Chagall and Missoni, united by a love of life and its colours

Marc Chagall and Ottavio Missoni. Two masters of art and originality, two lives marked by a constant search for beauty and possibilities of colour. The “Marc Chagall Ottavio Missoni, Dream and Colour” exhibition opens tomorrow, 21 October, at the Museum of Archaeology, in Sesto Calende. Behind this exhibition, there lies a great intuition, that makes it an innovative event, something that has not been seen before, as the curator and son of Ottavio, Luca Missoni, explained.

“It is undoubtedly colour that lies behind both experiences,” Missoni explained. “While I was thinking about this union and how to place the artworks side by side in the exhibition, I saw the colours of Chagall in the work of my father, in his drawings and tapestries. But that isn’t the only thing that unites the two artists. They both went through difficult and painful times, but their work was always positive and calm. Love was also a constant for them both, and a continual source of inspiration.”

“Colour is always there,” said Rosita Missoni, during her first visit to the exhibition, “and, as it was for Ottavio, also for Chagall, it wasn’t a pure colour but one of his derivations. The lines and drawings also contain a hint of irony, and I think this is a characteristic common to both.”

Shades and contrasts, light and lightness, fluid lines and geometrical patterns, the exhibition (incidentally, the Museum of Archaeology is an unusual, albeit perfect setting, as it is home to an exhibition of one the most ancient civilizations in human history) brings together fundamentally different works that, in a certain sense, have the same undertone. The inauguration was preceded by speeches by the Mayor, Marco Colombo, and by the Councillor for Culture, Silvia Fantino, who, with great satisfaction, emphasised the hard work done, and the commitment to bring such an important event to Sesto. At the presentation, there was also Regional Councillor Cristina Cappellini, who spoke about the importance of networking, to give value to the cultural heritage and wealth of the Lombard region.

The exhibition, which will remain open until 31 December, houses Chagall’s cycles of the Exodus and of the Bible, beside the drawings and tapestries of Missoni. In the background, there are hundreds of colour shades and a purple that seems to contain them all. “In our lives, there is only one colour that makes sense of art and of life itself,” Chagall wrote. “The colour of love.”

Fun fact: this evening, in the chair next to Rosita, was a woman, a Mrs Testa. It was she, in 1946, who introduced Ottavio to Rosita. Who knows what shades there were that day!