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1887 - 1985

Marc Chagall

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A Belarusian painter, graphic artist, illustrator and stage designer of Jewish origin, a master of applied and monumental art of the 20th century. Marc Chagall became one of the most internationally recognized creators. When many of his fellow peers conducted ambitious experiments, often leading to abstraction, he sacredly believed in the power of figurative art, which he supported with his work.

Despite the avant-garde ideas he perceived, he remained a romantic. Born in Belarus, Chagall worked in Russia and France, where he immediately became a prominent figure at the École de Paris, and later in the United States and the Middle East. Travels confirmed his image of the archetypal “wandering Jew”, who believed that art destroys borders and estates.

The influence of Marc Chagall is as vast as the number of styles that he assimilated in his art. Never completely agreeing with any movement, he mixed many of the visual elements of cubism, fauvism, symbolism and surrealism into his lyrically emotional aesthetics with the invariable presence of Jewish and Slavic folklore.

Chagall, like Picasso, is a vivid example of a modern artist who created many works – paintings (oil, gouache, watercolour), frescoes, etching, stained glass, ceramic products, theater decorations and costumes.

Key ideas:

– Chagall admitted that his hands were not strong enough, “I had to find some special occupation that would not make me turn away from the sky and stars, would allow me to find out the meaning of life.” It was the poetry of nature, reflected in the bold fantasies of the paintings, that made him world-famous.

– The Jewish identity of the artist was important for him throughout his life, and most of his paintings can be described as an attempt to reconcile the old Jewish traditions with the styles of modernist art. Christian themes also attracted him with their allegories.

– In his early paintings, personal and eternal themes of the family with its special way, childhood, and death dominate. Later, passionate love became the main thing, sharp deformations and fabulously surreal colour contrasts appear, which had a great influence on the development of Surrealism.

– Parisian scenes were also reflected in Chagall’s art – such paintings as “Paris Through the Window” recall the legacy of Matisse and the works of Delaunay, a friend of Chagall, but contain supernaturalness and are considered the key harbingers of Surrealism.

– In the 1920s, Chagall considered the emerging Surrealists as a kindred spirit; however, you cannot say that he borrowed it because there was always a “sleeping pill” in his stories, but he ultimately rejected the conceptual postulate of this style.

– The imagination of Chagall, as the poet and critic Apollinaire once said, is “supernatural,” and this is manifested neither in distorting objects, nor in a sophisticated set of figures, but the “behavior of objects and characters.” Dreaminess or symbolism (and more often both of them) are characteristic for almost all works of the master.

– Later canvases by Chagall markedly differed from his already known works: colours and plots were more melancholic, and pictorial touches were more lyrical. The artist returned to the motives of Post-impressionists. Some critics of the mid-20th century considered these works not worthy of attention, but time judged otherwise.

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1887

1906

1907

1910

1914

1918

1920

1922

1933

1937

1944

1947

1960

1985

The birth of the artist

Marc Chagall was born as the eldest of nine children of the Hasid family of a loader of a fish shop. He attended local Jewish religious schools – discriminatory policies forbade the mixing of racial groups, studied Hebrew, Torah, which was later reflected in the content and motives of his paintings.

Entered the Vitebsk art school of Yehuda Pan

Entered the Vitebsk art school of Yehuda Pan, a famous portrait painter. Despite gratitude for free formal training, he left school a few months later.

Attended the school of the collective farm, studied at the private institution of E. Zvantseva

Settled in St. Petersburg, attended the school of the collective farm, studied at the private institution of E. Zvantseva. His mentors were Bakst and Roerich. His first work was the painting “Death”, which is now in the collection of the Paris National Museum of Modern Art. In 1909, his Vitebsk girlfriend and model Thea Brahman introduced the artist to Bella Rosenfeld. He knew right away: it is his Muse and wife, her black eyes look, her features are guessed in all Marc’s canvases, even if he painted other ladies.

Received a scholarship and went to Paris

Received a scholarship and went to Paris, lived in the colony of artists “The Hive”, became close to Amadeo Modigliani, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, influential critic Guillaume Apollinaire. A year later, his works were exhibited at Paris salons and in both Russian capitals with the World of Art, Donkey’s Tail, Target, etc.

The first personal exhibition of Chagall took place in Berlin

The first personal exhibition of Chagall took place in Berlin. After that, he traveled to Vitebsk to see his relatives and Bella and was cut off from Paris by the First World War. The following year, Mark and Bella got married, their daughter Ida was born – the future biographer of her father.

Was appointed an authorized commissioner for art in the Vitebsk

The artist who dreamed of returning to Paris was appointed an authorized commissioner for art in the Vitebsk province and founded an art school in the city, which became an important center for the development of the avant-garde.

Chagall went to Moscow to work at the Jewish Chamber Theater

On the recommendation of A. Efros, Chagall went to Moscow to work at the Jewish Chamber Theater. The artist created a series of large wall panels. A year later, he was appointed a teacher in a Jewish labor colony for street children near Moscow.

A personal exhibition of Chagall was organized in Kaunas

A personal exhibition of Chagall was organized in Kaunas (Lithuania). He went there with his family to be able to leave the country of the Soviets. He lived in Germany for a while, until he received an invitation from famous art dealer A. Vollard to come to Paris. Having settled in Paris, he became a sought-after artist; in Berlin, the book of his memoirs, My Life (1923), was published. He created expressive drawings for Gogol’s “Dead Souls” and Lafontaine’s “Fables”.

"Crucifixion"

The Nazis who came to power in Germany publicly burned the artist’s paintings before the infamous exhibition of degenerative art. Soon Chagall traveled to Warsaw and Vilna. The result of the trip was the series “Crucifixion” – his response to fascist terror.

Received French citizenship with his wife and daughter

Received French citizenship with his wife and daughter. The manner of Chagall, as he reached the peak of fame, became easier and more relaxed. Through the refrain of the themes of his Vitebsk childhood, gloomy echoes of former and future world catastrophes were increasingly flooding. Chagalls escaped from the onset of World War II in Paris by accepting (although only after the incident – the arrest by the Gestapo) an invitation from the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1941.

Wife died from sepsis in New York

Great joy from the news about the liberation of Paris was replaced by grief – Bella wife died from sepsis in New York. Many months later, Marc managed to pick up his brushes and create two paintings in memory of his beloved: “Wedding Lights” and “Next to Her”. The Museum of Modern Art of New York held a large solo exhibition-retrospective of Chagall.

He returned to Paris

He returned to Paris to open his solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art with his second wife and son David (Virginia left Marc three years later and took the child away). The master later married the hostess of the London fashion salon Valentina Brodetskaya. Soon he began work on the “Chagall Bible”, creating in a cycle a large number of sketches for monumental murals that adorned the premises of various religious denominations.

The master's works renewed the language of monumental art

The first of a series of his large-scale works was the stained-glass window for the Medical Center in Jerusalem, representing 12 tribes of Israel. Then there were murals of the ceiling of the Paris Opera (1964), the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1965) and others. The master’s works renewed the language of monumental art. Only in 1973, the world-famous master was invited to Moscow, where his exhibition was organized at the Tretyakov Gallery.