The artwork titled “Striking the Rock,” created by Marc Chagall circa 1963 in France, is an oil painting on canvas that measures 31 x 27.5 cm. It belongs to the Naïve Art (Primitivism) movement and falls under the genre of religious painting.
The artwork portrays a scene from a biblical narrative, interpreted in Chagall’s distinctive style. At the central focus, a figure identified as Moses strikes a rock, evoking the miraculous moment when water flowed from the rock to quench the thirst of the Israelites. The crowd depicted in the lower half of the painting gestures in various poses, some holding vessels to collect the water. The figures, rendered with Chagall’s characteristic, dreamlike quality, demonstrate a mixture of desperation and hope. Above, in a serene tableau, heavenly beings oversee the event. The use of flowing lines and the ethereal figures contribute to the depiction’s mystical and spiritual atmosphere, characteristic of Chagall’s work.
