Surname 2
much of his products intended to reconcile old Jewish traditions with modernity affecting art. However,
he also worked on Christian themes, which had a special appeal to his taste for narrative and allegory in
art. In the mid-1920s, the upcoming Surrealists proclaimed Chagall as a kindred spirit and although he
majored on their ideas, he finally rejected their conceptual interpretation of the matter. Nevertheless, a
dream-like aesthetic value is characteristic of almost all his works; as the renowned poet and critic of
his time, Guillaume Apollinaire said, Chagall's art is "supernatural."
The painter's style of work would not prevail for long after the 1930s. Anti-Semitism ideas were
sinking its roots in Europe. The Nazi's rule in Germany promoted hatred against Jews and supported
their repression. Germany, however, was not the only country to favor such changes. In Eastern Europe,
an area with historically the largest Jewish population, the problem of anti-Semitism was recurrent and
intensified with each passing decade before dying again. The 1930s came with another cycle of events
in that region. Chagall being a Jew and having friends and relatives in this part felt the heat of rise of
anti-Semitism. In 1934, while residing in Warsaw, Chagall had the humiliation of witnessing one of his
friends mistreated in the street for the sake of their beliefs. The Nazis went ahead, burnt about 59 of
Chagall’s artworks, and exhibited them in the Degenerate Art Exhibition (Moodbook 1).
The painter's reaction was to attempt to reunite the two religions at war, Judaism and Christianity,
through work of art. In his painting, 'Solitude (1933)', he portrayed the profound sadness and suffering
felt by the Jewish community. In the portrait 'The Revolution (1937)', Chagall revealed the negativities
of the Bolshevik revolution. He drew a horde of dirty, inhuman, armed people confronting another
community depicted to be peacefully lounging and living better lives; young and wounded people
included beneath the approaching revolutionaries. In the middle of this canvas, Lenin directs his army
by using one hand while standing on the other.
In 1938, Chagall finished one of his masterpieces: a painting called the White Crucifixion. The center
of this work features Jesus pinned on the cross, around the cross, he used Jewish symbolism that
