Wullschlager seems to assume, throughout this book, that Chagall was truly an important artist, yet the jury is still out on that. Hilton Kramer once remarked that what Chagall saw in the avant-garde art of his time went "in one eye and out the other," implying that he took the superficial aspects of modernist art and used them for his own, rather different, purposes.
History has not been particularly kind to Chagall's reputation. Whether Wullschlager's biography affects his position remains to be seen.
Ken Greenleaf can be reached at ken.greenleaf@gmail.com.
Related:
New discoveries, Blurbography, Facets of brilliance, More 
- New discoveries
The show presents works by artists that influenced the Impressionists and artists who were, in turn, influenced by this most powerful of artistic movements.
- Blurbography
If we agree that the state of current art criticism is worrisome enough to warrant some serious soul-searching, then art historian James Elkins's perspective is the right way to come to grips with what it really is.
- Facets of brilliance
The current show in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s special-exhibition room, “Bellini and the East,” is another flickering jewel in the Gardner’s crown.
- The Earth moves
There is an element of bare-bones pageantry in Brecht's play — which, the dramatist being a Marxist, has as much to say about knowledge and the marketplace as it does about the father of modern science's impassioned head butt to the opiate of the people.
- Hoopleville Pop Art
Revolving sandwich
- Poetic sense
For the last end-of-the-year review I had to rely on the kindness and opinions of others, having just started reviewing again after a long hiatus.
- Premier coup
American modernist painter Edwin Dickinson has never fit easily into art history’s categories.
- Altered states
Talking drugs, Zen, and painting with art critic Ken Johnson
- Squares in Paris
Thomas Eakins was one of thousands of ambitious young American artists who flocked to Paris after the Civil War. Paintings from The Museum of Fine Arts's "Americans in Paris" exhibit
- In search of modern art
Despite offering many pieces that haven’t been seen in decades, the Museum of Fine Arts’ current “Degas to Picasso” is no blockbuster, and it doesn’t pretend to be.
- Queering the Code
With close to 60 million copies in print worldwide and a film version starring Tom Hanks opening on May 18, The Da Vinci Code is a galloping success.
- Less
Topics:
Books
, Culture and Lifestyle, Media, Books, More
, Culture and Lifestyle, Media, Books, History, Painting, Visual Arts, Pablo Picasso, Art History, Cultural History, Bolshevik Party, Less
