Chagall Illuminated

The chandelier, made famous in the Gaston Leroux novel, Le Fantome de l'Opera and later, in the Andrew Lloyd Webber longstanding Broadway musical,... more

by Carolyn Kami Loughlin

Title

Chagall Illuminated

Artist

Carolyn Kami Loughlin

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

The chandelier, made famous in the Gaston Leroux novel, "Le Fantome de l'Opera" and later, in the Andrew Lloyd Webber longstanding Broadway musical, "The Phantom of the Opera", is seen here illuminating the grandeur of the handpainted ceiling of famed French Impressionist, Marc Chagall, in the Opera Garnier of Paris.

Wikipedia: Marc Zaharovich Chagall (6 July 1887 - 28 March 1985) was a Russian artist associated with several major artistic styles and one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. He was an early modernist, and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints.
Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century". According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Opera Garnier in Paris.
Before World War I, he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avante-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922.
He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk." "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is".

Wikipedia: The Phantom of the Opera is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Charles Hart with additions from Richard Stilgoe. Based on the French novel Le Fantome de l'Opera, by Gaston Leroux, its central plot revolves around a beautiful soprano, Christine Daae, who becomes the obsession of a mysterious, disfigured musical genius.

Website Opera Garnier, Paris: The Opera Garnier is one of the two opera halls of the Opera National de Paris (Paris Opera) and is certainly the most well known. The lavish Neo-Baroque (Baroque Revival) style of architecture of the Palais Garnier facade, home to the Opera, will surely impress visitors that appreciate architecture. A veritable temple of opera and choreography, the Palais Garnier is one of the most significant structures in Paris. The interior design alone is well worth the trip as it is decorated with velvet, marble, gold leaf, nymphs and cherubim angels. The magnificently colored ceiling at the entrance to the opera hall, painted by Marc Chagall in 1964, displays a mix of brilliant colors which are absolutely dazzling.

FEATURED IMAGE in FAA's "Memories and Nostalgia" Group 5/10/13

Uploaded

April 21st, 2013