Marc Chagall’s painting of the Prophet Isaiah is very dramatic. In the center, the painting depicts the moment when a seraph purifies Isaiah’s lips with live coal. In the Bible, Isaiah focuses on his “unclean lips” from speaking sins in the past and how those sins would make it impossible to speak the word of Yahweh. To make it so that he could receive the gift of utterance, the seraph purified his lips (Armstrong 42). This gave Isaiah the ability to purely convey the words he will be asked to speak and if it had not happened, it is quite possible that Isaiah would never have been able to spread the word as was necessary for the prophet. At a time when the Jewish community was reeling from the aftermath of the Holocaust, Marc Chagall painted a wonderful painting of the Prophet Isaiah to remind his people of the message Isaiah himself once had to spread – that even though life is challenging, God is still there. When I first look at this painting, I see a mess of colors that do not make sense; it is rather confusing. That is the reason I chose this painting;
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Chagall had to flee his home in France in 1941 because of the Nazi invasion (Biography.com). While he continued to paint in America, he also was not uninformed of the atrocities committed. He, along with the other Jews in the world, had to find a way to get past it. Chagall was living in France when he painted the Prophet Isaiah, where he was closer to all the evidence of the war. Knowing the history surrounding the Prophet Isaiah, I think it was a very clever choice for a painting. Isaiah became a prophet because Yahweh needed him to spread his word that even though things were bad, he had a plan and his people were going to be okay. I believe Chagall might have wanted to remind his fellow Jews of that – even though they just were part of one of the greatest genocides in modern history, God was there for them to help them
Chagall had to flee his home in France in 1941 because of the Nazi invasion (Biography.com). While he continued to paint in America, he also was not uninformed of the atrocities committed. He, along with the other Jews in the world, had to find a way to get past it. Chagall was living in France when he painted the Prophet Isaiah, where he was closer to all the evidence of the war. Knowing the history surrounding the Prophet Isaiah, I think it was a very clever choice for a painting. Isaiah became a prophet because Yahweh needed him to spread his word that even though things were bad, he had a plan and his people were going to be okay. I believe Chagall might have wanted to remind his fellow Jews of that – even though they just were part of one of the greatest genocides in modern history, God was there for them to help them