COLLECTION NAME:
The AMICA Library
mediaCollectionId
AMICO~1~1
The AMICA Library
Collection
true
AMICA ID:
AIC_.1946.925
amicoid
AIC_.1946.925
AMICA ID
false
AMICA Library Year:
2001
aly
2001
AMICA Library Year
false
Object Type:
Paintings
oty
Paintings
Object Type
false
Creator Name:
Chagall, Marc
crn
Chagall, Marc
Creator Name
false
Creator Nationality:
European; French
crc
European; French
Creator Nationality
false
Creator Role:
Artist
crr
Artist
Creator Role
false
Creator Dates/Places:
French; 1887-1985; b. Belarus
cdt
French; 1887-1985; b. Belarus
Creator Dates/Places
false
Creator Name-CRT:
Marc Chagall
crt
Marc Chagall
Creator Name-CRT
false
Title:
White Crucifixion
otn
White Crucifixion
Title
false
Title Type:
preferred
ott
preferred
Title Type
false
Title:
La Crucifixion blanche
otn
La Crucifixion blanche
Title
false
Title Type:
alternate
ott
alternate
Title Type
false
Title:
Weisse Kreuzigung
otn
Weisse Kreuzigung
Title
false
Title Type:
alternate
ott
alternate
Title Type
false
Title:
La Crucifixion blanche
otn
La Crucifixion blanche
Title
false
Title Type:
alternate
ott
alternate
Title Type
false
View:
full view
rid
full view
View
false
Creation Date:
1938
oct
1938
Creation Date
false
Creation Start Date:
1938
ocs
1938
Creation Start Date
false
Creation End Date:
1938
oce
1938
Creation End Date
false
Materials and Techniques:
Oil on canvas
omd
Oil on canvas
Materials and Techniques
false
Classification Term:
Modern and Contemporary Art
clt
Modern and Contemporary Art
Classification Term
false
Creation Place:
Europe,France
ocp
Europe,France
Creation Place
false
Dimensions:
60 3/4 x 55 in. (154.3 x 139.7 cm)
met
60 3/4 x 55 in. (154.3 x 139.7 cm)
Dimensions
false
AMICA Contributor:
The Art Institute of Chicago
oon
The Art Institute of Chicago
AMICA Contributor
false
Owner Location:
Chicago, Illinois, USA
oop
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Owner Location
false
ID Number:
1946.925
ooa
1946.925
ID Number
false
Credit Line:
The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Alfred S. Alschuler
ooc
The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Alfred S. Alschuler
Credit Line
false
Inscriptions:
signed and dated lower right: Marc Chagall/ 1938
oin
signed and dated lower right: Marc Chagall/ 1938
Inscriptions
false
Copyright:
? Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
ors
? Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Copyright
false
Rights:
orl
<a href="http://www.arsny.com"target="_new">http://www.arsny.com</a>
Rights
false
Context:
Chagall painted "White Crucifixion" to draw attention to a recent series of political events perpetrated by the ruling National Socialist party in Germany. Both as a Jew and as an abstract artist,Chagall was a target of Hitler's art censorship policies. His dealer in Germany,Herwarth Walden, was forced to close hisBerlin gallery (Der Sturm), cease publication of its influential newsletter, and flee to the Soviet Union in 1932. In 1937, the Nazis undertook a systematic inventory of modern art in German museums, removing some 16,000 works unacceptable to their taste to use in propaganda campaigns, to destroy, or to sell outside the country. Four works by Chagall were among those included in the 'Jewish' room of the infamous 'Degenerate Art' exhibition staged in Munich at the end of 1937, which mocked deviations from Nazi Party art standards. Meanwhile, anti-Jewish policies in Germany escalated to an unthinkable level. Following the September 1935 laws to curtail the civil rights of Jews, the Nazis in 1938 took a Jewish census and registered all Jewish businesses as preliminaries to plans for ethnic genocide. In June and August of that year the synagogues in Munich and Nuremberg were destroyed, and on November 9, the so-called Crystal Night, these anti-semitic atrocities reached a climax. In reaction, Chagall conceived a painting of the martyrdom of the Jew Jesus as a universal symbol for religious persecution. Instead of a crown of thorns, the Jesus on Chagall's picture wears a head-cloth and a prayershawl around his loins. The round halo around his head is repeated by the round glow around the Menorah at his feet. Mourning his persecution, figures of the Hebrew patriarchs and the matriarch Rachel appear in the smoke-fille nightimt sky. All aroound he cross, Chagall has depicted a bleak snowscape with horrific scenes of modern Germany.In the backgound to the right, a soldier opens the doors of a flaming Torah ark removed from a pillaged synagogue, the contents of which litter the foreground. Both the flag above the synagogue and the soldier's armband originally were decorated with inverted swastikas. One of the fleeing figures in the foreground at the left wears a sign which originally bore the inscription "Ich bin Jude" ('I am a Jew'). In the background above is a ship full of refugees trying ineffectively to flee a burning village, destroyed before the arrival of a liberating People's Army from the Soviet Union carrying red flags; this last detail was wishful thinking, motivated by the antagonism of Stalin's government toward Hitler's before 1939. Included in an exbition of Chagall's works in Paris in early 1940, the ""White Crucifixion" was designed to raise awareness of the events in Hitler's Germany and their implications for mankind in general. Evidently the artist decided to paint over the most explicit historical details after the invasion of France in May 1940 or after the German army's occupation of Paris, begun in June 1940. Chagall himself fled the first occupied zone for Marseilles, and with the help to (sic) the Museum of Modern Art in New York, escaped to his country for the duration of the war. This historic painting is discussed in detail in an article by Ziva Amishai-Maisels, Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published in the Art Institute's journal "Museum Studies" (vol. 17, no. 2).
cxd
Chagall painted "White Crucifixion" to draw attention to a recent series of political events perpetrated by the ruling National Socialist party in Germany. Both as a Jew and as an abstract artist,Chagall was a target of Hitler's art censorship policies. His dealer in Germany,Herwarth Walden, was forced to close hisBerlin gallery (Der Sturm), cease publication of its influential newsletter, and flee to the Soviet Union in 1932. In 1937, the Nazis undertook a systematic inventory of modern art in German museums, removing some 16,000 works unacceptable to their taste to use in propaganda campaigns, to destroy, or to sell outside the country. Four works by Chagall were among those included in the 'Jewish' room of the infamous 'Degenerate Art' exhibition staged in Munich at the end of 1937, which mocked deviations from Nazi Party art standards. Meanwhile, anti-Jewish policies in Germany escalated to an unthinkable level. Following the September 1935 laws to curtail the civil rights of Jews, the Nazis in 1938 took a Jewish census and registered all Jewish businesses as preliminaries to plans for ethnic genocide. In June and August of that year the synagogues in Munich and Nuremberg were destroyed, and on November 9, the so-called Crystal Night, these anti-semitic atrocities reached a climax. In reaction, Chagall conceived a painting of the martyrdom of the Jew Jesus as a universal symbol for religious persecution. Instead of a crown of thorns, the Jesus on Chagall's picture wears a head-cloth and a prayershawl around his loins. The round halo around his head is repeated by the round glow around the Menorah at his feet. Mourning his persecution, figures of the Hebrew patriarchs and the matriarch Rachel appear in the smoke-fille nightimt sky. All aroound he cross, Chagall has depicted a bleak snowscape with horrific scenes of modern Germany.In the backgound to the right, a soldier opens the doors of a flaming Torah ark removed from a pillaged synagogue, the contents of which litter the foreground. Both the flag above the synagogue and the soldier's armband originally were decorated with inverted swastikas. One of the fleeing figures in the foreground at the left wears a sign which originally bore the inscription "Ich bin Jude" ('I am a Jew'). In the background above is a ship full of refugees trying ineffectively to flee a burning village, destroyed before the arrival of a liberating People's Army from the Soviet Union carrying red flags; this last detail was wishful thinking, motivated by the antagonism of Stalin's government toward Hitler's before 1939. Included in an exbition of Chagall's works in Paris in early 1940, the ""White Crucifixion" was designed to raise awareness of the events in Hitler's Germany and their implications for mankind in general. Evidently the artist decided to paint over the most explicit historical details after the invasion of France in May 1940 or after the German army's occupation of Paris, begun in June 1940. Chagall himself fled the first occupied zone for Marseilles, and with the help to (sic) the Museum of Modern Art in New York, escaped to his country for the duration of the war. This historic painting is discussed in detail in an article by Ziva Amishai-Maisels, Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published in the Art Institute's journal "Museum Studies" (vol. 17, no. 2).
Context
false
Related Image Identifier Link:
AIC_.E09176.tif
ril
AIC_.E09176.tif
Related Image Identifier Link
false