Over 130 paintings and drawings of Russian-born French avant-garde artist Marc Chagall – some of them previously unseen – coming from private collections, the Musée National d’Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou and the Musée National Marc Chagall in Nice, are on display at Rome’s Ara Pacis museum.

The exhibition, Chagall: Il mondo sottosopra (Chagall: The world upside down), runs until March 27, 2011.

The artist is associated with several key art movements and was one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. He created unique works in virtually every artistic medium, including paintings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. Chagall’s haunting, exuberant, and poetic images have wide appeal, with art critic Robert Hughes referring to him as “the quintessential Jewish artist of the 20th century”.

His most vital work was made on the eve of World War I, when he travelled between St Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his visions of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent his wartime years in Russia, becoming one the country’s most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avante-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922.

Another major exhibition, this time devoted to Caravaggio, is being held in Rome’s Palazzo Venezia.

The exhibition dedicated to the “genius” is titled Caravaggio: The workshop of a genius and is a hypothesis of the light study of Caravaggio in the years he worked in Rome.

The exhibition opens today and runs until May 29, next year. Visitors can enjoy some of the greatest masterpieces of Caravaggio, and appreciate the technical skills used where colour and light are concerned.

Although this is not the first show of Caravaggio in Rome, this exhibition will have the honour to present to the public an unknown Caravaggio, or at least that is the organisers’ aim.