Birth Year : 1889
Death Year : 1985
Country : Russian Federation
Marc Chagall, the magic Surrealist, was born in Vitebsk, Russia; a tiny
village that is often the subject of his paintings. Although he came from
a large and relatively poor family his parents recognized his talent and
saw that he received art lessons in Vitebsk before going on to St. Petersburg
to study with Leon Bakst, a brilliant designer
of theatrical sets and costumes. It was in St. Petersburg that Chagall
had his first contact with European and French contemporary art. This encouraged
him to go to Paris in 1910. He was soon a member of the large group of
foreign artists living in Montmartre and his circle of friends included
Modigliani, La Fresnaye, and Delaunay,
among others. Almost immediately Chagall began to paint in his own personal
style, using a bright palette and taking his subject matter from childhood
memories. These were at first presented in large Cubist planes that soon
vanished from his compositions. Chagall's first big exhibition was held
in Berlin in 1914 where his color and fantasy influenced postwar German
artists considerably.
Chagall himself spent the war years in Russia
and was appointed Commissar of Fine Arts for the Vitebsk area after the
Russian Revolution of 1917. He left this post after a disagreement with
the Suprematist painter, Malewitsch, and went to Moscow to paint murals
for the Jewish Theatre, finally returning to France in 1922. His reputation
was firmly established by that time and he received commissions to illustrate
several books the most important being the Bible, for which he traveled
to the Holy Land. Chagall spent the years of the Nazi occupation in the
United States and returned to France to settle in 1947. Later in his life
he divided his time between Venice and Paris, painting, designing stained-glass
windows, and giving away his great public works, such as those for the
United Nations, the Jerusalem Synagogue, and the Paris and New York opera
houses. Chagall's painting, with its delicate, undulating line and its
brilliant, varied palette, offers a dream world in which anything delightful
may happen as laws of gravity are overturned, fairy tales come true, and
gentle mystics come to life. His world was a happy mixture of dream and
reality, fantasy and nostalgia, delight in nature and in music, and a genuine
love of humanity.
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Marc
Chagall
Le
Paradis
Marc
Chagall
Three
Candles, The
Marc
Chagall
Lovers
in the Moonlight
Marc
Chagall
Birthday
Marc
Chagall
I
and the Village
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Books about Marc Chagall |
