Vatican Museums

In the gouache Le Christ et le peintre, Chagall returns to a theme that was dear to him from the beginning of the 1910s, when, immersed in the stimulating environment of Paris, he portrayed himself in front of his easel with the Tour Eiffel in the background. In this 1951 version – one of the many he conceived on the theme of the Crucifixion – he again portrayed himself with his palette in his hand, but added, between himself and the roughly-sketched canvas, the figure of Christ on the Cross, placed at the centre of the scene and with a golden-yellow flesh that renders His presence even more supernatural. The act of the Sacrifice thus becomes a metaphor for artistic creation: “Like Christ, I am crucified, I am nailed to the easel”, Chagall writes. The surrounding space is populated with the typical figures of his fairy-tale universe, flying, reading the Bible or holding the menorah, the Jewish candelabrum, an allusion to Chagall’s attachment to his culture of origin.