I just finished Chagall: A Biography
. The book is well-written, moderately generous with color plates, and reasonably timely. Timely? How can a book about a guy who lived from 1887 to 1985 be timely? As our country goes through an economic upheaval, it is interesting to refresh one’s memory with the upheavals that faced nearly all European and Russian Jews during the 20th Century. Chagall endured the challenges occasioned by the Russian Revolution, including a significant rise in Jew-hatred. Chagall endured the hyperinflation of Weimar Germany. He escaped the German occupation of Paris by fleeing to the south of France. Chagall, thanks mostly to his fame and talent, managed to get rescued from the French-German round-up of Jews in Vichy France and escape to the U.S. He endured not knowing whether or not his daughter was alive. Chagall endured the death of his wife Bella from strep throat, which would have been easily prevented if not for a wartime shortage of drugs. Chagall endured four years living in the U.S. without learning more than a few words of English.
This biography makes the events of history curiously more vivid by showing their effects on just one individual.