How are you?
Currently, I am
introducing the stories about various artists and their paintings with the
title “Interesting
Art Stories”.
The 67th story is “I and the
Village” by Marc Chagall.
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| Portrait of Chagall, Yehuda (Yuri) Pen |
“I and the Village” is an
oil on canvas painting by the Belarusian-French artist Marc Chagall in 1911.
Titled by the poet Blaise Cendrars, a close friend of Chagall, the painting was
inspired in part by the developing Cubism at the time. As the title suggests,
this painting is a "narrative self-portrait" featuring memories of
Chagall's childhood in the town of Vitebsk, Russia, and it shows Chagall’s
distinct vocabulary of abstraction.
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| Marc Chagall's childhood home, Vitebsk, Belarus |
This painting can be divided into several sections. The upper right shows Chagall's hometown, which includes a church, a series of houses, a black-clothed man holding a scythe and a female violinist in front of the man, and further emphasizes the dreamlike feel of the painting with the woman and some houses in the village upside down. Below that, there is a green-faced man, with a hat and a necklace with a cross, that some say Chagall. At the bottom, there is a hand holding a glowing tree. The object next to it is an object that some say a child's bouncing ball, which appears to be a toy Chagall played with as a child. Finally, there is a milkmaid milking a goat on the top the head of a lamb, a motif common to Chagall.
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| Chagall Art Centre, Vitebsk, Belarus |
It is noteworthy
that this painting is a reflection of Chagall's dreams and memories, and its
significance is that it combines various elements of Eastern European
folktales, both Belarusian and Yiddish.
This painting is one of Chagall's
earliest surviving works, and in the painting, he focused on color, form and
shape instead of ignoring the laws of gravity and perspective.
Painted a year after Chagall moved
to Paris from Russia, this painting is currently exhibited at the Museum of
Modern Art, New York.
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| Sculpture of Marc Chagall outside Chagall House, Vitebsk, Belarus |
Thank you.
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