About the Artwork:
The Praying Jew (Rabbi of Vitebsk)
Marc Chagall
1923
Oil on canvas
116.84 x 89.44 cm
Joseph Winterbotham Collection
Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois

In his 1931 autobiography, My Life, Chagall related how, while visiting Vitebsk (Belarus), the city in which he was born, he realized that the traditions in which he had grown up were fast disappearing, and that he needed to document them. He paid a beggar to pose in his father’s prayer clothes and then painted him, limiting his palette as befit the solemnity of the subject. This portrait is noteworthy for the simplicity of its execution; nonetheless, its striking patterns, abstract background, and the slightly distorted features of the model demonstrate Chagall’s absorption of modern trends, especially Cubism. The Art Institute’s Praying Jew is one of three versions of this composition. He painted the original canvas in 1914, and when he traveled back to Paris in 1923, he took this painting with him. He learned upon his return that much of the work he had left in France had been lost during World War I. This prompted him to make two versions of The Praying Jew before it left his studio: they are this work and another in the Ca’ Pesaro, Venice; the original is now in the Kunstmuseum, Basel. The later compositions differ from the original only in small details.

About the Artist:
Marc Zakharovich Chagall (1887–1985) was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin associated with several major artistic styles, and with creating works in painting, illustration, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries, and prints. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country’s most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving for Paris in 1922. Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the United Nations, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra. “When Matisse dies,” Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is.”

About the Music:
“Da Pacem Domine“ from the album Anima

About the Composer:
Arvo Pärt (b.1935) is an Estonian composer of classical and sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt, an Orthodox Christian, has worked in a Minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. Gregorian chant in part also inspires his music. Since 2013, Pärt has had the distinction of being the most performed contemporary composer in the world. Although the recipient of numerous awards and honors from nations around the globe, the humble maestro strives to keep out of the limelight, endeavoring to give God credit for his many accomplishments. The newly established International Arvo Pärt Centre, located in the Estonian village of Laulasmaa, includes a research institute, an educational and music centre, a museum, a publishing facility, and an archive of Pärt's works.

About the Performers:
With thirty years of experience performing as soloists, as well as in various saxophone quartets, music ensembles and chamber music groups, Gianpaolo Antongirolami, Roberto Micarelli, Luca Mora, and Gabriele Giampaoletti decided to form the Alea Saxophone Quartet in 2006. The Alea Saxophone Quartet has engaged with the works of some of the most important European and American composers of the second half of the 20th and the early 21st centuries. The renowned Arvo Pärt Project was a significant milestone in the group's artistic odyssey. In 2015, on the occasion of Pärt's 80th birthday, the Alea Saxophone Quartet performed the complete saxophone quartet works by the Estonian composer at a string of concerts throughout Italy.

About the Poet:
Tomas Gösta Tranströmer (1931–2015) was a Swedish poet, psychologist, and translator. His poems capture the essence of the long Swedish winters, the rhythm of the seasons, and the palpable atmospheric beauty of nature. Tranströmer's work is also characterized by a sense of mystery and wonder underlying the routines of everyday life, a quality that often gives his poems a religious dimension. Tranströmer is acclaimed as one of the most important Scandinavian writers since the Second World War. Critics praise his poetry for its accessibility, even in translation. He was the recipient of the 1990 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature.

About the Devotional Writer:
Matthew Weathers has a BS in Math and Computer Science from Biola and a Master's in computer science from USC. Matthew is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Math and Computer Science Department. Before coming to Biola, Matthew worked as a computer programmer, and continues to work on small website projects. He is the Applied Instructional Technology Administrator for the Office of Digital Learning and Program Development, and helps faculty learn how to make the best use of technology. His interests include making information more usable and user-friendly, website development, and finding ways to help students be more engaged in the learning process.