This book follows Chagall’s life through his art and his understanding of the role of the artist as a political being. It takes the reader through the different milieus of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – including the World Wars and the Holocaust – to present a unique understanding of Chagall’s artistic vision of peace in an age of extremes. At a time when all identities are being subsumed into a “national” identity, this book makes the case for a larger understanding of art as a way of transcending materiality. The volume explores how Platonic notions of truth, goodness, and beauty are linked and mutually illuminating in Chagall’s work. A “spiritual-humanist” interpretation of his life and work renders Chagall’s opus more transparent and accessible to the general reader.
It will be essential reading for students of art and art history, political philosophy, political science, and peace studies.
1. The Story of a Life 1. Life in Vitebsk 2. St. Petersburg and Paris 3. Return to Russia and Belarus 4. In Paris to World War II 5. New York during World War II 6. Late Life: Other Art Forms and Large Works 7. Stained Glass Windows 2. The Artist as Friend and Peacemaker 8. Who Was Chagall? 9. The “Jewish” Chagall 10. Ethnic Labeling 11. Wandering in Multiple Places 12. The Artist as a Friend and Companion 13. The Artist as Post-Secular Seeker 14. The Painter as Peacemaker 3. Appendices: Texts by Chagall 15. Artists and Jewish Artists (April 1939) 16. To My City Vitebsk (February (1944) 17. The End of the War (May 1948) 18. To Israel: On My Exhibition in Tel Aviv (July 1951) 19. Art and Life: Lecture Delivered at The University of Chicago (March 1958) 20. Erasmus Prize; Response (1960) 21. A Crisis of Color (May 1963) 22. The Tapestries in the Knesset in Jerusalem; Speech at the Unveiling (August 1969)
Biography
Fred Dallmayr is an American philosopher and political theorist. He is Packey J. Dee Professor Emeritus in Political Science with a joint appointment in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, USA. He holds a Doctorate of Law from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and a PhD in Political Science from Duke University, USA. He has served as President of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (SACP); as an advisory member of the Scientific Committee of RESET – Dialogue on Civilizations (Rome); as the Executive Co-Chair of World Public Forum – Dialogue of Civilizations (Vienna); and as a member of the Supervisory Board of the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute (Berlin).
A few of his major publications include Between Freiburg and Frankfurt: Toward a Critical Ontology (1991); The Other Heidegger (1993); Beyond Orientalism: Essays on Cross-Cultural Encounter (1996; Japanese translation 2001); Alternative Visions: Paths in the Global Village (1998; Farsi translation 2005); Peace Talks – Who Will Listen? (2004); Small Wonder: Global Power and Its Discontents (2005); In Search of the Good Life: A Pedagogy for Troubled Times (2007); Being in the World: Dialogue and Cosmopolis (2013); Freedom and Solidarity: Toward New Beginnings (2015); and Post-Liberalism: Recovering a Shared World (2019).
