Description of the attraction
The Marc Chagall National Museum in Nice is not the largest of the "Chagall" museums in the world, but certainly one of the most striking and impressive. Its peculiarity is that it was created with the active participation of the artist himself.
In 1966, Chagall settled in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, a tiny town two dozen kilometers from Nice. Behind his shoulders were seventy-nine years of life, containing success in the old, old Russia, revolution, short management of "arts affairs in the Vitebsk province", drawing lessons for street children in Malakhovka near Moscow, departure to Lithuania, Germany, and then to France, European success, the crushing of France by the Nazis, the flight to the United States, a new success overseas, the death of his beloved wife Bella, the return to liberated France.
In the sixties, Chagall was already a recognized master. The Israeli government commissioned mosaics and tapestries for the parliament in Jerusalem. The artist received orders for the design of many Christian churches and synagogues in Europe, America, Israel. He worked in Paris, bought a house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence and rebuilt it, turning it into a workshop. In 1964, the artist commissioned de Gaulle to create a magnificent plafond for the Parisian Grand Opera. By this time, the French state had at its disposal seventeen canvases by Chagall "The Bible message", presented to them by the government. The Minister of Culture André Malraux proposed the creation of the Chagall Museum in Nice and make these paintings the center of the collection.
The city has allocated a large area for the museum with the ruins of a villa from the beginning of the century. The one-story building was designed by the architect Andre Erman. Chagall himself thought out in detail what the garden surrounding the building should look like, determined the place of each canvas, created a mosaic and stained-glass windows in blue for the concert hall.
The museum is dedicated to Chagall's religious insights - they were embodied in his gouaches with illustrations for the Bible (created back in the thirties), a large collection of lithographs, sculptures, and ceramics. Seventeen canvases illustrating the Old Testament are distributed in two halls. The first contains twelve works in cold emerald-blue tones - scenes from the book of Genesis and the book of Exodus are depicted here. In the second - five paintings in a reddish scale, dedicated to the love lyrics of the Song of Songs. The exposition of the third hall is constantly being updated.
The museum was opened in 1973 in the presence of the artist himself. At first, the collection was called “The National Museum of Marc Chagall“Bible Message”. The visitor is greeted by a magnificent garden, conceived by Chagall himself - the Garden of Eden of his work: olives, cypresses, oaks and pines, flowers of cold white and blue tones. Everything as the master wanted, resting not far from here, in the small cemetery of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, under a simple stone slab.
