epdf.pub_cbest-cliffs-test-prep13a9b242c7cb4125e6cca92d00a73d5a41681

Part V: Practice-Review-Analyze-Practice
Don’t hang crepe, but strew flowers in his
memory. A Jew from a Russian shtetl who
revolutionized modern art by imposing his
naïve vision of beauty on a world that was
consumed in the flames of the Holocaust,
Chagall rescued images of a world that has
largely vanished. There is life, not death, in
his palate of bright colors; love, not bitterness,
in the paintings of cartwheeling lovers
and rooftop fiddlers. And the enduring
themes of Judaism glow in Chagall’s stained
glass windows in the Hadassah clinic in
Jerusalem.
Chagall captures realism through the language
of dream. A bearded peddler floats
above the village of Vitebsk. A green violinist
wearing a long purple coat plays an orange
fiddle. Lovers astride a white horse
embrace, while the horse holds a bouquet of
flowers and a violin under its head. What do
these paintings mean? That is like asking a
bearded Hasid to explain the mysteries of the
Kabala or asking history to explain why millions
of simple Jews who dreamed of births
and weddings and bar mitzvahs awoke to a
nightmare of death in the concentration
camps. Chagall left the interpretation to the
art historians and critics. He painted the images
that came to him, springing from his
paintbrush to the canvas. But a closer look
reveals a technical mastery and control of
symbols that belies the primitive.
Chagall left his native Russian village of
Vitebsk for Paris, then returned to Russia after
the Bolshevik revolution. He joined other
artists in trying to paint the new vision, but
the Russian revolution was not interested in
the revolution of modern art. The Kremlin
wanted socialist realism, not visionary painting.
Chagall left, disillusioned, and returned
to France. There he gained fame and wealth,
only to be threatened as a Jew by the Nazis,
and fled to New York. He returned to France
after the war, settling in Cote d’Azur.
Though he remained sequestered, he left his
imprint on the Paris Opera, Lincoln Center in
New York, and other public buildings.
Chagall painted a Jewish village cemetery in
1917. Hebrew inscriptions mark the peeling
plaster gate. Crooked tombstones carved
with the Star of David retreat up a green hill.
The sky is alive with color.
The Nazis expanded the graveyard to include
all of Europe. Now the artist who evoked the
village Jews’ lives has joined them in death.
Through Chagall’s paintings, their dreams
survive the Holocaust — alive as the melody
of a green violinist.
28. According to the passage, Chagall’s
paintings were
A. not meant to be interpreted.
B. unfathomable, even by the painter.
C. primitive in style and technical
mastery.
D. optimistic and uplifting.
E. disillusioned and embittered.
29. All the following are true about the
“village cemetery” mentioned in the
passage except:
A. Chagall is now buried there.
B. It contains tombstones with Jewish
markings.
C. Hebrew inscriptions are on the
entranceway.
D. The sky above it is colored
brightly.
E. It exists in a painting by Chagall.
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