Part of the Jewish Encounter seriesNovelist and critic Jonathan Wilson clears away the sentimental mists surrounding an artist whose career spanned two world wars; the Russian Revolution; the Holocaust; and the birth of the State of Israel. Marc Chagall’s work addresses these transforming events; but his ambivalence about his role as a Jewish artist adds an intriguing wrinkle to common assumptions about his life. Drawn to sacred subject matter; Chagall remains defiantly secular in outlook; determined to “narrate†the miraculous and tragic events of the Jewish past; he frequently chooses Jesus as a symbol of martyrdom and sacrifice.Wilson brilliantly demonstrates how Marc Chagall’s life constitutes a grand canvas on which much of twentieth-century Jewish history is vividly portrayed. Chagall left Belorussia for Paris in 1910; at the dawn of modernism; looking back dreamily on the world he abandoned. After his marriage to Bella Rosenfeld in 1915; he moved to Petrograd; but eventually returned to Paris after a stint as a Soviet commissar for art. Fleeing Paris steps ahead of the Nazis; Chagall arrived in New York in 1941. Drawn to Israel; but not enough to live there; Chagall grappled endlessly with both a nostalgic attachment to a vanished past and the magnetic pull of an uninhibited secular present. Wilson’s portrait of Chagall is altogether more historical; more political; and edgier than conventional wisdom would have us believe–showing us how Chagall is the emblematic Jewish artist of the twentieth century.Visit nextbook.org/chagall for a virtual museum of Chagall images.
#135955 in Books Cooper Andrew Scott 2016-08-02 2016-08-02Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.64 x .5 x 6.41l; .0 #File Name: 0805098976608 pagesThe Fall of Heaven The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran
Review
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. info is greatBy stephanieI am loving learning about the Shah as I only remember as a child the narrative that he was an evil dictator type and so I couldn't understand why the USA was letting him in our country for cancer treatment. Now I find myself going somewhat sweet on him and his wife. It seems like they loved their country and were really trying to do what was best to move it forward without reverting to bloodshed to keep his power. He would rather leave the throne than to keep it by force. He wanted the people to love him and want him to be their ruler3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. A fascinating epic of a great culture torn between its past and the modern worldBy Chg2440A different perspective on the Iranian Revolution with a much more sympathetic view of the Shah. A fascinating epic of a great culture torn between its past and the modern world. The complexity of Iranian culture; politics; and history is well-presented. There are no heros in this tale; with the exception of Farah; the Shah's modern and open third wife. The ineptness of the Americans and the Carter administration is revealing.8 of 9 people found the following review helpful. Best anecdote: Saddam Hussein seeking the Shah's acquiescence to ...By karen houseVery informative and readable account if the Shah's undoing by his arrogance; his family's corruption; his inept and self-centered appointees who served themselves not Iran (or the Shah) and the well orchestrated campaign of his religious adversaries led by Khomeini. Best anecdote: Saddam Hussein seeking the Shah's acquiescence to haveKhomeini murdered while still in exile in Iraq and the Shah's demurring. The first 200 pages of history are less engaging if you know something of Iran but the succeeding pages provide a gripping blow by blow if the slow; then accelerating; inevitable demise of the shah's regime and if the horribly ignorant and inept US policy beginning with an arrogant and inept US ambassador in Tehran. Great folo to Mr Cooper's also great book on the Oil Kings; which recounts US-Saudi cooperation to reduce oil prices in the late 70s which left Iran in dire economic straits and provided the public discontent to help gather disparate Iranians into cohesion against the shah.
