Saul and David (No. 61) is a Marc Chagall etching from the 1956 Bible Suite, published by Tériade. (Vollard 259; Cramer 30.) Commissioned by Ambroise Vollard in the 1930s and completed in the 1950s, the Bible series includes 105 etchings in black-and-white, while some impressions, including this particular piece, feature later hand-coloring. In these pieces, Chagall blends Old Testament figures with expressive, dreamlike, and figurative elements.
This piece is not a standard monochrome impression from the book edition of 275. This comes from the elite edition of 100 suites printed on grand velin d’Arches paper, which were hand-colored by Marc Chagall himself using watercolor and gouache, and individually hand-initialed “M.Ch.” in pencil.
This etching depicts the intense, complex, and emotionally charged relationship between King Saul and the young David (Samuel 16-18). Chagall captures the psychological tension between the troubled, brooding king and the young harpist who attempts to soothe him.
Curator Jean Bloch Rosensaft curated the 1987 exhibition titled Chagall and the Bible at The Jewish Museum in New York. The exhibition highlighted how Chagall utilized his deeply personal and cultural connection to Judaism to depict stories from the Hebrew Bible.
An excerpt from the exhibition catalog, Chagall and the Bible by Jean Bloch Rosensaft (The Jewish Museum, 1987), is quoted below.
* The exhibition catalog is included if all three Chagall – Bible pieces are purchased together.
Since my early youth
I have been fascinated by the Bible.
It has always seemed to me
and it seems to me still
that it is the greatest source
of poetry, of all time.
Since then I have sought
this reflection in life and in art.
The Bible is like an echo
of nature and this secret
I have tried to transmit.
–Marc Chagall
Publications: Chagall and the Bible Rosensaft, 1987.
61. SAUL AND DAVID
Whenever the [evil] spirit of God came upon Saul, David would take the lyre and play it; Saul would find relief and feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him.
I Samuel XVI. 23
Chagall portrays the young David as described in the Bible: ruddy-cheeked, handsome, and skilled in music. Chagall’s rendering, seems to be a reversed view of Rembrandt’s great painting of the same scene. David’s simple robe is filled with light, symbolizing God’s spirit in him. Saul, however, is shrouded in black, symbolizing the darkness of evil spirits besetting him. Chagall embellishes the composition with the decorative details of Saul’s jeweled crown, elaborately carved throne (with the anachronistic star of David), and the elegantly carved columns and tiles of Saul’s court.
Chagall’s loving treatment of David in this etching evokes his love for his younger brother, whom he also portrayed as a musician in David in Profile (1914). About the young David, who died of tuberculosis in the Crimea, Chagall wrote: “His name is sweeter than a line of horizons and to me it breathes the perfume of my native land.”
Chagall devotes fourteen etchings in the Bible to David, the prophet nearest to Chagall’s heart because he was an artist. This cycle describes David’s complex personality, full of virtues and flaws. The images of David became the prototypes for many of Chagall’s works during the 1950s and 1960s: his Biblical Message paintings, his stained glass windows for Metz Cathedral, and his tapestries for Israel’s Knesset. Chagall occasionally combines the persona of David with the tragic mythical musician Orpheus during these decades in his mural The Sources of Music (1965-66) for New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, in his monumental painting The Concert (1957), and in the Nef Collection mosaic in Washington, D.C.
Chagall and the Bible, pg. 143 (excerpt attached at link as pdf).
Loc: G.S.B. pp95b