Image Details

Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY/©2005 Artists rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

The lovers embrace as they are swept off into a dreamlike world of color and emotion in Marc Chagall’s 1966 painting inspired by the Song of Songs. The beautiful poetry and rich metaphors of the Song paint a picture full of exquisite sights, tastes and smells that is unparalleled in rest of the Hebrew Bible. “May your breasts become as clusters of the vine, May the fragrance of your breath become like apples. Your palate, like the best wine …” (Song 7:8–9). While casting a veil of uncertainty over the details of the lovers’ physical relationship, the words and images create a fantasy wherein passion and desire, never fully satisfied, continue to grow without limit.