Chagall creates his own plastic language in which he approaches the spiritual fact in a profound way. Colors and shapes fill his works with intentional “living metaphors” that bring to the present a millenary reality.
Through his biblical compositions, made since the early 1940s, the artist makes a personal reading of the millenary texts and positions himself not so much as an illustrator of the sacred text but as an interpreter, by mixing and interweaving childhood memories and contemporary events, as well as Yiddish legends and biblical references.
Chagall finds in these sacred texts the richest poetic source of all time: Since my childhood, the Bible has filled me with visions of the fate of the world and has been a source of inspiration for my work. In moments of doubt, its wisdom and its intensely poetic grandeur have comforted me like a second mother.
Chagall thus offers his personal vision of the Bible to the present time, through works such as the “Story of the Exodus”. Colors and shapes fill his works with “living metaphors” that he also brings to stained glass windows commissioned by both Christian and Jewish institutions as “pure poetry”.
Chagall was deeply convinced that, as an artist, he had succeeded in establishing a more poetic relationship with the world by blending the sacred and the profane in prophetic form. He would affirm: If life inevitably ends, we must color it with our colors of love and hope. In this love lies the social logic of life and the essence of all religion. For me, perfection in art and life comes from this biblical source.