The painting is organized in two registers like classical altarpieces, as it was to be in the original project for the chapelle du Calvaire in Vence.
At the top, in a sky invaded by yellow light, a swirling sun, whose colors evoke the orphism of Delaunay, whom Chagall knew in Paris during his apprenticeship, carries the Jewish people and episodes from biblical history in its wheel. Christ on the Cross is one of them: his loins are girded with the shawl worn by Jews in the synagogue, and for Chagall, he is the sacrificial Jew who appears in his paintings at the start of the Second World War.
In the lower register, an angel carrying Adam abandoned in his arms emerges from the primordial ocean where Chagall depicted animals, created before man. The angel's features, like the way he wears his pants, underline the artist's identification with him, asserting his role as creator and bearer of the divine message.
