Mark CHAGALL 1887 — 1985Марк ШАГАЛ • Марк ШАГАЛMarc Chagall is recognized as one of the most significant painters and graphic artists of the 20th century.
Born Moishe Zakharovich Shagalov (Moishe Segal) in Viciebsk (Vitebsk), Belarus (then part of the Russian Empire), Chagall in a Jewish family as the eldest of nine children. He had fond memories about his childhood years, about his father, a herring merchant and his mother, Feiga-Ita. This happy period of Chagall’s life appears in references throughout his work. In 1906 he began studying painting under the local artist Yehuda Pen and moved to St.Petersburg a few month later. There he joined the school of the Society of Art Supporters and studied under Nikolai Roerich, encountering artists of every school and style. From 1908-1910 he studied under Leon Bakst at Zvyagintseva School. In 1910 he moves to Paris where he befriended Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, and Fernand Léger. In 1914, he returned to Vitebsk and a year later married his fiancé, Bella Rosenfeld. He wellcomed the October Revolution of 1917 and became Commissar of Art for the Vitebsk region, where he founded an art school. He and his wife moved to Moscow in 1920 and back to Paris in 1923, where he spent the rest of his life, except for a period of residence in the United States from 1941 to 1948. By 1949 he was working in Provence, France. During these intense years, he rediscovered the vital energy of color, free and vibrant. His works of this period are dedicated to themes inspired by love and the joy of life, with curved, sinuous figures. He also began to work in sculpture, ceramics, and stained glass. He traveled several times to Greece, and in 1957 visited Israel, where in 1960 he created stained glass windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem and in 1966, wall art for the new parliament being constructed in that city. He died in St. Paul de Vence, France in 1985.
Chagall took inspiration from Belarusian folk-life, combining recollections of folklore and fantasy, and portrayed many Biblical themes from Old Testament reflecting his Jewish heritage. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chagall involved himself in large-scale projects involving public spaces and important civic and religious buildings (the Paris Opera, the First National Bank Plaza of downtown Chicago, Illinois, the Metropolitan Opera, the cathedral of Metz, France, Notre-Dame de Reims, the Fraumünster Cathedral in Zürich, Switzerland, and the Church of St. Stephan in Mainz, Germany).
Chagall`s distinctive use of color and form is derived partly from Russian expressionism and was influenced by French cubism. He later developed subtle variations as in Candles in the Dark for example. His work always found itself on the margins of different avant-garde movements and emerging trends. |
