Marc Chagall's I and the Village is one of his earliest surviving works and demonstrates many of the fundamental qualities for which his paintings are known. In this article, Singulart discusses the life and way of Marc Chagall, in add-on to the meaning behind I and the Hamlet.

Who was Marc Chagall?

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) was a Russian-French artist and a renowned fellow member of European Early Modernism. He was born into a Lithuanian Jewish Hassidic family virtually the city of Vitebsk, when Belarus was withal role of the Russian Empire. At this time, Jewish children were not allowed to attend regular schools and their freedom was heavily restricted. Thus Chagall was educated at the local Jewish main school until his mother bribed a regular high schoolhouse into accepting him. Despite the doubts of his family unit and the odds stacked against Jewish artists at the time, Chagall pursued his desire to become a painter.

In 1906, he moved to Saint petersburg, obtaining a passport through a friend as was necessary for Jews at the fourth dimension, and he studied at a prestigious art school for two years. He so went on to study under the artist Leon Bakst at the Zvantseva school of cartoon and painting until 1910. It was during this time that Chagall began to notice the works of the European Avant Garde, such every bit Paul Gauguin. In the aforementioned year, he moved to Paris in the hopes of developing his artistic fashion. While in Paris, Chagall immersed himself in the artistic hub of the fourth dimension, becoming friends with other artists and creatives such every bit Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay and Fernand Leger, enrolling to study in an avant-garde fine art schoolhouse and spending the remainder of his time visiting galleries, salons and the Louvre. Information technology was during this time that he began to develop a selection of his core motifs including floating figures, large fiddlers dancing on pocket-sized dolls houses and farm animals.

Marc Chagall and his married woman, Bella

In 1914, Chagall accustomed an invitation to exhibit in Berlin and so decided to go on back to Republic of belarus, in order to marry his fiancée, Bella, planning to return to Paris with her immediately. Nevertheless, the Get-go Globe War broke out and the Russian borders airtight, forcing Chagall to stay. He married Bella a year later on and later on the nascency of their first kid, Ida, he began to exhibit and work in Moscow. Between 1921 and 1923, Chagall worked hard and lived in impoverished conditions with his family unit. In 1923, he returned to France and started a business concern with the French art dealer Ambroise Vollard.

Chagall remained in France until 1941, a menstruum during which he worked prolifically and traveled around France, specifically the Southward, inspired by the landscape that also inspired his contemporaries such equally Picasso and Matisse. Later the outbreak of the Second Globe War, Chagall was saved from the Vichy and Occupied France by the New York Museum of Modern Art'due south initiative, which helped rescue prominent artists in danger during the war and bring them to America. He arrived in New York on June 23rd, 1941 with his wife Bella, the same day Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Wedlock. His daughter Ida and her husband followed and as well sought refuge in the United states. He remained in America until 1947, when he returned to French republic and lived on the Cote d'Azur with many other of the early Modernists. In 1963, Chagall was commissioned by André Malraux, France'due south Government minister of Culture, to pigment the new ceiling of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris.

Chagall'due south frescoes painted in 1964 on the ceiling of the Opéra Garnier

Chagall'due south style

Chagall's unique style is characterized by his combination of influences, from Fauvist and Cubist techniques to Eastern European and Jewish folk art. In particular, he is renowned for his utilise of color, and Picasso is noted to have said: "When Matisse dies, Chagall volition exist the merely painter left who understands what colour really is." He was also described every bit "the quintessential Jewish creative person" although he personally described his work as "not the dream of i people, just of all humanity".

Marc Chagall, The Birthday (1915)
Marc Chagall, The Birthday (1915)

What's happening in I and the Village?

Marc Chagall, I and the Village (1911)
Marc Chagall, I and the Village (1911)

Chagall'southward I and the Village is described equally a narrative self-portrait, as it melds retention, symbolism and imagination to conjure up this dream-similar scene of his childhood town of Vitebsk. The composition tin can exist divided into five sections. The top correct section of the canvas depicts a mural of the town, including a church, a street of houses and two people. Some of the houses and one of the people are upside downward. Beneath this, beyond most of the right side of the canvas is a green-faced man idea to be a self-portrait of Chagall himself. In the center of the foreground is a hand holding a flowering branch, and to the left is an ambiguous, spherical object, thought to be a child's brawl. Finally, in that location is a small depiction of a milkmaid superimposed over the head of a lamb.

I and the Village is ane of Chagall'south primeval surviving works and demonstrates his already highly developed mastery of color. In his subject field thing, he takes inspiration from Surrealism as he combines folkloric elements of symbolism with his imagination and memory to create this dream-like, ethereal scene. The inspiration of Cubism on Chagall is likewise clear in his composition of I and the Hamlet. His disregard for perspective is axiomatic, equally the elements seem to float, overlap and reverse. The combination of Eastern European subject matter, focusing on Chagall'southward personal life, and the influence of Western European modern painting, is axiomatic in I and the Village and is characteristic of Chagall's entire oeuvre.

Desire to see more artworks in a similar style? Discover Singulart'southward Inspired by Marc Chagall Collection.

  • Le vent de la plaine
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