Plafond de l’Opera de Paris

In 1963, Chagall was commissioned to paint the new ceiling for the Paris Opera, a majestic 19th-century building and national monument. André Malraux, France’s Minister of Culture wanted something unique and decided Chagall would be the ideal artist. However, this choice of artist caused some objected to having a Russian Jew decorate a French national monument; others disliked the ceiling of the historic building being painted by a modern artist. Nonetheless, Chagall continued the project which took the 77-year-old artist a year to complete. The final canvas was nearly 2,400 square feet (220 sq. meters) and required 440 pounds of paint. It had five sections which were glued to polyester panels and hoisted up to the 70-foot (21 m) ceiling. The images Chagall painted on the canvas paid tribute to the composers Mozart, Wagner, Mussorgsky, Berlioz and Ravel, as well as to famous actors and dancers. After the new ceiling was unveiled, “even the bitterest opponents of the commission seemed to fall silent”, writes Baal-Teshuva. “Unanimously, the press declared Chagall’s new work to be a great contribution to French culture.” Malraux later said, “What other living artist could have painted the ceiling of the Paris Opera in the way Chagall did?… He is above all one of the great colourists of our time… many of his canvases and the Opera ceiling represent sublime images that rank among the finest poetry of our time, just as Titian produced the finest poetry of his day.”