Chagall 9781780421810, 1780421818

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Chagall

Page 4 : Self-Portrait, 1909 oil on canvas, 57 x 48 cm Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldort

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“The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.” – Marc Chagall

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Biography 7 July 1887

Marc Zakharovich Chagall, the son of a fish vendor, was born in Vitebsk.

1906

Studied at the art school of Yuri Pen in Vitebsk, leaving for St. Petersburg in the winter.

1907-1910

Studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, St. Petersburg (then directed by Nicholas Roerich) and the private school of S. Saidenberg; entered the private art school of Yelizaveta Zvantseva, where he studied under Léon Bakst and Matislav Dobuzhinsky. Showed his works at the school exhibition held in the office of the magazine Apollon.

1910-1914

Lived in Paris, on the Impasse du Maine. In 1911, moved to La Ruche. Met Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, Alexander Arkhipenko, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, and other famous artists and writers. Exhibited at the Salon des Independants and the Salon d’Automne in Paris, with the Donkey’s Tail group in Moscow, at Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin (first one-man show) and also in St. Petersburg and Amsterdam. On the eve of the war, returned to Vitebsk.

July 1915

Married Bella Rosenfeld.

1915-1917

Worked in Petrograd, served on the military-industrial committee. Exhibited in Moscow and Petrograd.

1916

Birth of his daughter Ida.

1918-1919

Appointed Commissar for the Arts in the Regional Department of People’s Education in Vitebsk. Set up and ran (from early 1919) an art school in Vitebsk, where the teachers included Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Ivan Puni and Kasimir Malevich. Headed the Free Painting Workshop (Svomas) and the museum. Organized the celebrations in 1918 for the first anniversary of the October Revolution. Took part in the First State Free Exhibition held in the Winter Palace, Petrograd.

1920-1921

Conflict with Malevich and Lissitzky forced Chagall to leave Vitebsk. He lived in and near Moscow, producing works for the Jewish Chamber Theatre and teaching in the Malakhovka and Third International colonies for homeless children. Began work on the book My Life.

1922 1922-1923

Joint exhibition in Moscow with Nathan Altman and David Sterenberg. Travelled to Kaunas with an exhibition of his works. Visited Berlin and Paris. Settled in Paris in September 1923. Produced etchings for My Life and began work on illustrations to Gogol’s Dead Souls.

1926

One-man shows in Paris and New York. 5

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1930-1931

Worked on illustrations for the Bible. Travelled to Switzerland, Palestine, Syria and Egypt. Exhibitions in Paris, Brussels and New York.

1933

At Goebbels’ command, Chagall’s works were burnt in public in Mannheim. Exhibition in Basle.

1935

Visited Poland.

1937

Granted French citizenship. Travelled to Italy.

1939

Carnegie Prize (USA).

1940

Moved to the Loire and then to Provence.

1941

Arrested in Marseille and then freed. Moved to the USA.

1942

Worked for theatres in the USA and Mexico.

1944

Death of Bella Chagall in New York.

1945

Set designs and costumes for Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird.

1946

Exhibitions in New York and Chicago.

1947

Exhibition at the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.

1948

Returned to France. Publication of Dead Souls with illustrations by Chagall. Exhibitions in Amsterdam and London. Travelled widely in this and the following years.

1950

Moved to Vence, near Nice. Worked on lithographs and ceramics.

1951

First stone sculptures. Large exhibitions in Bern and Jerusalem.

1952

Married Valentina Brodsky. Visit to Greece.

1953-1955

Major exhibitions in Turin, Vienna and Hanover.

1956

Publication of the Bible with illustrations by Chagall.

1957

Began work on stained-glass windows (for Assy, Metz, Jerusalem, New York, London, Zurich, Reims, Nice). Exhibitions of graphic works in Basle and Zurich.

1959

Murals in the foyer of the Theatre in Frankfurt am Main. Exhibitions in Paris, Munich and Hamburg.

1963

Exhibitions in Japan.

1964

Ceiling paintings in the Opera in Paris. First mosaics and tapestries.

1966

Moved to Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Painted murals in the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

1969-1970

Foundation of the Musée Chagall in Nice. Major retrospective exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris.

June 1973

Trips to Moscow and Leningrad at the invitation of the USSR Ministry of Culture.

July 1973

Opening of the Musée Chagall in Nice.

October 1977

Exhibition of paintings produced between 1967 and 1977 in the Louvre.

1982-1984

Major exhibitions in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Paris, Nice, Rome and Basle.

28 March 1985 Marc Chagall died at Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the ninety-eighth year of his life. 1987

Major exhibition of Chagall’s works in Moscow. 7

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hrough one of those curious reversals of fate, one more exile has regained his native

land. Since the exhibition of his work at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow in 1987 which gave rise to an extraordinary popular fervour, Marc Chagall has experienced a second birth.

Kermis 1908 oil on canvas, 68 x 95 cm Wright Ludington Collection Santa Barbara (California, USA)

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Here we have a painter, perhaps the most unusual painter of the twentieth century, who at last, attained the object of his inner quest: the love of his Russia. Thus, the hope expressed in the last lines of My Life, the autobiographical narrative which the painter broke off in 1922 when he left for the West – “and perhaps Europe will love me and, along with her, my Russia” – has been fulfilled.

My Fiancée in Black Gloves 1909 oil on canvas, 88 x 65 cm Kunstmuseum, Basle

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A confirmation of this is provided today by the retrospective tendency in his homeland which, beyond the all-in-all natural reabsorption of the artist into the national culture, also testifies to a genuine interest, an attempt at analysis, an original viewpoint which enriches our study of Chagall.

Self-Portrait 1909 oil on canvas, 57 x 48 cm Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

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Contrary to what one might think, this study is still dogged by uncertainties in terms of historical fact. As early as 1961 in what is still the main work of reference, Franz Meyer emphasised the point that even the establishment of, for example, a chronology of the artist’s works, is problematic.

The Artist’s Sister (Mania) 1909 oil on canvas, 93 x 48 cm Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

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In fact, Chagall refused to date his paintings or dated them a posteriori. A good number of his paintings are therefore dated only approximately and to this, we must add the problems caused to Western analysts by the absence of comparative sources and, very often, by a poor knowledge of the Russian language.

Sabbath 1910 oil on canvas, 90 x 98 cm Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

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Therefore, we can only welcome such recent works as that of Jean-Claude Marcadé who, following the pioneers Camilla Gray and Valentina Vassutinsky-Marcadé, has underlined the importance of the original source – Russian culture – for Chagall’s work. One must rejoice even more in the publications of contemporary art historians such as Alexander Kamensky and Mikhail Guerman with whom we now have the honour and pleasure of collaborating.

The Wedding 1910 oil on canvas, 98 x 188 cm collection of the artist’s family, France

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Yet, Marc Chagall has inspired a prolific amount of literature. The great names of our time have written about his work: from the first serious essay by Efros and Tugendhold, The Art of Marc Chagall, published in Moscow in 1918 when Chagall was only 31, to Susan Compton’s erudite and scrupulous catalogue, Chagall, which appeared in 1985, the year of the artist’s death.

The Butcher 1910 gouache on paper, 34 x 24 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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On the occasion of the exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, there has been no lack of critical studies, but all this does not make easy our perception of Chagall’s art. The interpretation of his works – now linking him with the Ecole de Paris, now with the Expressionist movement, now with Surrealism – seems to be full of contradictions.

Jewish Wedding 1910s pen and Indian ink on paper mounted on cardboard 20.5 x 30 cm Z. Gordeyeva Collection, St. Petersburg

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Does Chagall totally defy historical or aesthetic analysis? In the absence of reliable documents – some of which were clearly lost as a result of his travels, there is a danger that any analysis may become sterile. This peculiarity by which the painter’s art seems to resist any attempt at theorization or even categorization is moreover reinforced by a complementary observation.

Birth of a Child 1911 oil on canvas, 65 x 89.5 cm collection of the artist’s family, France

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The greatest inspiration, the most perceptive intuitions are nourished by the words of poets or philosophers. Words such as those of Cendrars, Apollinaire, Aragon, Malraux, Maritain or Bachelard… Words which clearly indicate the difficulties inherent in all attempts at critical discourse, as Aragon himself underlined in 1945: “Each means of expression has its limits, its virtues, its inadequacies.

Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers 1911 oil on canvas, 128 x 107 cm Royal Collection, The Hague

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Nothing is more arbitrary than to try to substitute the written word for drawing, for painting. That is called Art Criticism, and I cannot in good conscience be guilty of that.” Words which reveal the fundamentally poetic nature of Chagall’s art itself. Even if the arbitrariness of critical discourse appears to be even more pronounced in the case of Chagall, should we renounce any attempt at clarifying, if not the mystery of his work, then at least his plastic experience and pictorial practice?

I and the Village 1911 oil on canvas, 191.2 x 150.5 cm Museum of Modern Art, New York

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Should we limit ourselves to a mere lyrical effusion of words with regard to one of the most inventive individuals of our time? Should we abandon research of his aesthetical order, or on the contrary persist in believing that his aesthetic lies in the intimate and multiform life of ideas, in their free and at times contradictory exchange?

The Violonist 1911 oil on canvas, 94.5 x 69.5 cm Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf

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If this last is the necessary pre-requisite of all advance in thought, then the critical discourse on Chagall can be enriched by new knowledge contributed by the works in Russian collections which have up to now remained unpublished, by archives which have been brought to light and by the testimony of contemporary historians.

The Poet (Half Past Three) 1911 oil on canvas, 197 x 146 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA

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The comparison gives us a deeper comprehension of this wild art that exhausts any attempt to tame it despite efforts to conceptualize it. About 150 paintings and graphic pieces by Chagall are analysed here by the sensitive pen of the author. They were all produced between 1906–1907 – Woman with a Basket – and 1922, the year in which Chagall left Russia for good, with the exception of several later works, Nude Astride a Cockerel (1925), Time is a River without Banks (1930–1939) and Wall-clock with a Blue Wing (1949).

The Yellow Room 1911 oil on canvas, 84 x 112 cm private collection, courtesy Christie’s, London

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The corpus of works presented provides a chronological account of the early period of creativity. The author’s analysis stresses with unquestionable relevance the Russian cultural sources on which Chagall’s art fed. It reveals the memory mechanism which lies at the heart of the painter’s practice and outlines a major concept. It is tempting to say a major “tempo”, that of time-movement perceptible in the plastic structure of Chagall’s oeuvre.

Still-Life with Lamp 1910 oil on canvas, 81 x 45 cm courtesy A. Rosengart Gallery, Lucerne

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Thus we can much better understand the vivid flourishing of the artist’s work with its cyclical, apparently repetitive (but why?) character, which might be defined as organic and which calls to mind the ontological meaning of creation itself as set out in the writings of Berdiayev.

Russian Village Under the Moon 1911 oil on canvas, 126 x 104 cm Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich

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This primordial outpouring of creativity which brought the admiration of Cendrars and Apollinaire, this imperious pictorial paganism which dictates its own law to the artist, sets forth an aesthetic and an ethic of predestination which, for our part, we would like to clarify. It is in the immediacy of Chagall’s pictorial practice, in the immediacy of each creative decision that his own identity lies, that he himself is to be found.

Dedicated to My Fiancée 1911 oil on canvas, 196 x 114.5 cm Kunstmuseum, Bern

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This self-revelation is related to us by Chagall himself. The autobiographical My Life, written in Russian, first appeared in 1931 in Paris, in a French translation by Bella Chagall. Providing us with extremely precious evidence of a whole part of the artist’s life, this text – tender, alert and droll – reveals behind its anecdotal nature the fundamental themes of his work and above all, its problematic character.

Apollinaire 1911 pencil on paper, 33.5 x 26 cm collection of the artist’s family, France

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The tale as a whole is not moreover without some evocations of the artist’s biographies studied by Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz who set out a typology. From the first lines one’s attention is attracted by a singular phrase: “That which first leaped to my eyes was an angel!” Thus, the first hours of Chagall’s life were registered here specifically in visual terms. The tale begins in the tone of a parable and his life-story could not belong to anyone but a painter.

Study for “The Rain” 1911 gouache and pencil on cardboard, 22.5 x 30 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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Chagall, who recalls the difficulties of his birth, writes: “But above all I was born dead. I did not want to live. Imagine a white bubble which does not want to live. As if it were stuffed with paintings by Chagall.” Thus, was living there perhaps meant to liberate that which lay inside him – painting?

To Russia, Asses and Others 1911-1912 oil on canvas, 156 x 122 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

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The theme of vocation contained within this premonitory dream, the obvious sign of a unique predestination, seems to us to be even more significant in that it determines the events in the artist’s life and gives meaning to his destiny. Marc Chagall was born into a strict Jewish family for whom the ban on representations of the human figure had the weight of dogma.

Hommage à Apollinaire 1911-1912 oil on canvas, 109 x 198 cm Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

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If one is unaware of the nature of traditional Jewish education, one can hardly imagine the transgressive force, the fever of being which propelled the young Chagall when he flung himself on the journal Niva (Field) to copy from it a portrait of the composer Rubinstein. This education was based on the historic law of Divine Election and covered the religious side of life only.

Le Saoul (The Drinker) 1911-1912 oil on canvas, 85 x 115 cm private collection

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The transmission to the very core of the Jewish hearth was essentially effected through oral means. Each prayer, each recitation from the Torah or the Talmud imposed on the believer was in a sing-song voice; reading lessons were held out loud; everyday life was given rhythm by the repetitive times of the ritual practice of songs and on the sabbath day, solemn benedictions. Each Jewish house is a place made holy by the liturgy of the word.

The Cattle Dealer 1912 oil on canvas, 96 x 200 cm Kunstmuseum, Basle

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The Chagall family belonged to the Hassidic tradition. We should emphasize here that this form of piety – hassid means devout – gives preference to direct contact between the individual and God. The dialogue which is thus set up between the faithful and Yahweh exists without the mediation of rabbinical pomp and display. It is born directly from everyday ritual and is expressed in the exercise of personal liberty.

Golgotha 1912 oil on canvas, 174 x 191.1 cm Museum of Modern Art, New York

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Hassidism lies outside the scholarly talmudic culture, the institutional commentary of the synagogue. It was historically found in rural Russian and Polish communities, communities based on the original fundamental nucleus of Jewish society which is, of course, the family. Chagall’s father, Zakhar, was a pickler at a herring merchant’s.

The Soldier Drinks 1912 oil on canvas, 110.3 x 95 cm Guggenheim Museum, New York

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Sensitive, secretive, taciturn, the figure of Zakhar seems to have had the tragic dimension inherent in the destiny of the Jewish people. “Everything in my father seemed to me to be enigma and sadness. An inaccessible image”, Chagall wrote in My Life. On the other hand, his mother, Feyga-Ita, the eldest daughter of a butcher from Liozno, radiated vital energy.

Soldiers 1912 gouache on cardboard, 38.1 x 31.7 cm private collection

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The psychological antithesis of their characters can be seen in Chagall’s very first sketches and in his series of etchings produced for Paul Cassirer in Berlin in 1923 which were intended to illustrate My Life. This antithesis, so strongly felt by Chagall, embodies the age-old experience of the whole of Jewish existence. His father and mother in the artist’s paintings, in the very heart of the plastic space of the picture or drawing bring into play not only the specific

The Fiddler 1912-1913 oil on canvas, 184 x 148.5 cm Royal Collection, The Hague

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reality of a memory but also the two contradictory aspects which form Jewish genius and its history – resignation to fate in the acceptance of the will of God and creative energy bearing hope, in the unshakeable sense of Divine Election. Marc had one brother and seven sisters: David, of whom he produced some moving portraits but who died in the flower of youth; Anna (Aniuta), Zina, the twins Lisa and Mania, Rosa, Marussia and Rachel, who also died young.

Maternity (Pregnant Woman) 1913 oil on canvas, 194 x 115 cm Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

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If family life was difficult, it was not miserable. It was part of the life of the stedtl, that specificially Jewish cultural reality connected to the social structure of the ghetto. In Vitebsk, this reality fitted into the structure of rural Russian life. In the late nineteenth century Vitebsk was still a small town in Byelorussia situated at the confluence of two waterways, the Dvina and the Vitba.

Paris Through the Window 1913 oil on canvas, 132.7 x 139.2 cm Guggenheim Museum, New York

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Its economy was expanding greatly but despite the arrival of the railway, the station, small industries and the river port, the town still retained the characteristics of a large rural village. While the numerous churches and the Orthodox cathedral gave it a more urban appearance, most of the houses were still of wood and the streets, frozen in winter, running with water in spring, were not yet paved.

The Street Sweeper 1913 gouache on paper, 27 x 23 cm private collection, St. Petersburg

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Each house, evidence of an economic unity founded on a traditional domestic way of life, had its little garden and poultry-yard. With their wooden fences and multi-coloured decoration, the houses of Vitebsk live on eternally in Chagall’s pictures. The Russian Orthodox and Jewish communities rubbed along side by side without ever coming into conflict. The divisions between the two were more on the social than on the confessional plane.

View from the Window, Vitebsk 1914 gouache, oil and pencil on paper mounted on cardboard 36.3 x 49 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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There was a Jewish middle class made up of rich merchants for whom the process of integration was clearly effected through education. Chagall himself went to the parish school even though the institution did not accept Jewish children. It was from this childhood experience that the pictorial schemes of Chagall’s plastic vocabulary originate.

Barbershop 1914 gouache and oil on paper, 49.3 x 37.2 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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But the fragments of memory, which we easily identify in concrete objects even in the very first works – the room, the clock, the lamp, the samovar, the Sabbath table, the village street, the house of his birth and its roof, Vitebsk recognizable through the domes of its cathedral – did not crystallize into clearly defined images until after the passage of many years.

House in the Village of Liozno 1914 gouache, oil and pencil on paper, 37.1 x 49 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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It was only in obeying his calling (“Mummy… I would like to be a painter…”), that is to say in tearing himself away from his family and social milieu, that Chagall could evolve his own pictorial language. A memory metamorphosed into an image will break with all everyday realism and express another reality which lies at the basis of its outward forms. Several relevant details about the artist’s life are needed here.

Chemist’s Shop in Vitebsk 1914 gouache, tempera, watercolour and oil on paper mounted on cardboard, 40 x 52.4 cm V. Doudakov Collection, Moscow

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Chagall succeeded in persuading his mother to enrol him in the school of drawing and painting of the artist Pen. But the methods of training and the laborious copying exercises soon ceased to satisfy the young Chagall. That which he was still seeking confusedly, that which he barely touched upon in his first daring colouristic experiments, had nothing in common with the academic tradition to which Pen adhered.

Portrait of the Artist’s Sister Mariassinka 1914 oil on cardboard, 51 x 36 cm private collection, St. Petersburg

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The painting which Chagall was carrying within himself was poles apart from the representative realism which Pen inherited from The Wanderers. Rebelling against all teaching, from 1907 Chagall began to show a precocious capacity for invention – did he not use the colour violet in a way which defied all known laws? – the autodidactic quality which is the mark of true creative spirits.

The Street Sweeper (Janitor with Birds) 1914 oil on canvas, 49 x 37.5 cm Kusiodiev Gallery of painting, Astrakhan

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The painter’s destiny worked itself out in the image of some hero of the great fundamental myths which make up the collective subconscious. It was a destiny shaped through trials, of which the most decisive was tearing himself away from the place of his birth. In 1907, accompanied by his friend Viktor Mekler, Chagall left Vitebsk – one of the main symbolic images in his later work – for St. Petersburg.

Father 1914 tempera on paper mounted on cardboard, 49.4 x 36.8 cm Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

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His departure for St. Petersburg gives rise to several questions. Chagall could in fact have wished to pursue his artistic quest, which was only just beginning, in Moscow. The choice of St. Petersburg is of particular significance. Chagall was conforming above all – without being aware of it – to a tradition stemming from the Renaissance, a tradition which makes travel one of the principal means of any apprenticeship.

The Newspaper Vendor 1914 oil on canvas, 98 x 78.5 cm Ida Chagall Collection, Paris

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Whilst painting is also a craft – despite the romantic revolts, the status of the artist at the dawn of the twentieth century was still not that far from the craftsman’s status it had in the fifteenth century – the social recognition of this status was inevitably dependent on academic training. St. Petersburg, among other things, was the intellectual and artistic centre of imperial Russia.

Jew in Green 1914 oil on cardboard, 100 x 80 cm Charles im Obersteg Collection, Geneva

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Much more than continental Moscow, it was a city whose own history was always characterized by an openness towards Western Europe. Through its architecture, its urbanity, its schools and salons, it dispensed a formal and spiritual nourishment which was to enrich the young provincial. Chagall’s keen gaze sought the least reflections of the transparent light of the North on the surface of the city’s canals.

Self-Portrait 1914 oil on canvas, 62 x 96 cm private collection

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He came to seek St. Petersburg’s excellence. His failure in the entrance examination for the Stieglitz School did not stop him from later joining that founded by the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, and directed by Nicholas Roerich. Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) had taken part in the production of the journal Mir Iskusstva (The World of Art), founded in 1898 by Alexander Benois and run until 1904 by Serge Diaghilev.

Over Vitebsk 1914 oil on paper, 73 x 92.5 cm Ayala and Sam Zacks Collection, Toronto

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The journal and the artists grouped around it played a decisive role in the general aesthetic debate with which Russia was preoccupied during the first decade of the twentieth century. Its emblem, a northern eagle drawn by Bakst, formally synthesized the objectives they pursued: to create a new art, original because it drew on Russian heritage, but open to the influence of the West, thus capable of bringing about, in a country which had never known such a thing in its history, a veritable Renaissance.

The Clock 1914 gouache, oil and pencil on paper, 49 x 37 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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The World of Art preached the doctrine of art for art’s sake. In a certain measure, the inheritor of the theories of Ruskin, which the journal made known to the Russian public, absorbed Symbolism, and the result was indisputably rich. In 1908, Roerich was a famous artist and his work multifarious.

Self-Portrait with White Collar 1914 oil on cardboard, 29.9 x 25.7 cm Philadelphia Museum of Art The Louis E. Stern Collection, Philadelphia

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His far from negligible role in the renewal of the decorative and applied arts as preached by the World of Art should not let us forget his work as the designer of numerous sets for theatre and ballet productions. A convinced Slavophile, much like Kandinsky, who undertook extremely detailed ethnographic research, he was in his very essence opposed to The World of Art group, who looked to the West.

Lovers in Blue 1914 oil on cardboard, 48.5 x 44.5 cm private collection, St. Petersburg

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The critical debate between the Westernists and the Slavophiles was one of the major controversies which reverberated through the intellectual history of Russia. In 1909, the controversy was increased twofold through the permanent and symbolic rivalry between St. Petersburg and Moscow.

Lovers in Green after 1914 oil on paper, 48 x 45 cm private collection, Moscow

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Another journal founded by a Muscovite merchant, Nikolai Riabushinsky, came to take the place of The World of Art, the main participants having left Russia for Western Europe. Entitled Zolotoye Runo or The Golden Fleece (a militant journal), it asserted freedom of expression in the name of one of the basic ancient myths of ancestral Russia, the incarnation of that fabulous Scythia which Blok extolled in his famous poem.

Wounded Soldier 1914 Indian ink on paper, 22.6 x 13.3 cm (oval) Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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Like The World of Art, The Golden Fleece, which ceased to appear in 1909, contributed to the artistic life of the period in question. It made known to the wider public individuals as diverse as Benois, Bakst (meeting with whom played an important role in Chagall’s life), Roerich, Golovin, Dobuzhinsky, Larionov, Goncharova… Numerous French figures also became involved.

The Vitebsk Preacher 1914 Indian ink on paper, 52 x 42.5 cm private collection, Moscow

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Charles Morice published a series of articles concerning the new tendencies in French art; Maurice Denis wrote a study on Gauguin and Van Gogh; Matisse himself, who found his main collectors in the Russians Shchukin and Morozov, analysed his conception of arts in the essay A Painter’s Notes. The repercussions of these articles, backed up by a series of exhibitions organized by the journal in 1908, 1909 and 1910, were considerable.

A Soldier and a Girl 1914 Indian ink on paper, 18.5 x 29 cm private collection, St. Petersburg

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Unlike The World of Art, whose aesthetic model was eighteenth-century France (even if its general tendency could actually be linked with the international Art Nouveau), the Golden Fleece called on Russian artists to create works contemporary in spirit and as a consequence, contributed to the reflection on the idea of modernity which we know was decisive for the evolution of art.

Man with a Cat and Woman with a Child 1914 pen and Indian ink heightened with white on paper 22.3 x 17.2 cm, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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There is no doubt that in St. Petersburg Chagall became aware of the reverberations of the many controversies which were stirring in the realm of painting. However, the teaching of Roerich, little different from that offered by Pen, disappointed him, and the sturdy exercise of copying seemed to him to be a waste of time. “Two years lost in this school”, he wrote with bitterness.

The Old Jew 1914 lithograph, 31.5 x 23 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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Two years which allowed him, however, to meet his first patron and collector, the lawyer Goldberg, whose Drawing Room and Study (1908) he depicted, and above all his future protector, the influential deputy in the Duma, Maxim

Vinaver.

Chagall

frequented

the

intellectual Jewish circles which revolved around Vinaver and which aimed to revive, with the writer Pozner, the critic Sirkin, and Leopold Sev, Vinaver’s brother-in-law, the Jewish journal Voskhod (Renewal), published in Russian.

Street in Vitebsk 1914 Indian ink on paper, 15.5 x 16.2 cm Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

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The participation of the Jewish intelligentsia in the major artistic debate of the time is incontestable. The growing awareness of a specific Jewish cultural identity did not exclude the desire to give it a new dimension of national and international universality. Voskhod was the instrument of this action.

Soldiers with Bread 1914-1915 gouache and watercolour on paper, 50.5 x 37.5 cm Z. Gordeyeva Collection, St. Petersburg

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Vinaver and Sev were to open the doors of the famous Zvantseva school for Chagall. This private school had been founded by a rich woman, herself a painter, Yelizaveta Nikolayevna Zvantseva, who after a stay in Paris, decided to develop a new kind of teaching capable of giving young Russian artists the technical means to develop a totally contemporary form of expression, which they lacked.

Old Man and Old Woman 1914-1915 Indian ink on paper, 15 x 13 cm Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

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In St. Petersburg, Zvantseva summoned those who were considered to be the greatest artists of the time, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky and, above all, Léon (Lev) Bakst. Bakst had acquired international renown in particular through his collaboration with Diaghilev. An elegant portraitist, he also worked in the sphere of the decorative arts, illustrated books, and above all created brilliant costume and set designs for the theatre and the ballet.

The House in the Suburbs 1914-1915 Indian ink on paper, 15.1 x 14.1 cm Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

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Thus he worked for Diaghilev and his stars, Fokine, Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinsky. His reputation was outstanding. Chagall knew this and was profoundly impressed by it, even though Bakst, a European was, like him, Chagall, a Jew. For Chagall, to enter the Zvantseva school, to approach Bakst, was a mark of privilege.

Over the Town 1914-1918 oil on canvas, 141 x 198 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

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Here, close to one of his own, he prepared himself to find that other reality which he was pursuing, which he carried within him, and which he sought to objectivize solely by means of painting. In the freedom of the teaching dispensed by Bakst, bit by bit Chagall elaborated his language, achieved the spatial mastery of colour, and gradually found his style. He was not influenced by Bakst’s Symbolist aesthetic nor his decorative mannerism.

Jew in Red 1915 oil on cardboard, 100 x 80.5 cm Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

118

On the other hand, he rapidly mastered one of the painter’s demands which was “the art of juxtaposing contrasting colours whilst balancing their reciprocal influence…” This can be seen in The Small Parlour and dated 1908, executed at the beginning of his period of study with Bakst. On a freely painted delicate rose-coloured background, the arabesques of objects – chairs, table, and flower vase – are drawn in brown.

Window at the Dacha, Zaolshye near Vitebsk 1915 gouache and oil on cardboard, 100 x 80 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

120

The light forms seem to dance within an airy space which is devoid of any illusion of perspective. Depth, without being described, is suggested by the use of a light green which hollows out the ground. In the foreground, the double curvature of the back of a chair and the broken angle of a table seem to set the whole space in motion in the manner of certain pastels by Degas.

The Poet Reclining 1915 oil on canvas, 77 x 77.5 cm The Trustees of the Tate Gallery Collection, London

122

In this work, Chagall has also revealed his colouristic skill. The virtuoso audacity of the composition manifests an ease which holds undivided sway in this picture executed at Liozno during a visit to the artist’s grandfather. In fact, Chagall often visited his relatives; he painted his brother and sisters, his parents, and everyday scenes in the desire to sharpen his vision, to make it more refined.

The Mirror 1915 oil on cardboard, 100 x 81 cm Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

124

He painted Vitebsk, its streets and its wooden houses; Vitebsk, his childhood town and later an emblematic symbol of the land of his birth. In the autumn of 1909 through Thea Brachman, a friend who had once posed for him, Chagall met his future wife, Bella Rosenfeld. An unforgettable meeting related by both in their memoirs: “Suddenly I realized that it was not with Thea that I should be but with her! Her silence is mine.

The Green Violonist 1915 oil on canvas, 195.6 x 108 cm Guggenheim Museum, New York

126

127

Her eyes, mine; it was as if she had known me for a long time, as if she knew my whole childhood, my present, my future; as if she were watching over me, looking closer into me, although I saw her for the first time. I felt that this was my wife”, relates Chagall in My Life. And in Lumières allumées Bella replies: “I dare not lift my eyes and meet the boy’s look. His eyes are now greyish green, sky and water.

Birthday 1915-1923 oil on cardboard, 30.6 x 94.7 cm Guggenheim Museum, New York

128

129

Is it in these eyes or in a river that I am swimming…” My Fiancée in Black Gloves (1909) is evidence of the confusion they felt. The work was the first in a long series of portraits of Bella and belongs with his family portraits of David, Mania, and Aniuta, but yet it is distinguished from them by its air of grave solemnity. Bella, in a white dress decorated with a collar of pleated lace, stands in the centre of the picture.

Lilies of the Valley 1916 oil on cardboard, 42 x 33.5 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (gift of George Costakis)

130

Her head, slightly turned to one side, is topped with a beret from beneath which her brown hair shows. The spatial composition and the pose itself endow the figure with a certain monumentality, as seen in portraits painted in the classical tradition. But the chromatic contrast between the dazzling white of the dress and the deep black of the gloves gives a strange charm to this female figure, as mysterious as an apparition.

The Baby’s Bath 1916 tempera on cardboard, 59 x 61 cm Museum of History, Architecture and Art, Pskov

132

133

The simultaneous opposition of colours marks the appearance of a new conception which broke the laws of genre and would eventually be brought to fulfilment. My Fiancée in Black Gloves, and later Bella with a White Collar (1917), are true portraits in their acute observation of the physical and psychological verity of the sitter. But the sitter is not the prisoner of her own individuality.

Lovers in Pink 1916 oil on cardboard, 69 x 55 cm private collection, St. Petersburg

134

135

The image of the beloved woman, the image of the love which she arouses, Bella takes on the universal dimension of a type. The picture is in this sense an icon. Its function is not representative but demonstrative. It has a hidden meaning. From 1909, Chagall was concerned with the major question of creativity – that of the very status of painting – which practice forced upon him.

Lovers in Grey 1916 oil on cardboard, 69 x 49 cm Ida Chagall Collection, Paris

136

137

Was painting only the illusionistic replication of the material world? Should it not, on the contrary, be the privileged mode of exploring beyond the appearances which make up perceptible reality? Should it not be, like poetry, one of the means of revealing being? An ancient philosophical debate which goes back to Plato, this line of questioning runs through the whole history of painting.

Bella with a White Collar 1917 oil on canvas, 149 x 72 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

138

139

In Russia, it took on a fundamental dimension which was to characterize all the experiments of the Russian avant-garde from Goncharova to Malevich. But Chagall consistently rebelled against all attempts to theorize art. Did he meet, for

example,

at

Bakst’s,

Larionov

and

Goncharova, already embarked in 1909 and 1910 on the Futurist adventure?

Self-Portrait at the Easel 1917 oil on canvas, 88.9 x 58.4 cm private collection

140

141

Not one precise document to this day confirms this. The young painter, despite his probable awareness of the breadth and effervescent vitality of the young Russian artistic movement, worked alone. The themes of his personal symbolism were born only of his internal experience, of the creative reverie of images which ally painting to poetry. Two pictures are the specific expression of this: The Dead Man (1908) and Birth (1910).

Window Overlooking the Garden c.1917 oil on paper mounted on cardboard, 46.5 x 61 cm Isaac Brodsky Memorial Museum, St. Petersburg

142

143

The author’s analysis of the latter strongly underlines the sacramental character which transforms an ordinary scene into a liturgical celebration, a characteristic which was already visible in The Dead Man. A specific memory related by Chagall in My Life was the basis for this picture: “One morning, well before dawn, cries suddenly rose up in the street beneath the window. By the feeble glimmer of the night-light

The Grey House 1917 oil on canvas, 68 x 74 cm Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid

144

145

I was able to distinguish a woman running alone through the deserted streets.” She was afraid to stay alone with her husband. Disturbed people ran up from all sides. The whole world was wailing, crying. “But those who were more steady, used to everything, drew the woman aside, quietly lit the candles and surrounded by silence began to pray out loud over the head of the dead man.

Double Portrait with a Wineglass 1917 oil on canvas, 233 x 136 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

146

147

The light of the yellow candles, the colour of the face – only just dead, the assurance of the movements of the old ones, their impassive eyes persuaded me and those around that everything was over… The dead man, solemnly sad, was already lying on the ground, the face lit by six candles.” Other images mix with this memory: that of the eccentric grandfather whom he often found perched on the roof of the house; that of his violinist uncle.

The Promenade 1917 oil on canvas, 170 x 163.5 cm Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

148

But if memory furnished the elements of the picture, the picture is not reduced to its simple and naturalistic transcription. Each element is revealed as a constituent part of the whole. In the centre is the village street with here and there little houses of wood crowned with thatched roofs. On the left side of the street, the dead man lies on the ground surrounded by the six candles.

The Cemetery Gates 1917 oil on canvas, 87 x 66.5 cm Ida Chagall Collection, Paris

150

To the right a woman, arms lifted to the sky, is running, while disappearing between the houses is a man of whom we can see only his legs. In the middle of the street, a sweeper, indifferent to the scene, carries on with his work. Chagall indisputably took the main part of the scene from his own recollections, but the comparison of the narrative with the picture already indicates some differences.

Village Scene in Vitebsk 1917 oil on canvas, 37.5 x 54.5 cm private collection

152

153

Whilst the figure of the woman conforms to the tale, there is no trace there of the sweeper and of the other person whose legs we see, impossible to identify, a person without a face like death itself. The realistic details – the lighted candles, the corpse lying on the ground – do indeed correspond to the Jewish funeral ritual. But the exhibition of the body in the middle of the village is invented.

Self-Portrait with Muse (The Apparition) 1917-1918 oil on canvas, 148 x 129 cm Z. Gordeyeva Collection, St. Petersburg

154

The violinist, in turn, seems to be a sort of collage in a single figure of memories of his grandfather on the roof and his musician uncle. The composition is based on a cross formation and relies upon the positioning of the figures. The violinist in the upper part forms a vertical which is opposed with the dead body lying horizontally in the lower part. The woman in distress turns her back on the sweeper.

The Blue House 1917-1920 oil on canvas, 66 x 97 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Liège

156

157

Through the window of the house to the left a light is shining. That of the house to the right is in darkness. The street itself, a dark triangle, is the antithesis of the sky, a light triangle. The choice of colours also corresponds to the formal composition. The contrast of cold and warm

values

helps

to

accentuate

the

strangeness of the scene whilst suggesting its meaning. The left is effectively dominated by calm forms and cold colours.

The Wedding 1918 oil on canvas, 100 x 119 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

158

159

In their immobile poses the violinist and the dead man seem to belong to the eternal order of nature. To the right, the colliding forms, the figures in movement and the freer colours (the green of the woman’s bodice, the white other skirt, the pink of the houses) seem in turn to indicate the universe of human passions.

The Dacha 1918 oil on cardboard, 60.5 x 46 cm Picture Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan

160

A new allegorical symbol of destiny, the sweeper is on the edge of these two worlds; as for the unknown figure who turns his back on this scene and seems to flee, could he not be the incarnation of Chagall himself? The painting would thus represent the drama of the choice which leads the artist, for the sake of his vocation, to break with the natural order of his family and social milieu.

Interior with Flowers 1918 oil on paper mounted on cardboard, 46.5 x 61 cm Isaac Brodsky Memorial Museum, St. Petersburg

162

163

The historical circumstances surrounding Chagall’s departure for Paris are now well known. The lawyer Vinaver, his protector and first patron, gave him a grant in exchange for a canvas, The Wedding (1910), and a drawing. The grant, 125 francs, had to enable the young man to stay abroad for four years. A man who espoused a humanist culture, Vinaver hoped that Chagall would leave for Rome, but he opted instead for Paris.

Peace to Cottages, War on Palaces 1918-1919 pencil and watercolour on paper, 33.7 x 23.2 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

164

165

The artistic radiance of the French capital was indisputable, and Chagall was not mistaken: Paris was to be his “second Vitebsk”. At first isolated in the little room on the Impasse du Maine, at La Ruche Chagall soon found numerous compatriots also attracted by the prestige of Paris: Lipchitz, Zadkine, Archipenko and Soutine, who were to maintain the smell of his native land around the young painter.

Costume Design for Nikolai Gogol’s “The Inspector General” 1920-1922 pencil and watercolour on paper, 31 x 21 cm collection of the artist’s family, France

166

167

From his very arrival Chagall wanted to “discover everything”. And to his dazzled eyes painting did indeed reveal itself. First of all, painting in the museums. In the Louvre he discovered Chardin, Fouquet, Rembrandt: “It was as if the gods were standing before me.” Painting of which he had dreamed in Vitebsk or St. Petersburg, the painting of eternity, where the eternity of painting could be read.

The Red Houses 1922 oil on canvas, 80 x 90 cm private collection

168

169

Then the art which was closer to Chagall, that of Courbet, Manet, Monet, the first revolutionaries in the way of looking. A telling comparison: “The best Russian realist insults the realism of Courbet. The most authentic Russian Impressionism

leaves

one

perplexed

if

compared to Monet or Pissarro.” The whole historical dimension, the whole aesthetic and cultural dimension of the history of painting was unveiled before Chagall.

Jew in Prayer 1923 oil on canvas, 116.9 x 88.9 cm The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

170

This decisive apprenticeship in a way of looking was reinforced in some of the studio exercises at La Grande Chaumiere and La Palette, run by Le Fauconnier (whose wife was Russian). But the true formal nourishment for Chagall was to be, according to his own statements, Paris itself; Paris and that extraordinary “Light-Liberty” through which he fulfilled himself as a painter.

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” 1923-1927 etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette, 38 x 28.4 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

172

173

From this first Parisian period great masterpieces blossomed forth: To Russia, Asses and Others (1911–1912), I and the Village (1911), The Holy Carter (1911–1912), Hommage à Apollinaire (1911–1912), and Self-portrait with Seven Fingers (1911). The frenzy of painting which animated Chagall justifies the terms which, later, the poet André Breton employed to describe it in Genèse et perspective artistiques du surréalisme (1941): “The total lyrical explosion dates from 1911.

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” 1923-1927 etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette, 38 x 28.4 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

174

175

It is from this moment that metaphor, with him alone, marks its triumphant entry into modern painting.” This pictorial fulguration which found the path of self-expression was indeed a total lyrical explosion. How could one not be surprised by the miracle of Chagall’s painting between 1911 and 1914? How could one not marvel at the obstinate coherence of a creator who mastered the lessons of Fauvism and Cubism only in order to liberate himself from them even more?

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” 1923-1927 etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette, 38 x 28.4 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

176

177

Chagall already knew intuitively that colour in its extremes is the bearer of physically tangible values. He had to raise its radiance to the limit, to use its rare sonority. The painter was indebted to the Fauvists, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse, whose works he saw at Bernheim’s, for his encounter with absolute colour. To Cézanne and the Cubists he owed the geometric framework of his paintings between 1911 and 1914 and the elements of his plastic grammar.

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” 1923-1927 etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette, 38 x 28.4 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

178

But his individuality resisted all theoretic limits. “Let them eat their square pears on their triangular

tables!”

he

cried

vehemently,

speaking of the Cubists. A true creator, Chagall borrowed from Cubism only that which served his personal vision. Painting, for this artistic rebel, was above all the flight of the imagination. The thematic repertory of the works executed between 1911 and 1914 is significant in this regard.

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” 1923-1927 etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette, 38 x 28.4 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

180

Russian subjects mix with those of the ghetto, family figures with those of the village community: The Wedding (1910), Sabbath (1910), Grandfather (1910), Around the Lamp (1910), Birth of a Child (1911), a theme already treated in 1910, The Village Under the Moon (1911), Dedicated to my Fiancée (1911), Praying Jew (1912–1913), The Cattle Dealer (1912), Maternity (or the Pregnant Woman; 1913), To Russia, Asses and Others (1911–1912), Father (1914) – they all speak of his sadness, of a nostalgia for the land of his birth.

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” 1923-1927 etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette, 38 x 28.4 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

182

183

These paintings profess themselves totally in the creative tension born of a sense of something lacking, of a paradise lost. They are thus the obstinate attempt to reconstruct a world which the artist snatches away from oblivion, a world freed from the laws of gravity… The process of embodying memory in plastic form can be seen in a picture such as The Cattle Dealer, of which Chagall produced two versions (1912 and 1923).

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” 1923-1927 etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette, 38 x 28.4 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

184

The scene in fact evokes his trips to the cattle market in a horse-drawn cart with his uncle Neuch. But the composition, the scale of the figures and the colour used to construct form give this everyday scene of peasant life a universal significance. Is it not in fact the powerful exaltation of the irresistible force of life, always renewing itself, which seems to be evoked here?

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s “Dead Souls” 1923-1927 etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette, 38 x 28.4 cm Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

186

The clear symbol of the foal seen in the belly of the mare who pulls the cart is explicit in this regard. The unreal red colour of the animal accentuates the symbolic effect. All the figures, and in particular the peasant woman who carries a young calf on her shoulders, are treated monumentally. In the foreground a young man in a cap and a woman in a shawl embrace each other’s shoulders.

Soukkot (Rabbi with a Lemon) 1924 oil on canvas, 104 x 84 cm private collection

188

These two figures are represented half length. They are the pivot of the composition and perhaps provide the key to reading it. Placed in the bottom right of the picture, they play a role similar to that of the donor figures to be seen in medieval painting, the role of witnesses. The scene thus acquires a radiant gravity which is not only the result of its plastic organization and our sensory perception of it.

On the Road 1924 oil on canvas, 72 x 57 cm Petit Palais, Geneva

190

The scene requires above all a cognitive reading, turning the picture into a lesson. In magnifying all forms, animal or human, painting is the sublime metaphor of life. In its function of showing, plainly affirmed here, The Cattle Dealer is akin to the art of the icon. The influence on Chagall’s art of the icon and the lubok – the popular Russian prints sold all over the country by hawkers – has often been emphasized, sometimes exaggeratedly.

Jew Holding the Torah 1925 gouache on paper mounted on cardboard, 68 x 51 cm Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, Tel-Aviv

192

But this emphasis seems to us to be justified in the analysis of the figurative code used by the artist, whom we know, moreover, was highly sensitive to the magic light of the icon. Chagall was, in fact, from 1911, in full command of a plastic language which owed nothing to western tradition. Like his compatriots Mikhail Larionov and Natalia Goncharova, he linked himself on the contrary to the Byzantine tradition, which had always given priority to meaning and not to representation.

The Circus Rider 1927 oil on canvas, 23.8 x 18.9 cm The Art Institute of Chicago (gift of Mrs. Gilbert W. Chapman), Chicago

194

The extreme elongation of the figures, the rejection of perspective, the plasticity of the interior space, the frontality we often see in his works, the occasional use of red backgrounds as in icons from the Novgorod school, are recognizable objective elements of Chagall’s representative system.

Self-Portrait 1927 aquatint, 57.5 x 45 cm private collection, Russia

196

The rejection of all illusionistic realism had been confirmed very early in the painter’s history by Apollinaire’s celebrated exclamation: “surnaturel!…”; Apollinaire, the poet who, the day after their memorable meeting, dedicated his poem Rodsoge to Chagall. Certainly the Cubist syntax permitted the painter to give spatial structure to his internal experience in all its multiplicity of different levels.

Promenade 1929 oil on canvas, 55.5 x 39 cm private collection, courtesy A. Rosengart Gallery, Lucerne

198

But the “intentionality” of the picture derives from the spiritualist, symbolic culture peculiar to Russia, a mystical land par excellence. Here we should mention the obvious similarity which exists between Chagall’s conception of the world and Russian symbolical thought as expressed in the theories of Vladimir Solovyov or reflected by the articles of Viacheslav Ivanov in the journal The Golden Fleece in 1908 and in Apollo in 1910, which Jean Laude recalls in his Naissance des abstractions.

Lovers 1929 oil on canvas, 55 x 38 cm Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, Tel-Aviv

200

The similarity lies in the theory of correspondences formulated in the West by Mallarmé and Rimbaud, but which in Russia took on the dimension of a true cosmological conception. The intimate link between man and the universe expresses the profound unity of all living things. This affirmation of the consubstantiality of man and the world is intuitively perceived by Chagall when he writes in My Life: “Art seems to me to be above all a state of the soul. The souls of everyone, of all bipeds at all points of the earth, are holy.”

The Cock 1929 oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid

202

And later, in 1958, Chagall added, in a speech at the University of Chicago: “Life is clearly a miracle. We are parts of this life and we pass, with age, from one form of life to another… A man can never technically or mechanically learn all the secrets of life. But through his soul he is connected with the world, in harmony with it, perhaps even unconsciously.”

The Acrobat 1930 oil on canvas, 117 x 73.5 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

204

205

We are not far here from the notion of Stimmung. The second aspect linking Chagall to the dominant artistic currents in contemporary Russia lies in his admiration for Gauguin and his own search for a colour which would give itself up in its totality, for a colour which was pure, original, a colour which was radiant, a colour bearing energy and magic.

Time is a River without Banks 1930-1939 oil on canvas, 100 x 81.3 cm Ida Chagall Collection, Paris

206

The vitality of the Russian folk arts in the early twentieth century and the enthusiastic perception of their chromatic splendour would determine the development of the Russian avant-garde, from Larionov and Goncharova to Malevich and Kandinsky. Without referring expressly to it, Chagall was not unaware of Russian neoprimitivism: had he not exhibited, in March 1912, at the Donkey’s Tail and in 1913 at Target, two exhibitions organized by Larionov in which Malevich also took part?

The Wall of Lamentations 1932 oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, Tel-Aviv

208

209

Malevich, who followed a parallel path to that of Chagall; Malevich, who dramatically insulted Chagall in 1919 in Vitebsk. The Revolution was to bring the painter the hope of new dignity and the possibility of his realization as an artist. The declaration of war had in effect brought him back to Vitebsk. He found his native soil, his family again, and married Bella. A daughter, Ida, was soon born.

To My Wife 1933-1944 oil on canvas, 107 x 178.8 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

210

211

A wealth of personal happiness was added to the promise of universal happiness and the obtaining of the rights of full citizenship. Chagall believed fervently in the Revolution. He had known Anatoly Lunacharsky in Paris. The latter became Commissar for Cultural Affairs in the first Soviet government in 1917 and helped to put into effect Lenin’s vast cultural project for Russia, which was not without similarities to the ideology propagated by The Wanderers during the second half of the nineteenth century.

The Juggler 1943 oil on canvas, 109.9 x 79.1 cm The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

212

213

Lunacharsky offered Chagall the post of Commissar for Fine Arts in the Vitebsk region and Chagall accepted with enthusiasm. Art as a principle of the flowering of the individual and as a means of social promotion found in Chagall its most active representative. Untiring, the painter established the basic structures for teaching – a museum, an art school, a revolutionary studio – the prerequisites for this revolution of the soul which he sought to bring about in each of his compatriots.

The Revolution 1937 oil on canvas, 49.7 x 100.2 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

214

215

He summoned Dobuzhinsky, his former teacher from the Zvantseva school, Pen himself, Ivan Puni and El Lissitzky. For the first anniversary of the October Revolution he made “art descend into the streets” and transformed the urban decoration of Vitebsk with a sense of the mise-en-scène which he later was to express in his works for the theatre and, above all, the ballet.

Wedding at the Eiffel Tower 1938-1939 oil on canvas, 150 x 136.5 cm Musée National d’art Moderne, Paris

216

Chagall’s use of symbolism, contained in a simple, strong image, is exemplified, for instance, in the famous sketch War on Palaces: a peasant in a traditional shirt raises up high a palace, recognizable from its colonnade. The effect is direct, the message immediately perceived. The language acquires the universal quality of a poster. This period, although exciting, was to be marked by the conflict with Malevich.

Madonna of the Village 1938-1942 oil on canvas, 102.5 x 98 cm Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid

218

There is little evidence to give us an account of this confrontation: Chagall spoke of it only in a roundabout way in My Life. But an examination of the aesthetic path taken by each of the two artists makes it clear that antagonism was inevitable. When, in fact, Malevich was invited by the students of the Art School in Vitebsk – Chagall states, moreover, that this was on his initiative – he was already a famous artist who had formulated the basis of his Suprematist doctrine.

Street in the Village 1940 oil on paper mounted on canvas, 51.9 x 64,2 cm private collection

220

221

The beginning of the year saw the organization of the 10th All-Russia Exhibition “Non-objective Creation and Suprematism”, at which Malevich showed his White Square. The exhibition revealed the tensions existing within the Russian group of non-objective artists and, in consequence, the virulence and topicality of an aesthetic debate which involved ideological stances.

Concert in Blue 1945 oil on canvas, 124.5 x 99.1 cm private collection, New York

222

Chagall’s distrust of any collective stand as far as art was concerned was stronger than ever. His conviction that painting could be nothing but a personal adventure did not weaken. For him it was evident that the artist’s mission remains subjective. The history of painting is a history of painters. Malevich violently attacked Chagall for his teaching principles and the nature of his art, which

he

contemptuously

charged

naturalism.

Around Her 1945 oil on canvas, 131 x 109.7 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

224

with

Malevich’s temperament, excessive and at times violent, was in sharp contrast to that of Chagall. Did Malevich also – with his Polish Catholic origins – have an instinctive distrust of the Slavic Jew? Chagall, in his turn rebelling against any theorization of art, did not understand Malevich’s aesthetic commitment.

Apparition of the Artist’s Family 1947 oil on canvas, 123 x 112 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

226

At the end of 1919 Chagall was forced to leave Vitebsk, and Malevich set up the group UNOVIS – Affirmation of New Art. The avant-garde thus drove Chagall away in the

name

of

their

radical

ideas.

The

disappointment made a deep wound. Perhaps the vague feeling anchored in the heart of all Jews of being misunderstood, of being an exile in the world, had been revived.

The Cock in Love 1947-1950 oil on canvas, 71 x 87 cm private collection

228

229

“I would not be surprised if, after such a long absence, my town effaced all traces of me and would no longer remember him who, laying down his own brush, tormented himself, suffered, and gave himself the trouble of implanting Art there, who dreamed of transforming the ordinary houses into museums and the ordinary inhabitants into creative people.

Wall Clock with a Blue Wing 1949 oil on canvas, 92 x 79 cm Ida Chagall Collection, Paris

230

And I understood then that no man is a prophet in his own country. I left for Moscow”, Chagall remarked with bitterness. Thus we can better understand Chagall’s return towards the world of his origins. In Moscow the painter renewed contact with the coterie of Jewish intellectuals and through the theatre rediscovered Jewish culture.

By the Window at Night 1950 gouache on paper, 65 x 50 cm A. Rosengart Collection, Lucerne

232

233

The meeting with Alexei Granovsky, director of the Chamber Theatre, gave him the chance of working for the stage and of experimenting in an architectural space. The decoration for the auditorium, not without humour, pays true homage to Jewish culture and spirituality. But Chagall no longer recognized his Russia, now prey to the inevitable violence of history.

King David 1951 oil on canvas, 198 x 133 cm Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

234

235

In 1922 he was forced into exile, as if his destiny as an artist could not fulfil itself except through the bitter experience of a man wrenched from his own country. Chagall’s life was henceforth embodied in the destiny of a painter who literally lived painting, his creation perpetually renewed in the certainty of its own being.

Champ de Mars 1954-1955 oil on canvas, 149.5 x 105 cm Folkwang Museum, Essen

236

237

“To paint. A man has spent his life in painting. And when I say his life understand me. The rest is gesticulation. To paint is his life.” Thus spoke Aragon the poet of Chagall the Admirable. And in fact Chagall painted until his last breath – a lifelong mute dialogue between the canvas and the painter.

Artist at Easel 1955 oil on canvas, 55 x 46 cm private collection

238

The poet’s words here touch on the essential matter. Despite the analyses which nowadays illuminate the painters Judaeo-Russian sources, the formal relationships, inherited or borrowed but always sublime, there is always some share of mystery in Chagall’s art. The mystery perhaps lies in the very nature of his art, which uses the experience of memories.

The Circus 1962 oil on wood, 41 x 53 cm, private collection courtesy Hammer Galleries, New York

240

241

Painting truly is life, and perhaps life is painting. This is emphasized by the author whose conclusions in some ways come close to the opinions of Louis Aragon. The art of Chagall is inscribed in the flow of temporality, in the unfolding of a creative reverie demanding conscious effort for its embodiment.

The Triumph of Music 1967 oil on canvas (wall painting), 11 x 9 cm The Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center, New York

242

The visual logic which arranges the forms on the canvas henceforth obeys other laws than those which govern Euclidean space. No geometric vector defines the space and the plasticity of the latter permits the drawing to express itself in all its suppleness and its spontaneity.

Confidence at Circus 1969 gouache on cardboard, 59.5 x 57 cm private collection

244

It is not without significance that Chagall’s painting summons musical terms from the pen of the critic or the historian. Figures and motifs are perceived as so many sonorous objects, colours as rhythms and lines as melodies, the metaphor closely fits the painting because, like the latter, it brings out the conception of time.

The Sky of Paris 1973 oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm private collection

246

247

Index A A Soldier and a Girl Apollinaire

103 43

Apparition of the Artist’s Family

227

Around Her

225

Artist at Easel

239

B Barbershop Bella with a White Collar Birth of a Child

71 139 25

Birthday

129

By the Window at Night

233

C Champ de Mars Chemist’s Shop in Vitebsk

237 75

Concert in Blue

223

Confidence at Circus

245

Costume Design for Nikolai Gogol’s The Inspector General

167

248

D Dedicated to My Fiancée Double Portrait with a Wineglass

41 147

F Father

81

G Golgotha

55

H Hommage à Apollinaire

49

House in the Village of Liozno

73

I I and the Village

29

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls

173

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls

175

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls

177

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls

179

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls

181

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls

183

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls

185

Illustration to Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls

187

Interior with Flowers

163

249

J Jew Holding the Torah

193

Jew in Green

85

Jew in Prayer

171

Jew in Red

119

Jewish Wedding

23

K Kermis King David

9 235

L Lilies of the Valley

131

Lovers

201

Lovers in Blue

95

Lovers in Green

97

Lovers in Grey

137

Lovers in Pink

135

M Madonna of the Village

219

Man With a Cat and Woman With a Child

105

250

Maternity (Pregnant Woman)

63

My Fiancée in Black Gloves

11

O Old Man and Old Woman

113

On the Road

191

Over the Town

117

Over Vitebsk

89

P Paris Through the Window Peace to Cottages, War on Palaces Portrait of the Artist’s Sister Mariassinka Promenade

65 165 77 199

R Russian Village Under the Moon

39

S Sabbath

17

Le Saoul (The Drinker)

51

Self-Portrait

197

Self-Portrait

87

251

Self-Portrait at the Easel Self-Portrait Self-Portrait with Muse (The Apparition)

141 13 155

Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers

27

Self-Portrait with White Collar

93

Soldiers

59

Soldiers with Bread

111

Soukkot (Rabbi with a Lemon)

189

Still-Life with Lamp

37

Street in the Village

221

Street in Vitebsk

109

Study for “The Rain”

45

T The Acrobat The Artist’s Sister (Mania) The Baby’s Bath

252

205 15 133

The Blue House

157

The Butcher

21

The Cattle Dealer

53

The Cemetery Gates

151

The Circus

241

The Circus Rider

195

The Clock

91

The Cock

203

The Cock in Love

229

The Dacha

161

The Fiddler

61

The Green Violonist

127

The Grey House

145

The House in the Suburbs

115

The Juggler

213

253

The Mirror The Newspaper Vendor The Old Jew The Poet (Half Past Three)

125 83 107 33

The Poet Reclining

123

The Promenade

149

The Red Houses

169

The Revolution

215

The Sky of Paris

247

The Soldier Drinks

57

The Street Sweeper (Janitor with Birds)

79

The Street Sweeper

67

The Triumph of Music The Violonist

243 31

The Vitebsk Preacher

101

The Wall of Lamentations

209

254

The Wedding

159

The Wedding

19

The Yellow Room

35

Time is a River without Banks

207

To My Wife

211

To Russia, Asses and Others

47

V View from the Window, Vitebsk Village Scene in Vitebsk

69 153

W Wall Clock with a Blue Wing

231

Wedding at the Eiffel Tower

217

Window at the Dacha, Zaolshye Near Vitebsk

121

Window Overlooking the Garden

143

Wounded Soldier

99

255