave to Heade. 

In “View from Fern Tree Walk, Jamaica” Heade returned to painting horizontal landscapes, having painted so many early in his career. The sun shines across the foreground highlighting giant palm fronds and tropical plants. A path at the center of the composition leads down to the water. Tall palm trees, blue skies with white clouds, and a welcoming calm landscape are characteristics of Heade’s work.

“The Great Florida Sunset” (1887) (54.25” x96’’) is the companion piece to “View from Fern Tree Walk, Jamaica.”  Heade’s love of each landscape he painted is obvious. He knew the shore reeds, the water plants, the variety of Florida palms, white lilies, exotic birds, and brilliant clouds at sunset. “View from Fern Tree Walk, Jamaica” was purchased in the 1950s by a Californian. “The Great Florida Sunset” was sold in 1988. In 2015 the Marine Art Museum in Winona, Minnesota, paid $9.5 million for “The Great Florida Sunset” at a Sotheby’s auction, more than twice the price of other Heade paintings. The Museum previously had purchased “View from Fern Tree Walk, Jamaica.” The two paintings once again hang together. 

  After Heade moved to Florida, he developed an interest in native flowers. He created paintings of Cherokee roses, orange blossoms, apple blossoms, and roses, to name a few. Of special interest to Heade was the white magnolia which appealed to him because of his interest in natural history and the artistic beauty of the flower.  He placed white magnolia blossoms on velvet cloth of a variety of colors to compare textures and elegant contours. “Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth” (1890) (15.1’’ x24.2’’) was purchased by the National Gallery of Art, Washington. D.C., in 1982. 

Magnolia trees have a long symbolic history. They were a staple in southern gardens. They represented stability and longevity because of their long life. The white blossoms represent nobility and purity, and they are used in medicines. The fragrance and beauty of the large blossoms can withstand changes in weather conditions, representing endurance and fortitude. 

Heade’s paintings are considered unique in American art as no other American artist created such a large collection of still lifes and landscapes. His still life paintings are considered by scholars to be among the most original paintings of the 19th Century. “Giant Magnolias on a Blue Velvet Cloth” is considered to be one of the finest still life paintings of the time. In 2004, the United States Postal Service selected this painting for the 37-cent stamp.

Heade’s paintings did not bring him a large income during his lifetime. When he died in St Augustine in 1904, he was largely unknown, although from 1800 to 1904, he wrote over 100 letters and articles on hummingbirds and tropical plants for Forest and Stream magazine. Attention was paid to Heade in the 1940s when art historians and artists rediscovered his work. His reputation was restored, and he is recognized today as one of the most important artists of his generation.

 “A few years after my first appearance in this breathtaking world [1863], I was attacked by the all-absorbing hummingbird craze, and it has never left me since.” (Martin Johnson Heade)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

In1975, the United Nations General Assembly declared March 8 International Woman’s Day “to recognize the fact that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms requires the active participation, equality, and development of women; and to acknowledge the contribution of women to the strengthening of international peace and security.” Sonia Delaunay was commissioned by UNESCO to design the official poster. The United States sets aside one day for the celebration, but the subject of Delaunay’s French poster was International Year of the Woman.

Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), born in Odessa, Ukraine, was from a well-to-do Jewish family. Her uncle Henri Terk was a lawyer in St Petersburg and Sonia went there to live with the Terk family when she was five.  She received a quality education in St Petersburg, including the languages French, English, and German. She traveled, visited museums, and discovered art. By age fourteen her talent was recognized, and she attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany. She went to Paris in1905 to study at the Académie de la Palette on Montparnasse. However, she preferred the galleries and the new art to the Classic style. She was influenced by the paintings of Matisse, Gauguin, and Van Gogh, and she met Kandinsky and other Russian artists in Paris.

Delaunay’s first solo exhibition was at the William Uhde Gallery in Paris in 1909. Uhde was a German art critic and art dealer. She and Uhde were married in December 1909. It was as a marriage of convenience for both: her parents wanted her to come home, and Uhde was gay. That same year Sonia met Robert Delaunay and fell in love. She and Uhde divorced amicably after one year of marriage. Uhde said, “A friend of mine felt he could make my wife more perfectly happy than I could.”  

Sonia said, “In Robert Delaunay I found a poet. A poet who wrote not with words but with colors.” Together they developed a new artistic style they named Simultanism, based on Cherveul’s scientific discovery that light was composed of the six colors of the rainbow. The Delaunays preferred to use the colors of light when painting an object rather than the browns and grays of Cubism.  “Le Bal Bullier” (1913) (oil on mattress fabric) (38” x 132.5’’) depicts customers dancing in the popular Montparnasse nightclub to the new favorite, the tango. The tango originated in a sailors’ bar in Argentina, and the intensity of the dance and the erotic moves of partners in a tight embrace became all the rage. The Delaunays were frequent customers.

Sonia captures the simultaneous excitement and energy of the tango with intense colors that form various shapes moving across the dance floor. Some couples hold each other tight and move their hips in matched rhythms. Others sway and swirl to the pulsing of the music. The viewer is drawn into the passion and spirit of the dance.

“Electric Prisms” (1914) (94”x 99”) was inspired by the electric streetlights on Paris boulevards. The canvas is composed of two major centers of light radiating and overlapping in a multitude of colors. Robert Delaunay described Sonia’s style as intuitive: “Sonia created her harmonies and rhythms of color from life itself, from color she invented with the brush in the manner of color poems.” Their good friend Guillaume Apollinaire, considered to be a major poet, playwright, novelist, and art critic of the early 20th Century, called their art Orphism. Orpheus was the legendary Greek musician renowned for his musical skills that allowed him to charm the three headed dog Cerberus and enter Hades. Apollinaire commented, ”Upon waking, the D’s talk color.” Sonia decorated everything in their apartment as she said, “to make homes live able, bodies alive…it can be the dress of books, the skin of objects, the harlequin driving away ugliness…we have liberated color, which has become a value in itself.” The Delaunays’ “Electric Prism” paintings were juried into the Salon d’ Independents in Paris in 1914.

 

Sonia Delaunay designed their clothes in what she termed simultaneous colors. She made Robert a suit with a red coat and blue collar, with which he wore red socks, yellow and black shoes, black pants, a green jacket, sky blue vest, and tiny red tie. Sonia wore a “Simultaneous Dress” (1914) similar to the one pictured. It was purple with a green belt, the bodice was divided into old rose, orange and Nattier blue, each of a different fabric, tulle, silk, flannel, taffeta, and peau de soie.

The Delaunays vacationed in Fuenterrabia, a Basque border town in Spain. In 1914, World War I broke out, and they lived in Madrid for a year. To escape the Spanish Revolution, they moved to Portugal and lived there from 1915 until 1917.  Sonia said the light in the Iberian Peninsula opened her eyes. She used the opportunity to design pottery and fabric, and by 1919 she had turned her attention to fashion. Her Russian relatives helped support Robert and her, but the Russian Revolution in1917 closed that avenue of support. The couple moved back to Madrid, where they met Diaghilev. He commissioned Robert to design the sets for the ballet Cleopatra and Sonia to design the costumes. The Marquis de ’Urqui helped Sonia set up Casa Sonia; her fashion and fabric became famous. 

The Delaunays moved back to Paris in 1921, and Sonia set up a fashion studio with Jacques Heim, a French fashion designer and costume designer for theater and film. She designed clothes for such famous people as actress Gloria Swanson and shipping heiress Nancy Cunard. Gloria Swanson’s coat was wool with embroidery. Sonia created 50 silk fabric designs that were manufactured in Lyon and sold in department stores in London, New York, and Amsterdam. She was commissioned to do book illustrations, and sets and costumes for a variety of plays and films

In 1925 Delaunay designed the Citroen B-12 boat tail to match her “simultaneous outfit.” The 1925 International Exposition of Decorative Arts included furniture, bedspreads, lampshade, book binding, carpets, handbags, and shoes designed by Delaunay. She was invited to speak at the Sorbonne (1927) where she introduced the idea of prêt-à-porter (ready to wear).  Although Robert’s art always brought income, Sonia’s business provided support for the family. The stock market crash of 1929 caused Sonia to close her business, although she continued to design for private clients. Sonia told a friend the Depression liberated her from business. 

 

Sonia’s mural “Portugal and Distant Voyages” was exhibited at the Paris World Fair of 1937 in the Pavilion de Chemins de Fer (railroads).  In the “Study for Portugal” (1937), Sonia created a background of simultaneous colors, all in pastel rainbow shades, to represent clouds in the sky. Figures wearing colorful native costumes of Portugal move toward the center figure, a train represented by two large black wheels. A black building is the tallest object near the center of the composition. To the right are the double arches of a railroad bridge in light orange and green. Three black masts of boats indicate the nearness of the port. The mural won Sonia a gold medal.

Thursday afternoon at the Delaunays was the place to be. That was where the artists of Paris, including the Surrealists, wanted to be. Unfortunately, Robert’s health declined and he died of cancer on October 14, 1941. Sonia continued to make art, while dedicating time to making sure Robert’s legacy was established. Sonia lived in the south of France during World War II and returned to Paris after the war. Much in demand, Sonia was given one-person exhibitions in Paris. Her first solo exhibit in America was at the Rose Fried Gallery in New York City in 1955.  The Robert & Sonia Delaunay Museum des Beaux-Arts opened in Lyon, France in 1959. Sonia was the first living woman artist to be given an exhibition in the Louvre in1964. The Matra automobile company, formed in 1960, asked Sonia to design the coloring of one of its models in 1967. The commission of the UNESCO poster for the International Year of the Woman was followed the naming of Delaunay an officer in the French Legion of Honor in1975. When French President Pompidou wanted to bring an official gift from the French government on his visit to America, he chose one of her paintings.

In the 1970’s Delaunay created designs for tapestries at the Aubusson tapestry works. “The Encounter” (1971) (69’’x 48’’) (Aubusson) is one of several tapestry designs. 

Throughout her life, Sonia’s choice of color and design stood out in any exhibition. She died at age 94. ”Je Suis une optimiste” were her last words.

“For me there is no gap between my painting and my so-called ‘decorative’ work. I never considered the ‘minor arts’ to be artistically frustrating; on the contrary, it was an extension of my art.”

“I always painted as an amusement and it amused me to do that,
but this amusement took my whole life.” (Sonia Delaunay)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

 

  

During the second half of his life, Marc Chagall continued to paint and make prints, but he branched off into new territory. When he and his family escaped from Nazi Germany and arrived in New York on June 23, 1941, he was embraced by the art community of New York City. He was represented by Pierre Matisse, the son of Henri Matisse. Chagall lived in New York from 1941 until 1948, then returned to France where he lived for the rest of his life. Chagall met Picasso in Paris, and they admired each other. Chagall joked, “What a genius, that Picasso. It’s a pity he doesn’t paint.” Picasso famously said, “When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is. His canvases are really painted, not just tossed together…I don’t know where he gets those images…He must have an angel in his head.” 

Leon Bakst, Chagall’s original teacher in Russia, introduced him to theater and opera. In 1921, Chagall created sets and costumes for several plays by Sholem Aleichem. After he arrived in New York, the Ballet Theater of New York commissioned Chagall to design sets and costumes for Aleko (1942), a ballet by Leonide Massine, a fellow Russian. Chagall then designed sets and costumes for Firebird by Stravinsky for the Ballet Theater. In Paris, after WWII, he designed sets and costumes for the 1958 production of Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe.

Chagall was 77 years old when Andre Malraux, French Minister of Culture, commissioned him to paint the ceiling of the Paris Opera (1963) (2,400 square feet) (440 pounds of paint). Chagall divided the ceiling into five sections that were glued to polyester panels and hoisted 70 feet to the ceiling.  A controversy erupted. The Opera was a historic building, and Chagall was not French, and he was a modern artist. However, when the ceiling was unveiled to the public on September 23, 1964, the response was rapturous. All the critics were positive. Chagall refused to be paid for the work, allowing only the cost of materials to be covered.

Chagall’s ceiling design paid tribute to a host of famous composers, actors, and dancers. A large chandelier hangs from the center of the ceiling, and the inner circle depicts four scenes: Bizet’s “Carmen’’ in red, Verdi’s “La Traviata” in yellow, Beethoven’s “Fidelio” in blue and green, and Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice” in green. In a red flared Spanish dress, Carmen dances, smiles, and winks. Behind her is the bull ring. Next to her is the witty image of a bull, dancing and playing the guitar.  

In the large outer circle, Chagall depicts ten scenes: Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” in blue, Mozart’s “Magic Flute” in light blue, Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” in green, Berlioz’s “Romeo and Juliet” in green, Rameau’s, unnamed work in white, Debussy’s “Peleus and Melisandre” in blue, Ravel’s “Daphnis and Chloe” in red, Stravinsky’s “Fire Bird” in red, green, and blue, Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” in yellow, and Adam’s ”Giselle” in golden yellow. At the lower left border, Chagall depicts Odette, the white swan, rising from the water with a bouquet of flowers in her hand. Next to “Swan Lake,” the peasants dance under the village trees in “Giselle”

Chagall commented on the ceiling: “Up there in my painting I wanted to reflect, like a mirror in a bouquet, the dreams and creations of the singers and musicians, to recall the movement of the colorfully attired audience below, and to honor the great opera and ballet composers…Now I offer this work as a gift of gratitude to France and her School of Paris, without which there would be no color and no freedom.” 

At 69 years old, Chagall was commissioned in 1956 to create his first stained-glass window for the Gothic Cathedral of Metz in France. Although a new medium for him, he accepted the challenge, learned from a stained-glass master, and conquered the technique. This work was followed by a commission for twelve windows, representing the twelve tribes of Israel, for the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem. Other commissions followed: windows for All Saint’s Church, Tudeley, UK (1963-1978), Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York (1976), the Fraumunster in Zurich, Switzerland (1967), Cathedral of Notre Dame, Reims, France (1968-1974), Chichester Cathedral, West Sussex, UK (1978), and St. Stephen’s Church, Mainz Germany (1978-86).

Three Chagall stained-glass windows are in America. “The Window of Peace and Human Happiness” (1964) (15’ wide and 12’ tall) in the United Nations Building, New York City, was commissioned to commemorate Dag Hammarskjold, the second secretary general, who was killed in a plane crash on September 17, 1961, while on a peace mission to Africa. 

Chagall divided the window in half with the tree of knowledge, represented by the snake that coils up from bottom center of the window. At the left are those who are in paradise, seen in the circle of light blue glass. This half of the window represents the theme “Love and Harmony” where animals, angels, and humans live together in peace. At the right side is “The Hostile World and Wars.” Composed of dark blue colors, the lower half consists of the anguished faces of people who struggle to survive. At the top right, is the Crucifixion. An angel with golden wings carries the Ten Commandments to a city below. A woman in dark purple and red kneels in grief for all those that have died in wars. 

Above the serpent is an angel hugging a young girl who carries a bouquet of purple and red flowers. To Chagall these colors represented love. The angel and the girl reference the “Kiss of Peace.” Found in the New Testament, it was the greeting “peace be with you.” Included in the window are other symbols of peace and musical notes from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Hammarskjold’s favorite. Chagall wrote that he wanted people “not to see the window but to feel it. I should like people to be as moved as I was when I was engaged in this work which was done for people of all countries, in the name of peace and love.”

Chagall lived in Chicago while he was working on the mosaic “The Four Seasons” (1974) and was impressed by Chicago’s commitment to public art. To thank the City for its kindness and support showed while he worked on the mosaic, he offered to create a stained-glass window as a gift to the City. Chagall selected the theme “American Window” (1977) (30 feet wide x 8 feet tall) (Chicago Art Institute): “I lived here in America during the inhuman war in which humanity deserted itself. I have seen the rhythm of life. I have seen America fighting with Allies. The wealth that she has distributed to bring relief to the people who had to suffer the consequences of the war. I like America and the Americans. Above all, I am impressed by the greatness of the country and the freedom that it gives.” A second influence was the American Bicentennial. Chagall began work on the window in 1976, and it was dedicated on May 15, 1977.

Chagall worked with the French stained-glass artist Charles Marq, who developed a technique to allow three colors, not just one, on the pane. Chagall was able to paint on the glass with metallic oxide paint that was then fused to the glass by heating. The windows are divided into three parts, each with 2 panels that are divided into 12 panes.

The first window depicts Chicago history, emphasizing music, with musicians, instruments, and a musical score. A horn player in yellow is positioned at the top, with a musical score and a violin. The skyline of Chicago can be seen along the bottom of the window. The second panel features an artist’s palette and paint brushes, and at the lower right in red, a still life of fruit in a bowl.

The second window shows the unity among Chicago neighborhoods, the City skyline continuing across the bottom of the window. In the third panel the emphasis is on literature and freedom of speech. At the bottom are a desk and inkwell, and a book. At the upper right, two books are placed in front of the white sphere. Above is a bright yellow sun beneath branches of trees. Long-time Chicago Mayor Richard Daley died in 1976. A strong supporter of Chicago art projects. The hand at the left holding a candle is a tribute to him.

In the fourth panel a large bird flies in the sky above the cityscape. Two multicolored trees are place at the upper corners of the panel. The Statue of Liberty stands tall at the left side of the panel with the torch of freedom in her hand. Lady Liberty was a gift from France for America’s Centennial, and Chagall’s “American Window” was his gift to America for its Bicentennial.

The third window displays the significance of religious freedom in America. Across the top of panel five is a theater curtain. Centered in the panel is a standing performer whose legs are visible, while the upper body is surrounded in a swirl of green, yellow, and blue patterns in Chagall’s favorite floral bouquet shape. Emerging from the bouquet is a singer. At the left, a performer in a harlequin costume holds a mask. The harlequin costume relates to another of Chagall’s favorite images, the circus. At the lower right a figure carries a Menorah. In the sixth panel, six figures dressed in European native costumes gayly dance and play tambourines. At the upper left, a large circle, made up of a mixture of bright shapes and colors, lends the scene a sense of happiness, joy, and well-being. The city of Chicago stretches out below.

The final stained-glass project undertaken by Chagall was the design of eight windows for St Stephen’s Church, Mainz, Germany. Mainz remained the largest center of European Jewry for centuries. Originally reluctant to create the windows, Chagall finally agreed to take on the project as a commentary on the reconciliation between Germany and the Jews, and between Jews and Christians. Chagall was 91 when he accepted the commission, and he worked on it until his death in 1985. The windows were completed by Charles Marq, Chagall’s colleague.  

“For me a stained-glass window is a transparent partition between my heart and the heart of the world. Stained glass has to be serious and passionate. It is something elevating and exhilarating. It has to live through the perception of light.” (Chagall)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.