Siri Skogstad Berntsen Artist blog: The Chagall museum in Nice

The Chagall museum in Nice, France, offers a good visit. Beneath you will find pictures from my trip there.

Outside the museum there is a beautiful garden area, with a park and a calm and quiet cafe where you can enjoy your coffee or some other refreshment in peace.

First I visited the contemporary section of the museum.

Overview of the contemporary part of the museum

Details

Wall display

After the contemporary section I entered the Chagall rooms, where several masterpieces were displayed. The gallery had a calm and quiet mood. You may need a lot of time in there.

The painting is constructed with baroque composition: Moses rises towards the Tables extended by God, represented as the bible says, by two hands piercing the clouds. The secondary diagonal shows the mountain. Characters from the bible - Aaron as high priest, David and Jeremy, and at the very top, close to God a group of fleeing Jews. On the left, a detachment of Hebrews waiting for Moses, while another group has turned away and is adoring the golden Calf.

Detail

Detail from "Battle of Jacob and the angel"
The angel seems to bless Jacob as he touches his forehead. On the right side from the main scenes of his patriarch's life, his enocounter with Rachel at the well, his son Joseph stripped by his brothers and thrown into a well, his tears and the sight of the coat of his son whom he believes dead.

Noah and the rainbow
The painting is articulated along an ellipse. The rainbows curve corresponds to the sleeping body of Noah, as a reminder of the covenant between God and men. The angel, a manifestation of the divine Word, is of the same color as the rainbow composition.

Jacob's dream
The painting depicts two clearly defined scenes, whose only link is the rounded hilltop where Jacob has fallen asleep.

In a night of violet tones he sees in his dream angels climbing up and down a ladder. The angels appear to dance like acrobats around the ladder, reflecting on the deep affinity between Chagalls sacred and profane subjects. On the right side, the white angel - a divine color - carries a candelabra that illuminates the blue night and manifests the overwhelming radiance of the divine message full of hope.

Sacrifice of Isaac

Abraham is about to sacrifice his son when the angel stops his arm.

Adam and Eve exposed from Paradise

The composition depicts Paradise overwhelmed by the event:
goat headed birds fly off, others fly upside down and are joined by winged fish having abandoned the waters. In the upper middle, the angel filled with divine wrath shows Adam and Eve the way of exile. The pair leaves on the right, as in all traditional depictions of the scene. They are carried by a red rooster, symbol of life and fertility and seem to fly off in the direction of humanities future. The small mother and child shown on the lower right confirms this rather optimistic vision of the Fall.