Marc Chagall’s “The Window of Peace and Happiness”

I don’t want to run any sort of lens filter through this image — it would mar the beauty of one of the most famous works by the surrealist artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985). This is “The Window of Peace and Happiness”, an enormous 15’x12′ stained glass window the artist did for the United Nations headquarters in New York City in 1964.

Chagall’s themes consistently emphasize love, harmony, and beauty — amazing, that he could see the world as such despite the fact that he endured so much hostility and war in his 97 years. Born to a Russian Jewish family, his country lived through severe Anti-Semitism and poverty. He experienced the First and Second World Wars and the Russian Revolution, for a time escaping to the United States, which granted him asylum. The “Peace Window” was partly his thanks to this country.

Chagall’s work, so peaceful and full of hope, says something about the artist. He has been described as “a citizen of the world with much of the child still in him, a stranger lost in wonder . . . ” and this really comes across in his work.

The Peace Window, done in a palette of watery and jewel-toned blues, celebrates peace and love in many ways: the left side portrays a world where humans and animals live together in peace. For instance, an angel kisses a girl amidst a gathering of red and purple flowers. The center has a the tree of life as a divider, and the right side shows images of those struggling for peace, such as a figure of a woman kneeling over in grief for her child, lost in war.

The United Nations commissioned Chagall to do the Peace Window after the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjőld died in an airplane crash while on a peace mission, and Chagall had musical notations from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the composition because it was one of Hammarskjőld’s favorite pieces.

Of his window, Marc Chagall said that it “was done for people of all countries, in the name of peace and love.”