DOROT's Lasting Impressions programs educate and entertain hundreds of participants each week via Zoom. In one recent week, programs featured two indisputable creative geniuses of the late 19th and 20th centuries, the Italian musician/conductor Arturo Toscanini and the Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall.
There were more than 400 participants for the two programs and in addition to learning about their respective careers, we found out these two giants actually shared a common bond — both were profoundly influenced by trips to Palestine in the 1930s.
During the program "Virtual Tour: The Jewish Museum - Chagall: Love, War, and Exile", we learned that Chagall first went there in 1931 when he was asked to illustrate the Hebrew Bible. And with the rise of Naziism, it was clear that a way of life was disappearing and Chagall spent years afterwards representing that vanishing Jewish world along with the Biblical stories in his paintings. That first trip to Palestine got him back in touch with his Judaism, which had waned as he was establishing himself as a young artist in Paris in the early part of the 20th century. But ironically, it was the Nazis, who considered his art “degenerate” who labeled him “a Jewish artist.”
In the program "How Toscanini Fought Hitler's Persecution of the Jews", we heard how Toscanini, who was not Jewish, was passionately anti-Nazi. He was the most famous conductor in the world and he idolized Wagner; in the early 1930s he went to Bayreuth each year to conduct Wagner’s operas, but with the rise of Naziism, he stopped going and never set foot in Germany again. In 1936, and again 1938, he accepted an invitation from the Palestine Symphony Orchestra (now the Israeli Philharmonic), to conduct the orchestra, made up of Jewish refugees, to wild acclaim. He toured the country and for him, Palestine was a land of miracles.
- Marsha Cohen
Discover more creative geniuses through one of these upcoming Onsite@Home programs:
Friday, April 8, 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Andy Warhol: His Controversial “Jewish Geniuses” Portraits
Description: Late in his career, Warhol, a devout Catholic, created a series of portraits that rocked the art world in the 1980’s and still has impact today. In his usual pop style, he captured the likenesses of Jewish icons of many fields, including Gold Meir, Sarah Bernhardt, Albert Einstein, Gertrude Stein, Groucho Marx and more. The question is…Did Warhol really honor these Jews or simply try to profit from them?
Register HERE
Thursday, April 14, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Phoenix Art Museum Presents: Intrigue and Omission: Tales from the 18th Century
Description: Historical objects hold so many stories just waiting to be whispered to those willing to hear. Let's venture back in time together on a journey to uncover some of those stories. Along the way, we want me artists in their subjects both famous and unknown. We will dig into the history and, where the historical record is blank, use our imaginations to picture what might have been. Led by Phoenix Art Museum Docent Sarah Bodney.
Register HERE