Painting. Russian artists. Marc Chagall (1887-1985)

Marc Chagall, French painter and designer of Russian birth, is known for his Surrealist imagination. He is recognised as one of the most remarkable painters and graphic artists of the 20th century. His work is touched with humour and fantasy that finds resonance in the subconscious., Chagall's personal and unique imagery is saturated with charming romantic inspiration.

Chagall was born in Vitsyebsk and was educated in art in St Petersburg and, from 1910, in Paris, where he remained until 1914. Between 1915 and 1917 he lived in St. Petersburg. After the Russian Revolution he was a director of the Art Academy in Vitsyebsk. From 1919 to 1922 he headed the Moscow Jewish State Theatre. In 1923 Chagall moved to France, where he spent the rest of his life, except for a period of residence in the United States from 1941 to 1948. He died in St Paul de Vence, in the South of France. Chagall's characteristic use of colour is derived partly from Russian Expressionism and was affected by French Cubism. Crystallising his style early, as in Candles in the Dark, of 1908, he later developed subtle variations. His numerous works represent vivid recollections of Russian-Jewish village scenes, as in I and the Village of 1911, and incidents in his private life, as in the print series My Life, of 1922, in addition to treatments of Jewish subjects, of which The Praying Jew, of 1914 is one. His works combine recollection with folklore and fantasy. Biblical themes characterise a series of etchings executed between 1925 and 1939, illustrating the Old Testament, and the 12 stained-glass windows in the Hadassah Hospital of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Centre in Jerusalem (1962). In 1973 the National Museum of the Marc Chagall Biblical Message was opened in Nice, on the French Riviera, to house hundreds of his biblical works. Chagall executed many prints illustrating literary classics. A canvas completed in 1964 covers the ceiling of the Opera in Paris, and two large murals (1966) hang in the foyer of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.
 

Literature: Book "Russian art" A.P. Minyar-Belorucheva