Chagall A&I (Art and Ideas) - Softcover

Bohm-Duchen, Monica

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714831603 ISBN 13: 9780714831602

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 1998

Synopsis

A lively and comprehensive examination of the prodigious output of Chagall.

About this title

About the Author:

Monica Bohm-Duchen is known for her work as an organizer of exhibitions and as a lecturer and writer on twentieth-century art. She is author of The Nude and Understanding Modern Art, and contributor to the catalogue: Chagall, Love and the Stage (Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1998).

From Library Journal:

Phaidon continues its "Art & Ideas" series with these two explorations of major artists. Both books firmly anchor the art in the life-context and experiences of the artist, thus allowing the reader to chart clearly his thematic and stylistic development. Belkin (an editor of The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens, Northwestern Univ., 1991) sets the stage for a discussion of Rubens by explaining the political and religious divisions in the Netherlands and by examining his early family life. She traces Rubens's visit to Italy, where he immersed himself in the works of Titian, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Correggio, and then follows him to Antwerp, where he was both a full-fledged painter and a diplomat in good stead with the major courts of Europe. She does a marvelous job of tracking the progression of Rubens's artistic, allegorical, and iconographic content. The author also posits Rubens as a disillusioned diplomat who saw and portrayed women as peace-bearers in an age of turmoil. Bohm-Duchen (Understanding Modern Art, EDC Pubs., 1991) uses the flow of information since glasnost to flesh out the social, religious, and cultural context of Chagall's development as an artist. Although he preferred to be known as an intuitive "tabula rasa," Chagall's Russian-Jewish upbringing; his travels to Paris, Berlin, Palestine, and the United States; and his witness to two world wars greatly affected his work. The historical background Bohm-Duchen gives here can lead toward a better understanding of Chagall's art, but her Chagall is not as fully revealed as Belkin's Rubens. His persona still floats, unmoored, like the Green Violinist against the stark white background of the book's front cover. Based on their price and scope, both books are recommended for public and academic libraries.ANadine Dalton Speidel, Cuyahoga Cty. P.L., OH
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0714831603
• ISBN 13: 9780714831602
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352