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Marc Chagall (Марк Захарович Шагал)
(1887-1985)
Marc Chagall was a Russian-born French
painter. Born on July 7, 1887, he came from humble,
Jewish beginnings. At a young age, his mother encouraged
him to pursue his interest in art. She enrolled him in a
St. Petersburg art school. In 1910, he moved to Paris
where he was exposed to Fauvism, which often dealt with
traditional landscapes painted in an untraditional way.
He also experimented a bit with Cubism. In 1912, Chagall
held his first solo exhibition.
Chagall visited Russia two years later. The outbreak of
war kept him from returning to Paris. He settled in
Vitebsk and was appointed Commissioner for Art in 1918.
He then founded the Vitebsk Popular Art School. He
oversaw the school until disagreements with the
Supremists prompted him to resign two years later.
Rain, 1911
Bride With a Fan, 1911
I and the Village, 1911
The Birthday, 1915
In 1923, Chagall truly
found himself artistically while in Paris. Some of the
movements of the time came as a shock to him. Although
he sometimes experimented with them briefly, he
eventually discarded them, opting for his own style, a
style that was imaginative and almost magical,
incorporating bold color schemes.
Chagall was commissioned to produce black and white
etchings and lithography. Although he was new to the
medium, his talent is evident in the tentative
creations. His only frustration was the lack of color
that he felt creatively inhibited him.
Chagall had been commissioned to do many of these
etchings style projects, and although he wholeheartedly
devoted himself to producing excellent work, he felt
that the lack of color was a hindrance on his creative
ability. When he fled to America, he created color
prints. Thirteen lithographs were published in 1948, a
brilliant achievement for someone so new to the medium.
As his career evolved, Chagall found his niche in
lithography. Many of his lithographs are still sold
today. They often have similar features. Although bold
in color and abstract, they are quite different from a
Picasso creation. Henri Deschamps who printed some of
Chagall’s lithographs said that he didn’t think it was
possible for Chagall to paint like Picasso because being Jewish, he saw things in a different light because of his
origin.
Chagall’s paintings are much softer and never harsh like
many of Picasso's. There is an underlying lyrical
quality to the lithographs.
Chagall found color lithography to be the ideal medium
for his art. Color is splashed through his work with
waves of intensity. From subtle bursts of color to
solid, dark splashes, the lithographs are eye-catching
and vivid. As Chagall embraced his medium of choice, he
created over 1,000 color and black and white
lithographs.
When looking back on his body of work, each piece has
something in common. These magical creations are rich in
color and defy the conventions of our everyday world.
The Juggler, 1943
Violinist Blue
Marc Chagall will
always be known as one of the most popular artists of
his century. He challenged the themes of science and
reason by luring his viewers in through brilliant color
and abstract representations of his subject matter. The
fact that Chagall hated being labeled as falling under
one particular art movement is evident in his art, which
seems to have a genre of its own.
