Chagall's Hadassah windows were displayed in the Louvre and the Museum of Modern Art prior to being installed in Jerusalem. At MOMA 176,000 visitors came (and paid) to take in the majesty of the widows in a brief six-week period. Alfred Werner highlighted this impressive fact and continued to note:
Instances of large masses of people participating in an event of artistic importance have always been rare. We have the account of the Renasissance chronicler, Vasari, that a Madonna which Cimabue had painted for a church in Florence, was, "an object of so much admiration to the people that it was carried in solemn procession, with the sounds of trumpets, to the church." The same Giorgio Vasari wrote about the Moses carved by Michelangelo in Rome that "Jews were to be seen every Saturday, hurrying like flights of swallows, men and women, to visit and worship this figure, as though it were something divine."
(See Alfred Werner, "Chagall's Jerusalem Windows," Art Journal 4.21 (Summer 1962), p. 224. He does note on the following page, "We do not know how reliable a historian Vasari is in these two cases.")
* * *
(Click here to register as a bone marrow donor.
It's the easiest way to save a child's life.)
No comments:
Post a Comment