How Mark Shagal died. Marc Chagall

Chagall Mark Zakharovich (1887-1985) is an artist of Jewish origin who worked in Russia and France. He was engaged in painting, graphics, scenography, and was fond of writing poetry in Yiddish. He is a prominent representative of avant-garde art in the twentieth century.

Childhood and adolescence

Marc Chagall's real name is Moses. He was born on July 6, 1887 on the outskirts of the city of Vitebsk (now it is the Republic of Belarus, and at that time the Vitebsk province belonged to the Russian Empire). He was the first child in the family.

Father, Chagall Khatskel Mordukhovich (Davidovich), worked as a clerk. Mother, Feygi-Ita Mendelevna Chernina, was involved in housekeeping and raising children. Father and mother were first cousins. Mark had five more younger sisters and a brother.

Mark spent most of his childhood with his grandparents. He received his primary education, as was customary among Jews, at home. At the age of 11, Chagall became a student of the 1st Vitebsk four-year school. Since 1906, he studied painting with the Vitebsk artist Yudel Pan, who ran his own school of fine arts.

Petersburg

Mark really wanted to study further in the fine arts, he asked his father to give him money to study in St. Petersburg. He tossed 27 rubles to his son, poured himself some tea and, smugly sipping, said that he didn’t have any more and he wouldn’t send him another penny.

In St. Petersburg, Mark began studying at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, where he studied for two seasons. This school was led by the Russian artist Nicholas Roerich; Chagall was accepted into the third year without passing exams.

After the Drawing School, he continued to study painting at a private school. Two of his Vitebsk friends also studied in St. Petersburg, thanks to them Mark became included in the circle of young intellectuals, poets and artists. Chagall lived very poorly; he had to earn a living day and night by working as a retoucher.

Here in St. Petersburg, Chagall painted his first two famous paintings, “Death” and “Birth.” And Mark also had his first admirer of creativity - the then famous lawyer and State Duma deputy M.M. Vinaver. He purchased two canvases from the aspiring artist and gave him a scholarship for a trip to Europe.

Paris

So in 1911, with the scholarship he received, Mark was able to travel to Paris, where he became acquainted with the avant-garde work of European poets and artists. Chagall fell in love with this city immediately; he called Paris the second Vitebsk.

During this period, despite the brightness and uniqueness of his work, a thin thread of Picasso’s influence is felt in Mark’s paintings. Chagall's works began to be exhibited in Paris, and in 1914 his personal exhibition was to take place in Berlin. Before such a significant event in the artist’s life, Mark decided to go on vacation to Vitebsk, especially since his sister was just getting married. He went for three months, but stayed for 10 years; everything was turned upside down by the outbreak of the First World War.

Life in Russia

In 1915, Mark was an employee of the military-industrial committee of St. Petersburg. In 1916 he worked for the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of the Arts. After 1917, Chagall left for Vitebsk, where he was appointed to the post of authorized commissariat for arts affairs in the Vitebsk province.

In 1919, Mark contributed to the opening of an art school in Vitebsk.

In 1920, the artist moved to Moscow, where he got a job at the Jewish Chamber Theater. He was an artistic designer, first Mark painted the walls in the lobby and auditoriums, then he made sketches of stage costumes and scenery.

In 1921, he got a job at a Jewish labor school-colony for street children, which was located in Malakhovka. Mark worked there as a teacher.

All this time he did not stop creating, and from under his brush came the following world-famous canvases:

• "Me and my village";
• "Calvary";
• "Birthday";
• "Walk";
• "Above the city";
• "White Crucifix".

Life abroad

In 1922, Chagall emigrated from Russia with his wife and daughter; first they went to Lithuania, then to Germany. In 1923, the family moved to Paris, where 14 years later the artist was given French citizenship.

During World War II, at the invitation of the American Museum of Modern Art, he left for the United States away from Nazi-occupied France; he returned to Europe only in 1947.

In 1960, the artist was awarded the Erasmus Prize.

From the mid-60s, Chagall became interested in mosaics and stained glass, sculpture, tapestries, and ceramics. He painted the parliament of Jerusalem and the Paris Grand Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the National Bank in Chicago.

In 1973, Mark came to the USSR, where he visited Moscow and Leningrad, his exhibition took place at the Tretyakov Gallery, and he donated several of his works to the gallery.

In 1977, Chagall received the highest French award, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. In the year of Chagall's 90th birthday, an exhibition of his works was held at the Louvre.
Mark died in France on March 28, 1985, where he was buried in the cemetery of the Provençal town of Saint-Paul-de-Vence.

Personal life

In 1909, in Vitebsk, Chagall's friend Thea Brakhman introduced him to her friend Bertha Rosenfeld. In the very first second of meeting him, he realized that this girl was everything to him - his eyes, his soul. He was immediately sure that this was his wife. He affectionately called her Bella, she became his one and only muse. From the day they met, the theme of love occupied a central place in Chagall’s work. Bella's features can be recognized in almost all the women depicted by the artist.

They got married in 1915, and the following year, 1916, their baby Ida was born.

Bella was the main love in his life, after her death in 1944, he forbade everyone to talk about her in the past tense, as if she had gone out somewhere and would now return.

Chagall's second wife was Virginia McNeill-Haggard, she gave birth to the artist's son David. But in 1950 they separated.

In 1952, Mark married for the third time. His wife Vava, Valentina Brodskaya, owned a fashion salon in London.

Chagall did not pick up a brush for 9 months. Only thanks to the attention and care of his daughter Ida, he gradually returns to life.

They took Bella's manuscripts as the basis for a collection of her memoirs called “Burning Lights”: Chagall created 68 illustrations, and Ida translated from Yiddish.

Virginia Haggard in the life of Chagall

In the summer of 1945, Ida decided to hire a nurse to care for her father. This is how Virginia Haggard appeared in Chagall's life. Outwardly, she reminded Mark Bella. A romance broke out between them, which gave Mark a son.

Chagall took on the project “Firebird” by Igor Stravinsky. He designed the curtain, created three sets and more than 80 costumes for the ballet. The premiere was a triumph. American critics received the artist with a bang.

In 1946, Chagall and Virginia moved into a new home in northeastern New York, where their son David was born. A year later, the artist’s new family went to France.

Numerous exhibitions of Chagall's works were held throughout the world. Mark sees that he is remembered and loved. He settles on the Cote d'Azur in Saint-Paul-de-Vence near Nice.

In the 50-60s of the twentieth century, Chagall's field of activity expanded. He receives numerous commissions for monumental painting, book illustrations, sculptures, ceramics, stained glass, tapestries and mosaics.

In 1951, Virginia left Chagall. Taking her son with her, she moves in with a photographer, with whom the affair has lasted for the last two years.

Marc Chagall was left alone again. After Virginia leaves, biblical scenes again appear on his canvases, as during the Second World War.

In the spring of 1952, the artist met Valentina Brodskaya, or Vava, as her friends and relatives called her. Very soon, on July 12 of the same year, they became husband and wife.

Life with Valentina Brodskaya

In the years when Vava entered Chagall’s life, the artist’s work reached the peak of recognition. The price of his paintings is skyrocketing. Large collectors are eager to get their hands on them. Even in the restaurants where he and Vava often went to dine, there was a hunt for Chagall’s drawings. He always had 2-3 pencils and pastels with him. While waiting for an order, he often drew on napkins and tablecloths. These "unconscious" creations cost hundreds and even thousands of francs.

Marc Chagall was in third place in the list of the most expensive masters of French painting (the first place was occupied by Picasso, the second by Matisse).

Chagall managed to become one of the few artists who worked on religious themes of various faiths. His hand belongs to the authorship of the stained glass windows of the Catholic Cathedral in Mezza, the Protestant church in Zurich, and the synagogue in Jerusalem. His paintings can be seen in the collections of Arab sheikhs.

In 1964, the French Minister of Culture commissioned the artist to paint the ceiling of the citadel of French culture, the Paris Opera. On the ceiling, the artist depicted the silhouettes of two cities - Paris and Vitebsk, forever connecting them with an indissoluble ring of painting.

In 1975, he wrote many large works on biblical and spiritual themes: “Don Quixote”, “The Fall of Icarus”, “Job”, “Prodigal Son”.

Marc Chagall spent his entire life drawing flying people. On the canvas of one of the most famous paintings - “Lovers over the city” - he soars over his beloved Vitebsk together with Bella.

Fate decreed that Mark died in flight. On March 28, 1985, 98-year-old Chagall boarded the elevator to go to the second floor of his chateau in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. During the ascent, his heart stopped.

Marc Chagall: “So that my painting glows with joy...”

Art critic Irina Yazykova explains why the work of an avant-garde artist is a biblical message

Three countries call the famous avant-garde artist “theirs” - Russia, France and Israel. Marc Chagall, a Jew by origin, was born in the then Russian Vitebsk and met his muse and main love there. He studied in St. Petersburg and Paris, in post-revolutionary Russia he prepared sketches of scenery for performances and designed the Jewish Chamber Theater. But Marc Chagall became a world celebrity in France, where he emigrated with his family in 1922.

Chagall's works include not only paintings. The artist illustrated “Dead Souls” by Gogol, “Fables” by La Fontaine, the collection of stories “A Thousand and One Nights” and the Bible in French. The Chagall Museum in Nice is called “The Biblical Message”.

Marc Chagall was also a master of monumental art: he made mosaics, stained glass, sculptures, and ceramics. He designed many Catholic and Lutheran churches and synagogues in Europe, the USA and Israel.

On the occasion of the 130th anniversary of the artist’s birth, art critic Irina Yazykova explains why the work of Marc Chagall cannot be perceived without a religious context, and talks about the main works with a biblical plot.

Irina Yazykova

From my early youth I was fascinated by the Bible. It always seemed to me, and it seems now, that this book is the greatest source of poetry of all time. For a long time I have been looking for its reflection in life and art. The Bible is like nature, and this is the mystery I am trying to convey.

- Marc Chagall, catalog for the opening of the Biblical Message Museum in Nice

Many art historians view Marc Chagall simply as one of the modernist artists of the 20th century. Some consider him a successor of naive art, others - a pure modernist. But Chagall is a special phenomenon in the twentieth century.

If Malevich developed various ideas, released loud manifestos, Kandinsky developed his philosophy and reflected it in the article “On the Spiritual in Art,” then Chagall did not have such a task. He did not declare anything, he simply expressed admiration for God’s world in his work. And it seems to me that it is wrong to perceive the works of Marc Chagall outside of a religious context.

As a child, I felt that there was some unsettling force in all of us. That's why my characters ended up in the sky before the astronauts.

- Marc Chagall, “It’s all in my paintings », Literary newspaper, 1985

Walk, 1917-18

Canvas, oil
169.6 × 163.4 cm
State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

For him, everything was a miracle: life, love, beauty - all this was a manifestation of a miracle. Miraculously, he almost burned down before he was born: when his mother went into labor, a fire broke out in the house, and the woman in labor was carried out of the house on the bed. He later captured this incident in a painting and said that he had undergone a baptism of fire. And this, apparently, confirmed Chagall in the idea that he was born for something great. The artist believed that God intended him to depict the beauty of the world.

I don’t remember who, most likely my mother told me that just when I was born - in a small house by the road, behind the prison on the outskirts of Vitebsk - a fire broke out. The fire engulfed the entire city, including the poor Jewish quarter. The mother and baby at her feet, along with the bed, were carried to a safe place on the other side of the city.

But most importantly, I was born dead. I didn't want to live. A sort of, imagine, pale little lump that doesn’t want to live. It’s like I’ve seen enough of Chagall’s paintings. They pricked him with pins and dipped him in a bucket of water. And finally he meowed weakly.

Birth, 1910

Canvas, oil
65 × 89.5 cm
Art Museum, Zurich, Switzerland

What are the origins of Marc Chagall's religiosity?

Marc Chagall was born in Vitebsk, into a poor and very religious Jewish family, where everyone knew the Bible and the commandments well, went to the synagogue, prayed, lit candles on Saturday and had a meal. Chagall learned Hebrew early and began reading the Bible. The Bible became a book that accompanied the artist all his life. And religiosity was, one might say, in Chagall’s blood.

If only you knew how thrilled I was standing in the synagogue next to my grandfather. How much I, poor thing, had to push through before I could get there! And finally here I am, facing the window, with an open prayer book in my hands, and can admire the view of the place on Saturday. The blue seemed thicker under the prayerful hum. The houses floated peacefully in space. And every passerby is in full view.

The service begins, and the grandfather is invited to read a prayer in front of the altar. He prays, sings, plays a complex melody with repetitions. And in my heart it’s like a wheel is spinning under a stream of oil. Or it’s like fresh honeycomb honey is spreading through your veins. I don’t have enough words to describe evening prayer. I thought that all the saints gather in the synagogue on this day.

Saturday, 1910

Canvas, oil
90 x 95 cm
Wallraf Richards Museum, Cologne,
Germany.

Faith in the Jewish understanding, the Old Testament is the native environment for Marc Chagall. The prophets from his paintings often look the same as the old people from their native place. He felt them as his blood relatives: this is his history, his family. In addition, the Jews knew their ancestry well, down to the seventh, eighth, or even tenth generation. And when the father opposed his son’s decision to study painting, Chagall made the argument that his ancestor painted a synagogue in the 18th century.

One fine day (and there are no others in the world), when my mother was putting bread in the oven on a long shovel, I came up, touched her elbow, stained with flour, and said:

Mom... I want to be an artist. I will not be a clerk or an accountant. Enough! No wonder I always felt that something special was about to happen. Judge for yourself, am I like others? What am I good for?

What? An artist? You're crazy. Let me go, don’t bother me with putting out the bread. ...

And yet it was decided. We'll go to Pan.

Me and the village, 1911

Canvas, oil
191 × 150.5 cm
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

The mother took her son to the Jewish artist Yehudi Pan, who at one time studied with Ilya Repin. Chagall studied classical painting, but did not endure it for long and began to paint as his soul demanded. In this sense, he was absolutely free: the main thing for Chagall was the image, and he sought its expressiveness.

The fences and roofs, log houses and fences and everything that opened up beyond them delighted me. A chain of houses and booths, windows, gates, chickens, a boarded-up little factory, a church, a gentle hill (an abandoned cemetery). Everything is in full view, if you look from the attic window, perched on the floor. I stuck my head outside and breathed in the fresh blue air. Birds flew past.

Above Vitebsk,
1915

39 x 31 cm
Art
Philadelphia Museum,
USA

How Marc Chagall differs from all avant-garde artists

What is avant-garde? Art that goes forward, that does what did not exist before. From this point of view, Chagall is, of course, an avant-garde artist. Each avant-garde artist creates his own world and style. Chagall's world is a world of love, beauty and miracle. And both the style and manner of the artist are subordinated to this. This distinguishes him from many artists of the 20th century, who very often depicted tragedies, the negative sides of the world, not beauty, but ugliness. And although Chagall also has negative things and tragic images, the main motive is still love and freedom, joy and beauty.

Personally, I'm not sure that theory is such a boon for art. Impressionism and cubism are equally alien to me.
In my opinion, art is, first of all, a state of mind.
And the soul is holy for all of us who walk on the sinful earth.
The soul is free, it has its own mind, its own logic.
And only there there is no falsehood, where the soul itself, spontaneously, reaches that stage that is usually called literature, irrationality.

I don’t mean old realism, not symbolic romanticism, which brought little new, not mythology, not phantasmagoria, but... but what, Lord, what?

Betrothed and the Eiffel Tower, 1913

Canvas, oil
77 x 70 cm
National Museum of Marc Chagall, Nice, France

In addition, most often the avant-garde artists were non-believers, even anti-clerical; some, however, were inspired by religious art (Goncharova, Petrov-Vodkin, even Malevich), but understood in their own way. And Chagall combines religion and the avant-garde.

Apparently, he inherited a lot from Hasidic Judaism. And Hasidim pay great attention to emotions, be it sincere joy or deep repentance before God. Their prayer is expressed not only in words, but also in singing and dancing. This was also passed on to Chagall and was reflected in the nature of his painting.

There was a holiday: Sukkot or Simchas Torah. They are looking for grandfather, he is missing. Where, oh where is he?

It turns out that he climbed onto the roof, sat on a chimney and gnawed on carrots, enjoying the good weather. A wonderful picture.

Let anyone, with delight and relief, find the key to my paintings in the innocent quirks of my family. If my art did not play any role in the life of my relatives, then their lives and their actions, on the contrary, greatly influenced my art.

Feast of Tabernacles(Sukkot), 1916

Canvas, gouache
33 x 41 cm
Gallery Rosengart, Lucerne, Switzerland.

What are the features of Marc Chagall's figurative language?

First of all, Chagall has a special, spherical perspective. He sees the world from a bird's or angel's perspective and wants to embrace the world entirely. And this is also connected with his perception of life, the desire to rise above everyday life, above the uncomfortable world. He believed that man was created free, capable of flying, for love, and it is love that lifts man above the world. Although at the beginning of the twentieth century everyone, to some extent, dreamed of flying, overcoming space and time.

Artist, where is this good? What will people say?

This is how they honored me in the house of my bride, and in the mornings and evenings she brought warm homemade pies, fried fish, boiled milk, pieces of fabric for draperies and even planks that served as my palette to my workshop.

Just open the window - and she is here, and with her azure, love, flowers.

From those ancient times to this day, she, dressed in white or black, hovers in my paintings, illuminating my path in art. I don’t finish a single painting or a single engraving until I hear it “yes” or “no”.

Above the city,
1918

Canvas, oil
56 x 45 cm
State
Tretyakovskaya
gallery.

Like many artists, Chagall was passionate about the revolution, and on its first anniversary he was appointed commissar of art in Vitebsk. The artist had to paint the streets and make posters. But suddenly a huge scandal broke out: instead of red flags, the Bolshevik authorities saw flying cows, angels and lovers hovering above the earth on the posters.

The commissioners did not seem so pleased. Why, pray tell, is the cow green and the horse flying across the sky? What do they have in common with Marx and Lenin?

Chagall could not understand the reasons for the discontent, he was for freedom! And flying is an expression of freedom. Moreover, he was in love then - the artist adored his young wife Bella. The state when a person can create, love, fly to heaven - in Chagall’s understanding, this was absolute freedom. The artist's revolutionary career ended there.

Birthday, 1915

Oil, cardboard
80.5 × 99.5 cm
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA.

I would not be at all surprised if, a short time after my departure, the city destroys all traces of my existence in it and generally forgets about the artist who, having abandoned his own brushes and paints, suffered and fought to instill Art here, dreamed of turning simple houses into museums, and ordinary people - into creators.

But Chagall's path continued and, inspired by his love, he works tirelessly and writes everything that his eye sees and his soul feels. Chagall sees the world transformed. On the one hand, in this world everything is simple, close, recognizable: houses, people, cows... That’s why Chagall’s language seems naive, simple, almost childish babble, but behind this simplicity and naivety an amazing philosophical depth is revealed. Sometimes it seems that the drawing is somehow incorrect, the compositions are confusing, but if you look closely, Chagall arranges his paintings very clearly, moreover, he often creates a composition as a piece of music, polyphony. He has vibrant colors and memorable images.

Here, in the Louvre, in front of the paintings of Manet, Millet and others, I understood why I could not fit into Russian art.

Why is my language alien to my compatriots?
Why didn't they believe me? Why did the artistic circles reject me? Why in Russia I have always been the fifth wheel in the cart.
Why does everything I do seem strange to Russians, but everything they do seems far-fetched to me? So why?

I can't talk about it anymore.
I love Russia too much.

Artist over Vitebsk, 1977-78.

Canvas, oil
65 × 92 cm
Private collection

How to understand the paintings of Marc Chagall

The world in his paintings is diverse; you can often find incompatible things. Chagall's language is a bit fanciful; you definitely can't call him a realist. But Chagall knows more about reality than anyone else, and he encourages us to look deeper into it. So, for example, he draws a cow with a human face, and inside it there is a calf, a new life. Chagall sees the inner, the hidden. He sees the meaning of this world, knows that God created it with love and wants people to live in love. In all his works there is admiration for the beauty of creation.

I wandered the streets, looking for something and praying: “Lord, you who hide in the clouds or behind the cobbler’s house, make my soul manifest, the poor soul of a stuttering boy. Show me my way. I don't want to be like others, I want to see the world in my own way.

And in response, the city burst like a violin string, and people, leaving their usual places, began to walk above the ground. My friends sat down to rest on the roofs.

The colors mix, turn into wine, and it foams on my canvases.

Artist: to the moon, 1917

Gouache and watercolor, paper
32 × 30 cm
Private collection

Chagall's paintings are very interesting to look at and interpret; every detail in his work means something. At first glance, they seem very simple, but you start to take it apart and see the essentials behind ordinary things. At this time, no one has such layers. And this comes precisely from his biblical view of the world.

Dark. Suddenly the ceiling opens up, thunder, light - and a swift winged creature bursts into the room in a cloud of clouds.
Such a flutter of wings.

Angel! - I think. And I can’t open my eyes - the light was too bright from above. The winged guest flew around all the corners, rose again and flew out into the gap in the ceiling, taking with him the shine and blue.

And again darkness. I am getting up.
This vision is depicted in my painting “Apparition”.

Apparition, 1918

Private collection

Biblical scenes in the works of Marc Chagall:
main works

Praying Jew (Rabbi of Vitebsk), 1914

Canvas, oil
104 × 84 cm
Museum of Modern Art, Venice, Italy

This picture was painted in Vitebsk. For prayer, Jews put on a cape (tallit), tie phylacteries - boxes with texts of the Holy Scriptures, and sit, swaying, and pray. And they can pray like this for hours. Chagall was fascinated by this. And in this picture he doesn't just show the beauty of black and white, although it is beautifully done. But the internal state is also important here: God and man, life and death, black and white. Chagall always goes beyond what he paints, he always wants to show the depth of life.

I also had half a dozen uncles or a little more. All are real Jews. Some with a fat belly and an empty head, some with a black beard, some with a chestnut one. A painting, and that’s all.

On Saturdays, Uncle Nekh put on an inferior tales and read the Scriptures aloud. He played the violin. Played like a shoemaker. Grandfather loved to listen to him thoughtfully.

Only Rembrandt could understand what this old man - a butcher, a merchant, a cantor - was thinking about, listening to his son play the violin in front of a window stained with rain splashes and traces of greasy fingers.

Street violinist, 1912-13.

Canvas, oil
188 × 158 cm
City Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The Fiddler on the Roof is a well-known Jewish image. And this is always a symbol of something important, since violinists were invited to the most solemn moments: a wedding or a funeral. Just as our bells ring, so the violinist goes out onto the roof and notifies everyone of joy or sadness. Like an angel, he connects heaven and earth: in Chagall he stands with one foot on the roof and the other on the ground. In this picture we see both a church and a synagogue, as was the case in many places. Chagall grew up on this and, along with Jewish culture, adopted Christian culture.

Around are churches, fences, shops, synagogues, simple and eternal buildings, like in Giotto's frescoes. My sad and cheerful city! As a child, as a fool, I looked at you from our threshold. And you completely opened up to me. If the fence got in the way, I stood up to attack. If it wasn’t visible anyway, he climbed onto the roof. And what? Grandfather climbed there too. And I looked at you as much as I wanted.

Loneliness, 1933

Canvas, oil
102 × 169 cm
Tel Aviv Art Museum, Israel

This picture is already from the 30s. What do we see here? A seated prophet with the Torah or a simple Jew. And then there is a cow with a completely human face and a violin nearby, and an angel flies above them. What is this picture about? It is about man before God. The Jew sits and thinks about his existence.

And everything becomes spiritual. In the calf one can see the image of a calf - a symbol of sacrifice: a white animal, without a spot of blemish. Man, angel, animal, heaven and earth, Torah and violin - this is the universe, and man comprehends its meaning and reflects on its destinies. I would like to remember the words from the Psalm: “What is man, that you remember him, and the son of man, that you visit him?” (Ps. 8:5).

"The Bible Message" by Marc Chagall -
series of illustrations for the Bible

In the 1930s, French book publisher Ambroise Vollard invited Marc Chagall to make illustrations for the Bible. The artist, of course, is fascinated by this idea, and he takes it very seriously: taking advantage of the order, he goes on a trip to Palestine to get a feel for the country about which he has read so much, but has never been.

For ten years he has been creating a series of prints called “Biblical Message”. Initially, this cycle was conceived in black and white. And in 1956, the Bible with Chagall’s illustrations was published as a separate book, it included 105 engravings. After the war, the artist became acquainted with color lithography, and from that moment on he continued to illustrate biblical scenes in color. Marc Chagall's illustrations for the Bible are like nothing else. No one could illustrate the Bible like that. All these illustrations made up the exhibition of the Marc Chagall Museum in Nice, which opened in 1973 and was called “The Biblical Message”.

Illustrations in graphics:

Abraham and three angels

A well-known biblical story about the visit of the forefather Abraham by three messengers of God or by God Himself. Abraham is depicted facing us, and we see the angels only from the back. Chagall remembered the covenant that God cannot be depicted, so he does not show the faces of angels. True, in later works he will portray God. In this sense, he was an infinitely free person; for him there was no question: is it possible to draw like this? As the soul demands, so he draws.

Abraham mourns Sarah

On the one hand, Chagall is not a realist, but on the other hand, he depicts some things so deeply that a realistic artist cannot always do so. He depicts the grief of Abraham mourning the death of Sarah in such a way that it cannot but touch.

Jacob's fight with the angel

The freedom of the artist and the originality of his thinking are sometimes amazing. In this picture, the angel with whom Jacob enters into combat is clearly not slender, this is not a light unearthly creature. It’s like two Jewish teenagers are fighting here, and it’s not yet clear who will win. Chagall shows sacred events through the realities of Jewish life familiar to him. But these seemingly everyday details in no way diminish the high spiritual pathos of these works.

Joseph and Potiphar's wife

The biblical story from the life of Joseph is illustrated in the traditions of naive folk painting. Such a naked beauty with round breasts, reclining on a bed, and a poor young man who does not know how to dodge her. Chagall is not afraid to depict sacred events with irony. For him, Holy Scripture is not a sacred cow that cannot be approached. This is a text that we should reflect on, which gives a projection on our lives and helps us understand ourselves.

Mariam and the women dance after the Exodus

The dance of Mariam and the Israeli wives is full of joyful passion. Surely Chagall saw such women in his shtetl. He was in close contact with Hasidic culture, and Hasidim are very musical, and their prayer is expressed, among other things, in dance.

Who was one of the eight children born at the end of the nineteenth century in a small town near Vitebsk into the family of a poor Jewish herring peddler to become? Probably a world celebrity. And so it happened. And if anyone has not yet guessed who we are talking about, know that this is the famous artist Marc Chagall. A brief biography of his childhood, of course, does not contain any hints of a stellar future. And yet, the name of this person is quite popular today.

The beginning of a creative journey

As a child, Chagall began studying at a Jewish primary school, and then went to a state school, where lessons were already conducted in Russian. After mastering the basics of education at school, from 1907 to 1910 he managed to study a little painting in St. Petersburg. A notable work from the early period of his work is the painting “Death,” which depicts a violinist (a fairly frequently repeated image for the artist we are considering) against the backdrop of nightmarish events on stage.

The young Marc Chagall then moved to Paris, to a studio on the outskirts of the Bohemian city, in a famous area called La Ruche. There he met several famous writers and artists, including Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay and others. Experimentation was encouraged in this company, and Chagall quickly began to develop poetic and innovative tendencies, influenced by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

Return to homeland

And from this time his creative biography only begins. Marc Chagall fell in love with Paris forever. The artist called it the second Vitebsk. The French capital was the center of world painting, and there Mark unexpectedly gained fame. It was Paris that Mark Zakharovich considered the source of his inspiration. And here he was practically declared one of the founders of such a genre of painting as surrealism. But he's leaving.

After the Berlin exhibition, Mark Zakharovich returns to Vitebsk, where, however, he does not intend to stay too long, just to have time to marry his bride Bella. However, it got stuck due to the outbreak of the First World War, as Russian borders were closed indefinitely.

But, instead of falling into despair, Marc Chagall continues to create. Married to Bella in 1915, he created such masterpieces as "The Birthday Party" and a playful acrobatic painting called "Double Portrait with a Glass of Wine." All works from this period act as witnesses to the artist's joyful state during the first years of his married life.

Revolutionary period in the life of the artist

The Jews had every reason to love the revolution. After all, it destroyed the Pale of Settlement and gave the opportunity to many representatives of this nationality to become commissars. How did Mark Zakharovich feel about the revolution? And what information about this period does his biography contain? Marc Chagall also tried to love the revolution. In his native Vitebsk in 1918, he even became commissar for culture, and then founded and directed an art school, which became very popular.

Mark Zakharovich, together with his students, decorated the city to celebrate the first anniversary of the October Revolution. The officials were not as pleased with the decoration of the celebration as the artist himself. And when representatives of the new government began to ask the master why his cows were green and his horses flew in the sky, and most importantly, what Chagalov’s characters had in common with the great revolutionary principles and Karl Marx, the passion for revolution quickly disappeared. Moreover, the Bolsheviks established a new Pale of Settlement, and not only for Jews.

Moving to the capital and the decision to leave Russia

What did Marc Zakharovich Chagall start doing? His biography is still connected with Russia, and now he moves to Moscow, where he begins teaching drawing to revolution orphans in a children's colony. These were children who had repeatedly been subjected to terrible treatment at the hands of criminals, many remembered the shine of the steel blade of the knife with which their parents were stabbed to death, deafened by the whistle of bullets and the sound of broken glass.

One day, passing by the Kremlin, Mark Zakharovich saw Trotsky getting out of the car. With heavy steps he headed to his apartment. Then the artist realized how tired he was, and acutely felt that more than anything else he wanted to paint his pictures. In his opinion, neither the tsarist nor the Soviet authorities needed him.

Marc Chagall decides to take his wife and daughter, who had already appeared by that time, and leave Russia. He becomes the first commissioner who leaves the new state in order not only to save the lives of loved ones, but also his soul from unfreedom.

New life, or Attitude to the artist’s work abroad

Marc Chagall, whose biography and work are now no longer connected with his homeland, was traveling to France - towards his immortality. In subsequent years, the phrases “genius of the century” and “patriarch of world painting” were added to his name. The French announced Mark Zakharovich as the head of the Paris Art School. At the same time, Chagall’s paintings were burned in a huge bonfire in Germany. Why did some consider his painting to be the pinnacle of modern art, while for others it prevented the realization of their “cannibalistic” plans?

He was probably struck by a sense of personal independence. He was free, like God in the process of creating the Universe. Wherever Chagall lived - in Vitebsk, New York or Paris - he always depicted almost the same thing. One or two human figures soaring into the air... A cow, a rooster, a horse or a donkey, several musical instruments, flowers, the roofs of houses in his native Vitebsk. Marc Chagall wrote practically nothing else. The description of the paintings shows not only repeating images, but also plot lines that are practically no different from each other.

A waking dream, or what the paintings of Mark Zakharovich say

And yet experts and connoisseurs were amazed. Mark Zakharovich showed ordinary objects as if the viewer was seeing them for the first time. He depicted fantastic things very naturally. For simple, unsophisticated art lovers, Mark Zakharovich’s paintings are ordinary childhood dreams. They have an uncontrollable desire to fly. Daydreams about something inexpressibly beautiful, joyful and sad at the same time. Marc Chagall is an artist who conveyed in his works what every person feels at least once in his life. This is unity with the larger Universe.

This man is famous all over the world

This rare moment of enlightenment lasted Mark Zakharovich for eighty years. This is exactly how much fate allowed the great artist to create. He painted hundreds of paintings. His paintings are in New York's Metropolitan Opera and the Grand Opera in Paris. His work also includes dozens of stained glass windows in cathedrals in Europe and in buildings around the world, where many people live who know who Marc Chagall is. His biography and paintings are popular today not only in Russia. Even the United Nations contains elements of the paintings of this most talented artist.

Creative biography. Marc Chagall and world fame

When Hitler came to power, the artist began to express his concern about the future fate of humanity. This is Solitude, where Jewish and Christian symbols are mixed with a Nazi mob terrorizing Jews. Mark Zakharovich is evacuated to the United States and continues his work there.

It is worth noting another period in the artist’s work, which his biography describes. Marc Chagall lost his wife in 1944, and, of course, this was reflected in his works. Bella appears in such artist's paintings as "Nocturne" and others: in several forms, with ghosts, in the form of an angel or a ghost bride.

Return to Paris

In 1948, Marc Zakharovich Chagall again settled in France, on the Cote d'Azur. Here he receives many orders, designs sets and costumes for ballets. In 1960, he began creating stained glass windows for the Hadassah Medical Center synagogue.

He later took on large projects in the design of the cathedral in Zurich, St. Stephen's Church in Mainz in Germany and All Saints' Church in the United Kingdom. The greatest artist Marc Zakharovich Chagall died on March 28, 1985, leaving behind an extensive collection of works in a number of branches of art.

Marc Chagall became one of the symbols of the twentieth century, but not of its dark destructive sides, but of love, the desire for harmony, and hope for finding happiness. His immortality lies in his ability to convey the presence of the Divine spirit in every object of the surrounding world.

Mark Zakharovich Chagall (1887-1985) - painter, graphic artist, theater artist, illustrator, master of monumental and applied arts.

CREATIVITY AND BIOGRAPHY OF MARC CHAGALL

One of the leaders of the world avant-garde of the 20th century, Chagall managed to organically combine the ancient traditions of Jewish culture with cutting-edge innovation. Born in Vitebsk on June 24 (July 6), 1887. Received traditional religious education at home (Hebrew, reading the Torah and Talmud). In 1906 he came to St. Petersburg, where in 1906–1909 he attended the drawing school at the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, the studio of S.M. Zaidenberg and the school of E.N. Zvantseva. He lived in St. Petersburg-Petrograd, Vitebsk and Moscow, and in Paris from 1910–1914. All of Chagall's work is initially autobiographical and lyrically confessional.

Already in his early paintings, themes of childhood, family, death, deeply personal and at the same time “eternal” (Saturday, 1910, Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne) dominate. Over time, the theme of the artist’s passionate love for his first wife, Bella Rosenfeld (“Above the City,” 1914–1918, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) comes to the fore. Characteristic are the motifs of “shtetl” landscape and life, coupled with the symbolism of Judaism (“Gate of the Jewish Cemetery”, 1917, private collection, Paris).

However, looking at the archaic, including the Russian icon and popular print (which had a great influence on him), Chagall joins futurism and predicts future avant-garde movements. Grotesque and illogical subjects, sharp deformations and surreal-fairy-tale color contrasts of his canvases (“I and the Village”, 1911, Museum of Modern Art, New York; “Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers”, 1911–1912, City Museum, Amsterdam) have a great impact influence on the development of surrealism.

Saturday Gate of the Jewish Cemetery Me and the Village Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers

After the October Revolution in 1918–1919, Chagall served as a commissar of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the provincial department of public education in Vitebsk, decorating the city for revolutionary holidays. In Moscow, Chagall painted a series of large wall panels for the Jewish Chamber Theater, thereby taking the first significant step towards monumental art. Having left for Berlin in 1922, from 1923 he lived in France, Paris or the south of the country, temporarily leaving it in 1941–1947 (he spent these years in New York). He traveled to different countries in Europe and the Mediterranean, and visited Israel more than once. Having mastered various engraving techniques, at the request of Ambroise Vollard, Chagall created in 1923–1930, strikingly expressive illustrations for “Dead Souls” by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol and “Fables” by J. de La Fontaine.

As he reaches the peak of fame, his style - generally surreal and expressionistic - becomes easier and more relaxed. Not only the main characters, but also all the elements of the image float, forming constellations of colored visions. Through the recurring themes of Vitebsk childhood, love, and circus performances, dark echoes of past and future world catastrophes flow (“Time Has No Coasts,” 1930–1939, Museum of Modern Art, New York). Since 1955, work began on “Chagall’s Bible” - this is the name given to a huge cycle of paintings that reveal the world of the ancestors of the Jewish people in a surprisingly emotional and bright, naively wise form.

In line with this cycle, the master created a large number of monumental sketches, compositions based on which decorated sacred buildings of different religions - both Judaism and Christianity in its Catholic and Protestant varieties: ceramic panels and stained glass windows of the chapel in Assy (Savoy) and the cathedral in Metz, 1957 –1958; stained glass windows: synagogues of the medical faculty of the Hebrew University near Jerusalem, 1961; Cathedral (Fraumünster Church) in Zurich, 1969–1970; Cathedral in Reims, 1974; St. Stephen's Church in Mainz, 1976–1981; and etc.). These works of Marc Chagall radically updated the language of modern monumental art, enriching it with powerful colorful lyricism.

In 1973, Chagall visited Moscow and St. Petersburg in connection with an exhibition of his works at the Tretyakov Gallery.

When I open my eyes in the morning, I dream of seeing a more perfect world where friendliness and love rule. This alone is enough to make my day beautiful and worthy of being

• Marc Chagall is the only artist in the world whose stained glass windows decorate cathedrals of almost all faiths. Among the fifteen temples there are ancient synagogues, Lutheran churches, Catholic churches and other public buildings located in America, Europe and Israel.
• Specially commissioned by Charles de Gaulle, the current French president, the artist designed the ceiling of the Grand Opera in Paris. Two years later he painted two panels for the New York Metropolitan Opera.
• In July 1973, a museum called the “Biblical Message” opened in Nice, France, which was decorated with the artist’s works and housed in the building that he himself conceived. Some time later, the museum was awarded national status by the government.
• Chagall is considered one of the instigators of the pictorial sexual revolution. The fact is that already in 1909 a naked woman was depicted on his canvas. The model was Thea Brahman, who agreed to such a role only out of pity for the artist, who financially could not afford professional models. Later, these sessions led to a romantic relationship, and Thea became the painter’s first love.
• Being in a bad mood, the artist painted only biblical scenes or flowers. At the same time, the latter sold much better, which greatly disappointed Chagall.
• The painter considered only love to be the most important thing in the Universe and life.
• Marc Chagall died on March 28, 1985 while climbing to the second floor in an elevator, therefore, his death occurred in flight, albeit not very high.

Bibliography and filmography of the artist

• Apchinskaya N. Marc Chagall. Portrait of the artist. - M.: 1995.
• McNeil, David. In the footsteps of an angel: memories of the son of Marc Chagall. M
• Maltsev, Vladimir. Marc Chagall - theater artist: Vitebsk-Moscow: 1918-1922 // Chagall collection. Vol. 2. Materials of the VI-IX Chagall readings in Vitebsk (1996-1999). Vitebsk, 2004. pp. 37-45.
• Marc Chagall Museum in Nice - Le Musee National Message Biblique Marc Chagall (“Marc Chagall's Biblical Message”)
• Haggard W. My life with Chagall. Seven years of abundance. M., Text, 2007.
• Khmelnitskaya, Lyudmila. Marc Chagall Museum in Vitebsk.
• Khmelnitskaya, Lyudmila. Marc Chagall in the artistic culture of Belarus in the 1920s - 1990s.
• Chagall, Bella. Burning lights. M., Text, 2001; 2006.
• Shatskikh A. S. Gogol's world through the eyes of Marc Chagall. - Vitebsk: Marc Chagall Museum, 1999. - 27 p.
• Shatskikh A. S.“Blessed be my Vitebsk”: Jerusalem as a prototype of Chagall’s City // Poetry and painting: Collection of works of memoryN. I. Khardzhieva/ Ed.M. B. MeilakhaAndD. V. Sarabyanova. - M.: Languages ​​of Russian culture, 2000. - P. 260-268. - ISBN 5-7859-0074-2.
• Shishanov V.A. “If you’re going to be a minister...” // Bulletin of the Marc Chagall Museum. 2003. No. 2(10). pp. 9-11.
• Kruglov Vladimir, Petrova Evgeniya. Marc Chagall. - St. Petersburg: State Russian Museum, Palace Editions, 2005. - P. 168. - ISBN 5-93332-175-3.
• Shishanov V.“These young people were ardent socialists...”: Participants in the revolutionary movement surrounded by Marc Chagall and Bella Rosenfeld // Bulletin of the Marc Chagall Museum. 2005. No. 13. P. 64-74.
• Shishanov V. About the lost portrait of Marc Chagall by Yuri Pan // Bulletin of the Marc Chagall Museum. 2006. No. 14. P. 110-111.
• Shishanov, Valery. Marc Chagall: Sketches for the biography of the artist on archival matters
• Shishanov V. A. Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art: history of creation and collections. 1918-1941. Minsk: Medisont, 2007. - 144 p.