Marc Chagall - The Painter Poet

Zurich and Metz, Reims and Mainz and Chichester and Tudeley, Sarbourg and Jerusalem - the places where they could notify them of particularly beautiful, colorful and completely unusually designed glass windows in church buildings.

This wonderful glass art with biblical motifs was designed in all these cathedrals and synagogues, Münstern and churches by an artist, the wonderful Marc Chagall .

Marc Chagall's poetic, figurative style made him one of the most popular modern artists, while his long life and diverse work made him one of the most internationally recognized artists in modern times. While many of his colleagues pursued ambitious experiments, who often led to abstraction, Chagall's distinction is in his firm belief in the power of figurative art, which he always maintained despite the accommodation of ideas from Fauvism and Cubism.

Profile and important information at a glance

Marc Chagall was a French-Russian painter of Jewish religious affiliation. His original Russian name was мойше хацкелевич шагал / Moische Chazkelewitsch Schagal. The family environment, his home town of Witebsk and motifs from the Bible as well as from the circus are the core topics of his oeuvre.

Born : on July 7, 1887 in Ljosna , Belarus

Died : March 28, 1985 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France

Assigned epoch (s): Expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism

What kind of art / media: paintings, color boards, church and synagogue windows, mosaics, lithographs

Popular motifs / topics: the family environment, his home town of Witebsk and motifs from the Bible as well as from the circus and music

Important works: 

• To my fiancee (1911)
• Self -portrait with seven fingers
• Me and the village (1911)
• The Saints (1912)
• The gates of the cemetery (1917)
• White Crucifixion (1938)
• Grüner Geiger (1924)
• America Windows (1977)
• The three candles (1940)
• Cow with Parasol (1946)
• Bouquet with flying lovers (1947)
• Bella with white collar
• Homage to Apollinaire
• The green violinist
• Stroll
• The circus horse
• Paris through the window
• La Mariée

In which museums / exhibitions:

• Musée National Marc Chagall in Nice, France
• Center Pompidou Metz, France
• Marc Chagall Museum in Witebsk, Russia
• Museum of Modern Art in New York, USA
• Kunsthalle of the Hypo Culture Foundation in Munich, DE
• Art collection North Rhine-Westphalia, DE
• Olaf-Gulbransson Museum on Tegernsee, DE
• Kunsthalle Weishaupt in Ulm, de
• Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, DE
• Buchheim Museum, DE
• Museum Berggruen in Berlin, DE
• Kunstforum Vienna, Austria
• Art Museum Basel, Switzerland

Biography - the early life of Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall is extremely known, but it is still the right artist if you want to find out in a circle of fabulous art lovers in a circle whether one or the other is really familiar. Then just talk about Marc Chagall, the incredible French Expressionist, and wait and see who stops.

Because Marc Chagall is just as little French, as his real name Marc Chagall is, he is a Russian-Jewish origin and was baptized with the much more melodic name Moshe Segal, which was russied in his papers too Moische Chazkelewitsch Schagalow or Moishe Zakharovich Shagalov. His date of birth is often given incorrectly, after the Julian calendar, which was then used in Russia, the artist was born on June 24, 1887.

The converted date in the Gregorian calendar in the 19th century would be July 6th and only from 1900 July 7th, whoever claims that Chagall would be born on July 7, 1887 is wrong after both calendars (Chagall himself doubted that his parents had correctly stated that he had correctly stated that he was only freed from the military service).

However, many really fogged art lovers will get shiny eyes if they show interest in the work of one of the most famous artists of the 20th century , because not only his church windows fascinate.

Moshe Segal was born in Peskovatics, a suburb of Vitebsk, which was then in the Russian Empire and is now a Belarus. Vitebsk populated about half of Jewish Orthodox inhabitants such as Chagall's parents, who belonged to the working class and had to raise nine siblings apart from him. They knew how to eat well, the father worked in herring fishing, the mother led a small grocery store.

Chagall's parents also performed extraordinary in the upbringing: even in the Cheder, the Jewish religious school, Chagall had difficulties due to his stuttering. The father gave him language -promoting singing lessons at home, the mother embarked on the teacher so that Moshe could attend the city school. Usually no Jews were recorded there, only in this way Chagall was able to learn the Russian language to the Yiddish. He could now also take violin lessons and start drawing.

Artistic training

After completing the community school, he became a student in 1906 in the studio of the important painter Jehuda Pen , who had studied at the Petersburg Art Academy. In 1906, Chagall began studying Yehuda Pen, who headed a purely Jewish, exclusive facility for painting and drawing students in Witebsk. Although he was grateful for free academic training, Chagall left the facility again after a few months.

Chagall now went to Saint Petersburg with a friend to finally be trained as an artist at various schools. Among other things, he visits the imperial art academy of the capital and various private schools and got to know the Russian-French painter Léon Bakst, who made him known with the current currents in painting and raved about the great resonance that received Russian art in Paris.

Career and climb as an artist

1906 - 1910 (Russian Empire)

Between 1908 and 1910, the painter Chagall studied at the Zvantseva School of Drawing and Painting under Léon Bakst, a decorative artist who was known and also known as the designer of stage costumes for the Ballets Russes. During these years in Saint Petersburg, he also met unconventional pieces and works by painters like Paul Gauguin .

During this time, Chagall visited Witebsk at home, where his future wife Bella Rosenfeld model stood (one of the first of these attempts in the act painting discovered the horrified mother, Chagall then painted him over, he called this picture slightly mockingly "funeral").

Chagall later raved about his first encounter with her: "Her rest is also mine, her eyes are also those who think. It is as if she knew everything about my past, my present and my future as if she could look through me."

At that time he already made some sensational works, including his famous black and white picture "The Dead" (Le Mort) comes from this period.

1910 - 1914 (France)

So he was able to sell the first pictures, with the proceeds and a small scholarship from a patron, Chagall was able to break down to Paris in September 1910.

He took his own studio in Montparnasse , full of hope for the support of the Russian artists living in Paris, Wassili Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky and Jacques Lipchitz, for example. At first with little success, only in his winter 1911/1912 studio in the artist settlement “La Ruche” he sat in the middle of the artistic avant -garde of Paris and met sought -after painters such as Robert Delaunay, Amedeo Modigliani, Fernand Léger and Albert Gleizes.

He was soon friends with the poets Max Jacob, Guillaume Apollinaire and Blaise Cendrars, and his new studio was larger and allowed larger image formats.

From this time, Chagall's nickname “Malerpoet” , when his friends called him “Le Poète”, called him the Paris nickname “La Ville Lumière” (the Lichtadt) in “La Lumière-Liberté” (the light of freedom), Chagall thought less poetic as a freedom: In his conflicted homeland, he needed z. B. as a Jew a residence permit for the capital of his homeland!

Chagall enjoyed this freedom and looked at the paintings as many known artists as possible when he returned from his museum visits and walks to the studio in the evening, the experiences of the day full of imagination were designed in pictures.

Chagall was soon allowed to take part in the first Paris art exhibitions, in these “salons” he met the color explosions of the fauvists and the abstract constructions of the cubists who inspired him. After the first cubist attempts, Chagall was now able to develop a first form of his own, even if his work was "devoted to my bride" as pornographically, Chagall was approved in 1912 on the important Paris spring salon.

At that time, his pictures were already titled by Apollinaire as a “surnaturel”. It was only 10 years later that one spoke of “Surreal” and a new art movement, “surrealism” . Chagall now used the gouache (covered with water on paper) as a preferred representation, with which he was able to hold all of his spontaneous improvisations inexpensive. In his four Paris years, Chagall painted hundreds of Gouachen and only about 40 canvas pictures that were reserved for planned works.

Berlin art dealer Herwarth Walden through Apollinaire , who took him to the first autumn salon in Berlin. In 1914, Walden organized the first solo exhibition of Chagall in his Berlin gallery “Der Sturm”. When the artist visited his family and his fiance on the way to the vernissage to Berlin in Witebsk, the First World War out, the borders were closed and a return to Paris was impossible.

1914 - 1922 (Soviet Belarus)

Chagall first married and moved with his wife Bella to the capital, which was now called Petrograd in 1915, where the daughter Ida was born in 1916. Instead of military service, he worked in a office for war economy and researched the new art in Russia, exhibited in Moscow in 1916 and painted pictures characterized by the war experiences .

The artistic imagination seemed to have remained in Paris, soldiers, family, street scenes and landscape provided the motifs until Chagall was captured by the revolutionary upheaval in Russia. He wanted to participate, with the conception of an art school in Witebsk, which he was able to found in 1918 for the "beautiful arts" in the Witebsk Governor in 1919.

He was able to bring various artists from the Russian avant-garde (e.g. Kasimir Malewitsch, El Lissitzky, Iwan Albertowitsch Puni) to Witebsk, where they did not suffer the hunger like in the rest of Russia, also organized Chagall exhibitions and took care of the new and reopened of museums.

A dispute with Malewitsch, which presented the direction of the new Russian art with his picture “black square on white background”, led to Chagall's resignation from the management of the art academy in 1920. Chagall's colorful and imaginative art did not fit into such a view of a “pure painting” and he himself no longer fit into the official ideology, after a barren time in and around Moscow, Chagall broke up to Berlin in 1922.

In the meantime, Walden had sold the pictures left behind by Chagall in Berlin and paid the proceeds into an account, but because of inflation in Germany, this was not a financial security for the Chagall family, but a worthless credit.

1923 - 1941 (France)

So Chagall went to Paris with his family in 1923, where he received the order from the publisher Ambroise Vollard "the dead souls" by Nikolai Gogol , 96 etchings were created until 1927. Now a highly productive period began, Chagall painted the lost pictures and received another illustration order from Vollard (the fables of Jean de la Fontaines), who employed him until 1931, in 1926 his first exhibition took place in New York, a contract with art dealer Bernheim now freed the family from all financial worries.

Many trips followed, to the south of France, to Palestine to prepare Bible illustrations for Vollard (which should edit Chagall from 1931 to 1939 and 1952 to 1956) to the Netherlands. first major chagall retrospective took place in the Kunsthalle of Basel .

Very early on, the sensitive artist feels the threat to the Jewish world from the Third Rich, and this incredible artist can only escape the horror of stupidity of Germany at the time in many turmoils and dangers that have a few pictures of this time paralyzed creativity express his horror.

1941 - 1948 (United States)

After a rabbit through Italy and France, the Chagall family is saved by emigration to America , where they arrive on June 23, 1941.

In New York, Chagall meets friends like Breton, Léger, Mondrian and Masson, who could emigrate before him.

At first, he can do some more optimistic work, stage sets and ballet costumes for a ballet on the music of Tchaikovsky, which is premiered in Mexico City, the European war events continue to employ it and is reflected in some famous images, such as "The War" or "The Crucification in Gelb". When his wife Bella died of a viral infection in 1944, Chagall falls into depression, he is unable to paint for months. In 1945 he began a new relationship with Virginia Haggard McNeil, from which Chagall's son David McNeil emerged in 1946, and he was now gradually starting to paint.

In the same year he equipped Stravinsky's “The Firebird” for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in 1946 a Chagall retrospective joined in the Museum of Modern Art . In 1946 Chagall apparently returned from exile to his creative homeland in Paris, but also longs for his new home, where he had now moved into a new studio in a small village in the Catskill Mountains (in northern New York).

1948 - 1985 (France)

It goes back and forth several times between the old and the new world, in 1947 Chagall has exhibitions in Paris, Amsterdam and London, in 1948 Chagall and Virginia decide to settle with the children in France.

Chagall has been living in Saint-Jean-Cap Ferrat on the Côte d'Azur , followed by exhibitions and prices in Europe, Chagall published lithographs and manufactures wall paintings and deals with ceramics for the first time, a large retrospective exhibition in the Zurich Kunsthaus in 1950. He separates from Virginia and married the Russian Walentina Brodsky (“Wawa”) in July 1952, a strengthening for his creative power.

With her he undertakes trips to Greece to edit new lithographic orders, in the 1950s the La Fontaine fables appeared with his illustrations, in 1957 the Bible illustrations that were processed for so long, followed in 1961 "Daphnis and Chloe". Chagall dedicates Paris, his “second Witebsk”, a number of pictures, exhibits in Germany and Switzerland, opened in Haifa (Israel) in 1957 and gives lectures in Chicago and Brussels. During this time there is also the beginning of his work on church glass windows , the designs for the windows of the Metz cathedral were created in 1958.

Chagall, which has already been over 70, is now admired all over the world, he is appointed an honorary member of art academies, honorary doctor and honorary citizen and invited several times to documenta , many retrospectives worldwide are taking place all over the world and many other church fathers want to see their cathedral or synagogues with glass windows from Chagall, who is equipped with a new, unique bloom brings.

In 1963 Chagall was selected to decorate the new ceiling of the Paris Opera. That was a great honor, after all, it was a magnificent 19th century building and a historical place. France's Minister of Culture wanted something unique and his choice for the executing artist fell on Chagall.

However, the choice of the artist was not undisputed and triggered a violent debate: First, the fact that a Russian Jew decorated a French symbol, the stone of the kick -off. On the other hand, critics became sound, who would have liked to prevent a contemporary artist painted the ceiling of the historical building.

Despite all resistance, Chagall held on the monumental task, the completion of which lasted one year. After the announcement of the new ceiling, "even the biggest opponents of the order seemed to fall silent". At that time he also created the great peace window (1967) at the UN main seat in New York.

Until his death, he died in France in March 1985 at almost 98, Chagall was in demand and busy and continued to receive further honors. In its multi -layered life, the painter poet personally experienced the great hopes and the devastating disappointments of the Russian revolution, as well as the almost complete wreath of European Judaism and the total annihilation of its hometown.

Chagall's last painting was an order for the rehabilitation institute of Chicago . The painting with the name Job (1985) was completed, but Chagall died shortly before the wall carpet was completed.

The love for his diverse work - whether it is mosaics, lithographs, glass windows, paintings or other forms of expression - has never been subsided since then.

Marc Chagall's artistic style features

One of his best -known quotes is: "Should I paint the earth, the sky, my heart? The cities burn the burning, my brothers flee? My eyes tear. Where should I run and flee, to whom?". This reflects his search for identity, inspiration and meaningfulness in his work.

Chagall worked at various times of his career in many radical modernist styles, including cubism, suprematism and surrealism, which may encourage him to work in a completely abstract style. But he rejected each of them one after the other and remained committed to the figurative and narrative art , which made him one of the most prominent representatives of the more traditional approach of modernity .

Chagall's Jewish identity was important to him all his life, and many of his work can be described as an attempt to reconcile old Jewish traditions with styles of modernist art . Occasionally, however, he also used Christian topics , which appealed to his taste for narrative and allegory .

In the 1920s, Chagall was referred to by the aspiring surrealists as a related spirit, and although he made bonds with them, he ultimately rejected their rather conceptual topics. Nevertheless, almost all works of Chagall a dream -like quality; As the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire once said, Chagall's work is "supernatural" .

"Fantasy", "fantastic" and "surreal" are among the frequently used terms in the immediate vicinity of Chagall's various murals, colored glass windows, paintings and works of art in general. Although critics question his work because of their lack of "realism", many indulge in the visual attraction of their pieces because of the visual poetry that they cause them.

But pictures of flying fish, angels, cows, horses, various animals and lovers on the water seem to be representations of something else, and a large part of his art seems permeated with symbolism .

Chagall once noticed:

"If a symbol was to be discovered in one of my paintings, this was not my intention. It is something that can be found later and which can be interpreted according to taste."

Topics, symbolism and allegory in Chagall's works

Regardless of these reactions, people have passed to assign "symbols" their corresponding importance in his paintings.

Politically religious topics

Presentation and symbolism are perhaps most clearly in Chagall's fascinating and controversial painting "White Crucifixion" from 1938, which in 1943 followed a similar painting called "Yellow Crucifixion" , in which his talent to integrate various elements and colors, as well as his preference for the religious, from his Jewish-Belarusian roots.

Interpretation in relation to both works indicate that the paintings of Chagall's reactions to the Stalin regime, the cleaning of the Jews during the Nazi era and the fact that the person of Jesus is mainly in abundance that is unable to free Jewish people from their suffering.

Apart from the obvious and undisguised representation of Jesus on the cross, elements of Jewish tribulation exist in the form of the Thora role, Jewish candlestick, burning communities, displaced families and an angel that ironically seems to deliver a message of peace and hope.

Home Witebsk

His early pictures often come from Witebsk, the region in which he was born and grew up. They are faithful to nature and convey the feeling of direct experience, often accompanied by a visually impressive picture. Some of these works of art are snow, winter in Witebsk (1911) and Death (1911) .

In his past few years, the topics have become more and more melodramatic. He did not try to present the truth in a realistic form, but instead created his own ambience through fiction and surrealism.

However, it was the pictures and memories of his childhood in Belarus, which inspired his creativity for more than 70 years. Certain features in his paintings have remained constant and visible during his entire work. One of them was the selection of the topics and the way he represented them.

Self -portrait with seven fingers

Another visually fascinating painting by Chagall was his self -portrait, in which he represents himself with seven fingers on his left hand. This could perhaps be attributed to the fact that, despite the involvement of his own style, Chagall decides to deal with various art forms and to include the special beliefs in the forms mentioned. How Chagall is cited: "I work in every medium that I like."

Horses

Horses that are closely described as a symbol of freedom are plentiful "The Flying Carriage", "Circus", "I and the Village"

Churches and biblical motifs

Here, too, the religious undertones take shape in the literal representations of faith and religion. Church structures are shown in the raw and typical nature of a house with a cross on the roof. Churches are presented in his various works on canvases, glass windows, wall paintings and other works.

The circus

Apart from the literal representation of a circus and carnival scene in its painting "Circus", all works of Chagall are carried out in a way that seems to combine a circus of elements, colors and ideologies to a visceral art experience.

This is a Giclée in a limited edition of Marc Chagall entitled "Dance and the Circus". An auction took place on Catawiki. Further art auctions for Marc Chagall can be found here:

• Art prints on Catawiki
• Marc Chagall - originals on Artnet

Limited reproductions in museum quality of important works by the surrealistic painter can be found at a fraction of the price for originals at Ars Mundi .

The preoccupation with the actual statement of his symbolically richly decorated work could still occupy generations of art theorists.

Comprehensive work show

Works of art by Marc Chagall in our Pinterest Collection

Browse through hundreds of his works - many of them as limited lithograph, high -quality Giclée print or even in the original

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The good -hearted cheerfulness and friendliness of most of his pictures ( Der Spiegel, 13/1959 ), which has preserved an artist who has walked through the hell of National Socialism, can certainly upset some people who have been certified. You can discover cows on roofs in the middle of a bouquet of flower, but also just enjoy the delightful works of art, in which winged fish play violin, cows on roofs and you can also enjoy a tiny bouquet.

In the following video you can see a presentation of some of his works on the wonderful music of Pachelbels Canon: