Art of Time, the Art of Place – Isaac Bashevis Singer and Marc Chagall – A Dialogue

The Art of Time, The Art of Place draws a comparison between two of the most prominent Jewish artists in the 20th-century: the Polish-born magician and storyteller Isaac Bashevis-Singer (1904-1991) and the Russian-born creator of visual magic Marc Chagall (1887-1985). In addition to their East European Jewish background, both were exposed to Western culture. Chagall absorbed such turn-of-the-century, avant-garde, artistic styles as Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Abstract, and Surrealism. From these, he created a unique blend to which he brought the various Russian influences he had absorbed, as well as his own special, highly imaginative and inventive personal style. Bashevis-Singer brought to his works philosophical, psychological, scientific, medical, and legal knowledge. While both artists were affected by these Western influences, they remained firmly entrenched within the Jewish culture - the Yiddish language and life in the "shtetl" - from which they drew their inspiration. Their world consisted of a special blend of reality and dream, realism, and fantasy. The book demonstrates that they shared - albeit unwittingly - a common "meta-realistic" style, combining the earthly with the supernatural and the transcendental. Their works allude to real place names, dates, facts, and historical events, while, at the same time, contain occult forces, angels, demons, mysticism, and mystery. Comparisons range over the Jewish "shtetl," Jewish artists, love and despair, the Holocaust and war, religion, and mysticism. In the works of both artists, hope springs eternal; it is a hope emanating from the mystical realm of life as it relates to the magic of creation and the cosmic logic of the Creator. Artist and storyteller sail between hard-core reality and the yearning for redemption, between Judaism and universal values, between exile and revelation. "The book is a fascinating study of the interrelationships and connections between the life and work of these two important Jewish creative artists. Scholarly, rather than popular, in tone, it is a valuable addition to Judaica collections in academic and research libraries, as well as synagogue libraries." AJL Reviews, February/March 2012.