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Marc Chagall
1887-1984
How can one write a thumbnail sketch
of such an artists career? Perhaps a list of the often used
symbols that appear in Chagall's works of art would be a useful
introduction and add to the pleasure and understanding of his
paintings for those who like, his work but don't know why.
Cow: Life of excellence; milk, meat, leather, horn, power
Tree: Another "life" symbol, but an abstract symbolism
Cockerel: Fertility, often incorporated into paintings of lovers
A woman's breasts: (often naked) eroticism and fertility of
life. Chagall loved and respected women.
Fiddler: In Chagall's village Vitebsk, a fiddler was always
required to make music at the crosspoints of life (births, weddings
and death)
Herring or flying fish: Commemorates Chagall's father who worked
in a fish packing factory.
Pendulum clock: Time and modest life.
Candlestick: Two candles symbolise the life of pious Jews.
Windows: Symbolise Chagall's love of freedom.
Houses of Vitebsk: Often in his paintings made in Paris, feelings
for his homeland.
Scenes of the circus: Harmony of man and animal, which induces
creativity in man.
Crucifixion of Jesus: The Jews being persecuted by the Nazi's,
the holocaust.
Born to a humble Jewish family in Vitebsk (White Russia), Marc
Chagall's talents for colour and line were spotted by his mother
Feiga-Ita, who managed to procure a place for him at an art
school in St. Petersburg. In 1903 at the age of 16 he returned
to Vitebsk where he met and became engaged to Bella Rosenfeld.
Their engagement was formal and long, they married twelve years
later. Before that event however, Chagall journeyed to Paris.
He became a tenant at La Ruche, where he had Modigliani and
Soutine as his neighbours. Chagall's early form of Slav Expressionism
was influenced by Daumier, Millet, the Nabis and the Fauves.
Basically, Marc Chagall was a colourist, interested in the Simultaneist
vision of Robert Delaunay and the Luminists of the Section d'Or.
Chagall returned to Vitebsk in 1914 and married Bella the following
year. In 1917 he was appointed Commissar for Fine Art and became
involved in many ambitious schemes for a local academy. However,
two years later he left for Moscow where he worked in the Jewish
theatre. In Berlin he studied the various techniques of engraving
and returned to Paris in 1923.
With the coming of World War II Chagall flew to New York with
his family, completely cut off from his roots in Russia and
his second home in France, Chagall called on the symbols and
memories of his childhood and his religion. He shook off all
outside influences, immersing himself in chimerical procession
of memory where reality and imagination are woven into a single
legend; born in Vitebsk and dreamed in Paris.
After the war Chagall invested his time and energy in ceramics,
stained glass and sculpture. He settled in the south of France,
first in Vence (1950) then in St-Paul-de-Vence (1966). Commissions
poured in; for the Assy baptistery in 1957, the cathedrals of
Metz (1960) and Rheims (1974) the Hebrew University Medical
Centre synagogue in Jerusalem (1960), the Paris Opera (1963).
In 1973 the seal was set on his fame with the opening of the
Musee Chagall in Nice, dedicated to the "Biblical Message".
A painter/poet celebrated by Apollinaire and Cendrars, Chagall
bought back the forgotten dimensions of metaphor into French
formalism.
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