Le Cantique des cantiques[a] revêt la forme d'une suite de poèmes, de chants d'amour alternés entre une femme et un homme (voire où plusieurs couples s'expriment), qui prennent à témoin d'autres personnes et des éléments de la nature.
Sa composition est attribuée à un compilateur du IVe siècle av. J.-C. qui y aurait fondu différents poèmes. On a même avancé l'hypothèse que le Cantique des cantiques ait pu avoir été rédigé par une femme, comme le pense par exemple l'exégète André Lacocque[b], étant donné la large place qui y est accordée aux personnages féminins et le fait qu'il y parle d'amour et jamais de mariage.
In Marc Chagall Le cantique des cantiques (The Song of Songs), 1975, a bride and groom embrace each other, their elongated bodies seamlessly merge into one being as they gaze into each other's eyes. This composition radiates with warmth and affection, allowing us an everlasting glimpse into the euphoria that accompanies true love.
Marc Chagall - Cantique des cantiques III (1960)
Oil on Paper on Canvas - 149 x 210 cm
Nice - Musée national Marc Chagall
The composition, built on three large round shapes that obviously evoke breasts and a woman's stomach, is also cut in half by a horizon line that delimits two distinct parts. Chagall seems to have wanted to tell his story in this painting: the representation of Jerusalem, in the centre, is twofold: at the top, the city resembles the vision of Saint-Paul-de-Vence, with its ramparts. Below and upside down, it is Vitebsk, recognizable by the sanctuary with its green roof that surmounts it. The whole lower part of the painting, upside down, evokes the artist's youth: the wandering Jew, carrying his bag on his shoulder, talks about his exile, the couple embraced along the lower edge, it is the one he formed with Bella, now lying under the ground. The upper part would then be a hymn to his new life in the South of France, and the couple married under the canopy recalls his second marriage with Vava, to whom the cycle is dedicated.
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Reviewed by:
Auwers Jean-Marie. Jacques Cazeaux, Le Cantique des cantiques. Des pourpres de Salomon à l'anémone des champs (coll. Lectio divina, 222). 2008. In: Revue théologique de Louvain, 41ᵉ année, fasc. 3, 2010. pp. 415-416.
Cantiques spirituels, chansons sur des sujets de dévotion, qu'on fait apprendre et chanter dans les églises aux enfants qui vont faire leur première communion, aux membres des confréries. Les cantiques de St-Sulpice.
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