Marc Chagall

Born: July 7, 1887
Vitebsk, Russia
Died: March 28, 1985
Maritimes, France
Russian painter and artist

Russian painter Marc Chagall was one of the great masters of the School of Paris. He was also praised as an influence on surrealism, a twentieth-century artistic movement that expressed the subconscious in wild imagery.

An inspired childhood

Marc Chagall was born Moishe Shagal on July 7, 1887, in Vitebsk, Russia, to a poor Jewish family that included ten children. His father, Zakhar Chagall, worked in a fish factory and his mother, Ida Chagall, worked in the family home and ran a grocery store. The years of his childhood, the family circle, and his native village became the main themes of his art. These first impressions lingered in his mind like original images and were transformed into paintings with such titles as the Candlestick with the Burning Lights, the Cow and Fish Playing the Violin, the Man Meditating on the Scriptures, the Fiddler on the Roof, and I and My Village. According to French poet and critic André Breton (1896–1966), with Chagall "the metaphor [comparison of images] made its triumphant return into modern painting." And it has been said that Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) was a triumph of the mind, but Chagall was the glory of the heart.

Chagall received early schooling from a teacher friend who lived nearby. He then attended the town school, but he only did well in geometry. He became an apprentice (a person who works for another in order to learn a profession) to a photographer but did not like the work. He then decided that he wanted to become an artist and talked his parents into paying for art lessons. He began his artistic instruction under the direction of a painter in Vitebsk. In 1907 he moved to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he attended the school of the Imperial Society for the Protection of the Arts and studied briefly with famed Russian painter Leon Bakst (1866–1924). These were difficult years for Chagall. He was extremely poor and was unable to support himself with his artwork. He took a job as a servant and also learned how to paint signs. In Bakst's studio he had his first contact with the modern movement that was sweeping Paris, and it freed his inner resources. His pictures of this early period are pleasant images of his childhood.

With some help from a patron (someone who supported him financially), Chagall went to Paris in 1910. The poets Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961), Max Jacob (1876–1944), and Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), and the painters Roger de La Fresnaye (1885–1925), Robert Delaunay (1885–1941), and Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) became his friends. Chagall participated in the art showings at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne in 1912, but it was his first one-man show in Herwarth Walden's Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin, Germany, which established him internationally as a leading artist.

Travels inspired new works

Chagall lived in Russia for the duration of World War I (1914–18). During the Russian Revolution (the uprising to overthrow the government of the czar [Russian king] in 1917) he was made a commissar (an official) for art, but he resigned in 1919 after a clash with the suprematist painters (Russian artists that used nonobjective art and basic geometric shapes). In 1922 Chagall left Russia for good, going to Berlin, Germany and then back to Paris. The art dealer Ambroise Vollard (1865–1939) commissioned (hired) him to illustrate Nikolay Gogol's (1809–1852) "Dead Souls" (ninety-six etchings) in 1923 and "La Fontaine's Fables" (one hundred etchings) in 1927.

A journey to Palestine and Syria in 1931 gave Chagall firsthand knowledge of the land, which he represented in his illustrations for the Bible (1931–1939 and 1952–1956). He is considered the greatest interpreter of the Bible since Rembrandt (1606–1669). He used biblical themes in paintings, graphic works, and stained glass (two windows for the Cathedral in Metz, France, 1960 and 1962; twelve windows for the medical center in Jerusalem, 1961). Chagall started a new series of large paintings, the "Biblical Message," in 1963.

Chagall traveled throughout France and elsewhere from 1932 to 1941, when he settled in the United States, where he remained until 1947. He designed the sets and costumes for the ballets Aleko (1942) and The Firebird (1945). Bella, his beloved wife, inspiration, and model, whom he had married in 1915, died in 1944.

In 1948, the year after Chagall returned to France, he started Arabian Nights, a series of lithographs (prints created by a printing process using stone or metal plates that have been treated so that the image to be printed picks up the ink and the blank area does not). He began working in ceramics in 1950 and made his first sculptures the following year. In 1952 he married Valentina "Vava" Brodsky. His famous "Paris" series, a sequence of fantastic scenes set against the background of views of the city, was created between 1953 and 1956.

Chagall continued to create great artworks throughout the later years of his life. In the 1960s and 1970s, his stained glass art appeared in such buildings as the United Nations (UN) in New York City. In 1973 a museum of his works was opened in Nice, France. In 1977, the Louvre, a world-famous art museum in Paris, exhibited sixty-two of his paintings, an extremely rare event for a living artist. Chagall died at the age of ninety-seven in 1985.

For More Information

Alexander, Sidney. Marc Chagall: A Biography. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1978.

Baal-Teshuva. Jacob, Marc Chagall 1887–1985. New York: Random, 1998.

Chagall, Marc. My Life. New York: Orion Press, 1960. Reprint, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall (1887-1985), Russian painter, was one of the great masters of the School of Paris and was also acclaimed as a forerunner of surrealism.

Marc Chagall was born Moishe Shagal on July 7, 1887, in Vitebsk to a poor Jewish family. The years of his childhood, the family circle, and his native village became the main themes of his art. These first impressions lingered in his mind like primeval images and were transformed into paintings with such titles as the Candlestick with the Burning Lights, the Cow and Fish Playing the Violin, the Man Meditating on the Scriptures, the Fiddler on the Roof, and I and My Village. According to André Breton, with Chagall "the metaphor made its triumphant return into modern painting." And it has been said that Pablo Picasso was a triumph of the mind but Chagall was the glory of the heart.

In 1907 he moved to St. Petersburg, where he attended the school of the imperial Society for the Protection of the Arts and studied briefly with Leon Bakst. These were years of hardship and poverty for Chagall. In Bakst's studio he had his first contact with the modern movement which was sweeping Paris, and it liberated his inner resources. His pictures of this early period are lyrical evocations of his childhood.

With some help from a patron, Chagall went to Paris in 1910. The avant-garde poets Blaise Cendrars, Max Jacob, and Guillaume Apollinaire and the painters Roger de La Fresnaye, Robert Delaunay, and Amedeo Modigliani became his friends. Chagall participated in the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne in 1912, but it was his first one-man show in Herwarth Walden's Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin which established him internationally as a leading artist.

Travels Inspired New Works

Chagall spent World War I in Russia. During the Revolution he was made a commissar for art but resigned after a clash with the suprematist painters in 1919. In 1922 left Russia for good, going to Berlin and then back to Paris. The art dealer Ambroise Vollard commissioned him to illustrate Gogol's Dead Souls (96 etchings) in 1923 and La Fontaine's Fables (100 etchings) in 1927.

A journey to Palestine and Syria in 1931 gave Chagall firsthand knowledge of the land, which he depicted in his illustrations for the Bible (1931-1939 and 1952-1956). He was the greatest interpreter of the Bible since Rembrandt, and he used biblical themes in paintings, graphic works, and stained glass (2 windows for the Cathedral in Metz, 1960 and 1962; 12 windows for the medical center in Jerusalem, 1961). Chagall started a new series of large paintings, the "Biblical Message," in 1963.

Chagall traveled extensively in France and elsewhere from 1932 to 1941, when he settled in the United States, where he remained until 1947. He designed the sets and costumes for the ballets Aleko (1942) and The Firebird (1945). Bella, his beloved wife, inspiration, and model, whom he had married in 1915, died in 1944.

In 1948, the year after Chagall returned to France, he started his series of lithographs, Arabian Nights. He began working in ceramics in 1950 and made his first sculptures the following year. He married again in 1952 to Valentina "Vava" Brodsky. His famous "Paris" series, a sequence of fantastic scenes set against the background of views of the city, was created between 1953 and 1956.

Honored for His Work

Chagall continued to create great artworks throughout the later years of his life. In the 1960s and 1970s, his stained glass art appeared in such buildings as the United Nations. In 1973, a museum of his works alone was opened in Nice, France. In 1977, the Louvre exhibited 62 of his paintings, an extremely rare event for a living artist. Chagall died at the age of 97 in 1985.

Further Reading

Alexander, Sidney, Marc Chagall: A Biography G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1978.

Chagall, Marc, My Life Peter Owen, 1965.

Compton, Susann Chagall Harry N. Abrams, 1985. □

Chagall, Marc (1887–1985). Russian-born painter and designer, active mainly in France. He was born in Vitebsk of a deeply religious Jewish family, and trained in St Petersburg, 1906–9 (this included a short period under Bakst). In 1910–14 he lived in Paris, where he was a member of an avant-garde circle including Apollinaire, Delaunay, Léger, Modigliani, and Soutine. After going to Berlin in 1914 for his first one-man show (at the Sturm Gallery) he visited Russia and had to remain because of the outbreak of war. After the Revolution in 1917 he was appointed Fine Arts Commissar for the province of Vitebsk, where he founded and directed an art academy. Malevich was among the other teachers there, and after disagreements with him Chagall moved to Moscow in 1920 and there designed for the newly founded Jewish Theatre. He returned to Paris in 1923 at the invitation of Vollard, who commissioned much work from him, including illustrations for Gogol's Dead Souls, La Fontaine's Fables, and the Bible (eventually published by Tériade in 1948, 1952, and 1956 respectively). In 1941 he moved from occupied France to the USA, where he lived for the next seven years. This period of exile was often painful personally (his first wife died in 1944), but he was honoured as an artist and in 1946 had a retrospective in New York (MOMA) and Chicago (Art Institute). He returned to Paris in 1948 and from 1949 lived near Nice, working to the end of his very long life—the last survivor of the generation of artists who had revolutionized painting in the years leading up to the First World War.

Chagall was prolific as a painter and also as a book illustrator and designer of stained glass (in which he did some of his most impressive late work) and of sets and costumes for the theatre and ballet. His work was dominated by two rich sources of imagery: memories of the Jewish life and folklore of his early years in Russia; and the Bible. He derived some of his spatial dislocations and prismatic colour effects from Cubism and Orphism, but he created a highly distinctive style, remarkable for its sense of fairy-tale fantasy, his figures sometimes floating or hovering in the air. This caused André Breton to claim him as one of the precursors of Surrealism, but Chagall himself stated in his autobiography Ma Vie (1931) that however fanciful and imaginative his pictures appeared, they were based on reality and direct reminiscences of his early years. Often they are specifically autobiographical, as for example The Birthday (MOMA, New York, 1915), showing Chagall's fiancée surprising him with a gift of flowers. There is a museum devoted to Chagall's religious art in Nice. The work there does not always show him at his best, for he could be sentimental and overblown, but his finest paintings have won him an enduring reputation as one of the greatest masters of the École de Paris. At the time of his death, aged 97, a major exhibition of his work was showing at the Royal Academy, London. In the catalogue, Susan Compton writes that ‘There have been few artists this century who have combined such a sensuous enjoyment of the act of painting with such wide-ranging and thought-provoking subject-matter. It is his genius at responding to the age-old comedies and tragedies woven by man into legends and myths which gives Chagall's work in every medium such depth of meaning in addition to its appeal to the eye … he has made reference to very many well-known (and obscure) myths, plays, and even poems—always recreating them for his own ends, just as the great story-tellers have always done.’

Chagall, Marc (b Vitebsk [now Vitsyebsk, Belarus], 7 July 1887; d Saint-Paul-de-Vence, 28 Mar. 1985). Russian-born painter and designer, active mainly in France. In 1910–14 he lived in Paris, where he was a member of an avant-garde circle including Apollinaire, Delaunay, Léger, Modigliani, and Soutine. After going to Berlin in 1914 for his first one-man show (at the Sturm Gallery) he visited Russia and had to remain because of the outbreak of war. Following the Revolution in 1917 he was appointed Fine Arts Commissar for his home province of Vitebsk, where he founded and directed an art academy. Malevich was among the other teachers there, and after disagreements with him Chagall left in 1920 and moved to Moscow, where he made designs for the newly founded Jewish Theatre. He returned to Paris in 1923 at the invitation of Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned much work from him, including illustrations for Gogol's Dead Souls, La Fontaine's Fables, and the Bible (these were not published until 1948, 1952, and 1956 respectively). In 1937 he became a French citizen, but he was stripped of his new nationality under the anti-Jewish laws passed after the German invasion. He escaped to Spain in 1941 and from there moved to the USA, where he lived for the next seven years. In 1948 he returned to Paris, and from 1949 he lived on the Riviera, near Nice, working to the end of his very long life—the last survivor of the generation of artists who had revolutionized painting in the years leading up to the First World War.

Chagall was prolific as a painter and also as a book illustrator and designer of stained glass (in which he did some of his most impressive late work) and of sets and costumes for the theatre and ballet. His work was dominated by two rich sources of imagery: memories of the Jewish life and folklore of his early years in Russia; and the Bible (he was born into a deeply religious family). He derived some of his spatial dislocations and prismatic colour effects from Cubism and Orphism, but he created a highly distinctive style, remarkable for its sense of fairy-tale fantasy. Because the scenes he depicted made no rational sense, André Breton claimed him as one of the precursors of Surrealism (and it was during the heyday of Surrealism—the 1930s—that his reputation became international), but Chagall himself stated in his autobiography Ma vie (1931) that however fantastic and imaginative his pictures appeared, he painted only direct reminiscences of his early years. Rather than exploring the unconscious mind, he was interested in great timeless themes, such as birth, love, marriage, and death, which he interpreted in his own warm and whimsical way. There is a museum devoted to Chagall's religious art in Nice. The work there does not always show him at his best, for he could be sentimental and overblown, but his finest paintings have won him an enduring reputation as one of the greatest masters of the École de Paris.

Chagall, Marc (1887–1985). Russian-born painter and designer, active mainly in France. In 1910–14 he lived in Paris, where he was a member of an avant-garde circle including Apollinaire, Delaunay, Léger, Modigliani, and Soutine. After going to Berlin in 1914 for his first one-man show (at the Sturm Gallery) he visited Russia and had to remain because of the outbreak of war. Following the Revolution in 1917 he was appointed Fine Arts Commissar for his home province of Vitebsk, where he founded and directed an art academy. Malevich was among the other teachers there, and after disagreements with him Chagall left in 1920 and moved to Moscow, where he made designs for the newly founded Jewish Theatre. He returned to Paris in 1923 at the invitation of Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned much work from him, including illustrations for Gogol's Dead Souls, La Fontaine's Fables, and the Bible (these were not published until 1948, 1952, and 1956 respectively). In 1937 he became a French citizen, but he was stripped of his new nationality under the anti-Jewish laws passed after the German invasion. He escaped to Spain in 1941 and from there moved to the USA, where he lived for the next seven years. In 1948 he returned to Paris, and from 1949 he lived on the Riviera, near Nice, working to the end of his very long life—the last survivor of the generation of artists who had revolutionized painting in the years leading up to the First World War.

Chagall was prolific as a painter and also as a book illustrator and designer of stained glass (in which he did some of his most impressive late work) and of sets and costumes for the theatre and ballet. His work was dominated by two rich sources of imagery: memories of the Jewish life and folklore of his early years in Russia; and the Bible (he was born into a deeply religious family). He derived some of his spatial dislocations and prismatic colour effects from Cubism and Orphism, but he created a highly distinctive style, remarkable for its sense of fairy-tale fantasy. Because the scenes he depicted made no rational sense, André Breton claimed him as one of the precursors of Surrealism (and it was during the heyday of Surrealism—the 1930s—that his reputation became international), but Chagall himself stated in his autobiography Ma vie (1931) that however fantastic and imaginative his pictures appeared, he painted only direct reminiscences of his early years. Rather than exploring the unconscious mind, he was interested in great timeless themes, such as birth, love, marriage, and death, which he interpreted in his own warm and whimsical way. There is a museum devoted to Chagall's religious art in Nice. The work there does not always show him at his best, for he could be sentimental and overblown, but his finest paintings have won him an enduring reputation as one of the greatest masters of the École de Paris.

CHAGALL, MARC

(1887–1985), (Mark Zakharovich Shagal), artist.

Marc Chagall was born in Vitebsk, Russia (now in Belarus), a major center of Jewish culture. In 1906 he attended Yehuda Pen's School of Drawing and Painting in Vitebsk, moving to St. Petersburg the next year. Over the next three years, he attended art classes at Nikolai Roerich's Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and at Savely Zeidenberg's private art academy. He also studied under Mstislav Dobuzhinsky at Elizaveta Zvantseva's art school. In 1910 Chagall left for Paris and settled in the Russian artist colony, La Ruche, in Montmartre. After the opening of his first personal exhibition at the gallery Der Sturm in Berlin in 1914, Chagall made a trip to Russia; the outbreak of World War I made a return to Paris impossible.

Chagall was an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian Revolution and was made the first Commissar for Fine Arts in Vitebsk in 1917. He formed the Vitebsk Popular Art School in 1919 and invited Dobuzhinsky, El Lissitzky, Pen, and Ivan Puni (Jean Pougny) to join the faculty. At the same time, Vera Yermolayeva, also teaching at the school, invited Kazimir Malevich to become a member of the staff. Malevich and his followers formed the Unovis (Affirmers of the New Art) group, devoted to Suprematism and essentially hostile to Chagall's leadership. In 1920, after a power struggle, Chagall resigned his directorship and moved to Moscow, where he worked in the Moscow State Yiddish Theater and the Habimah Theater as a set designer and muralist.

Growing increasingly disenchanted with the turmoil of the new communist state, he left Russia in 1922, immigrating to Berlin. After a year, he returned to Paris to find that many of the paintings he had left there were missing. However, he was still able in 1924 to mount his first major retrospective at the Galerie Barbazanges-Hoderbart. He moved to the United States in 1941, fleeing Nazi occupation, returning in 1948.

See also: kandinsky, vassily vassilievich; malevich, kazimir severinovich

bibliography

Bessonova, Marina. (1988). Chagall Discovered: From Russian and Private Collections. New York: H. L. Levin.

Compton, Susan. (1990). Marc Chagall: My Life, My Dream, Berlin and Paris, 1922–1940. New York: Prestel.

Harshav, Benjamin. (1992). Marc Chagall and the Jewish Theater. New York: The Guggenheim Museum.

Mark Konecny

Chagall, Marc (1887–1985) Russian-French painter, b. Belarus. His paintings, with their dream-like imagery, considerably influenced surrealism. He worked using ceramics, mosaics and tapestry, and in theatre design. He designed stained-glass windows for Hadassah-Hebrew Medical Centre, Jerusalem (1962), murals for the Paris Opéra and the Metropolitan Opera House, New York (1966), and mosaics and tapestries for the Knesset in Jerusalem (1969).

http://www.guggenheimcollection.org; http://www.tate.org.uk; http://www.hadassah.org.il