Image Details

Musee Nationale Message; © ARS, NY/ADAGP 1987

Four horn-like rays, or ray-like horns, project from Moses’ head in Marc Chagall’s oil painting, “Moses Receiving the Tablets of the law.”; Some artists have depicted Moses with horns, while others have given him rays in accordance with the translation “his face shone”; (Exodus 34:29). Chagall, however, chose to make his interpretation ambiguous, thus leaving it to the viewer to decide: Are the projections horns or rays?