Mark Zakharovich Chagall (1887-1985) - painter, graphic artist, theater artist, illustrator, master of monumental and applied arts.
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 a traditional religious education at home (Hebrew, reading the Torah and Talmud). In 1906 he came to St. Petersburg, where in 1906-1909 he attended a drawing school under the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, the studio of S.M. Seidenberg and the school of E.N. Zvantseva. He lived in St. Petersburg-Petrograd, Vitebsk and Moscow, and in 1910-1914 - in Paris. All of Chagall's work is initially autobiographical and lyrically confessional.
Already in his early paintings, the themes of childhood, family, death, deeply personal and at the same time "eternal" dominate ("Saturday", 1910, Museum Wallraf-Richartz, Cologne). 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 motives of the "small-town" landscape and everyday life, coupled with the symbolism of Judaism ("The Gate of the Jewish Cemetery", 1917, private collection, Paris).
However, peering into the archaic, including the Russian icon and popular prints (which had a great influence on him), Chagall adheres to futurism and foresees future avant-garde trends. Grotesque illogical plots, sharp deformations and surreal fabulous color contrasts of his canvases ("Me and the Village", 1911, Museum of Modern Art, New York; "Self-portrait with seven fingers", 1911-1912, City Museum, Amsterdam) provide a great influence on the development of surrealism.
Saturday Jewish cemetery gates Me and the village Self-portrait with seven fingers
After the October Revolution in 1918-1919, Chagall served as commissar of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of the provincial department of public education in Vitebsk, decorated the city for the revolutionary holidays. In Moscow, Chagall painted a number of large wall panels for the Jewish Chamber Theater, thus taking the first significant step towards monumental art. Having left in 1922 for Berlin, later from 1923 he lived in France, in Paris or in the south of the country, temporarily leaving it in 1941-1947 (these years he spent in New York). He traveled to different countries of Europe and the Mediterranean, and more than once visited Israel. Having mastered various engraving techniques, at the request of Ambroise Vollard, Chagall created in 1923-1930 striking illustrations for "Dead Souls" by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol and "Fables" by J. de La Fontaine.
As he reaches the peak of his fame, his manner - generally surreal - expressionist - becomes easier and more relaxed. Not only the main characters, but all the elements of the image soar, forming into constellations of colored visions. Gloomy echoes of past and future world catastrophes flood through the recurring themes of Vitebsk childhood, love, and circus performance (“Time has no shores”, 1930–1939, Museum of Modern Art, New York). Since 1955, work began on the Chagall Bible - this is the name for a huge cycle of paintings that reveal the world of the ancestors of the Jewish people in a surprisingly emotional and vivid, naively wise form.
In line with this cycle, the master also created a large number of monumental sketches, compositions according to which adorned 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 Assi (Savoy) and the cathedral in Metz, 1957 –1958; stained glass windows: synagogues of the Hebrew University School of Medicine near Jerusalem, 1961; Cathedral (Fraumünster Church) in Zurich, 1969-1970; Cathedral in Reims, 1974; the Church of St. Stephen in Mainz, 1976-1981; and etc.). These works by Marc Chagall radically renewed the language of contemporary 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.
Opening my eyes in the morning, I dream of seeing a more perfect world in which friendliness and love rule. This alone is enough to make my day beautiful and worthy of being
On July 6, 1887 (June 24, old style) in Vitebsk, Moisha Segal was born into a simple Jewish family. His father Zakhar was a loader for a herring merchant, his mother Feiga-Ita kept a small shop, his grandfather served as a teacher and cantor in the synagogue. As a child, Moisha attended an elementary Jewish religious school, then a gymnasium, despite the fact that in tsarist Russia, Jewish children were forbidden to study in secular schools. At the age of nineteen, despite the categorical protests of his father, but thanks to the influence of his mother, Moishe entered the private "School of Painting and Drawing of the Artist Peng". He studied at this school for only two months, but that was the beginning. A bold start. Peng was so impressed by his daring work with color that he allowed him to attend his school for free.
Here's a little bit about Yudele Moiseevich Pene ... Russian and Belarusian painter, teacher, prominent figure of the "Jewish Renaissance" in the art of the early XX century. This is his self-portrait.
In his paintings, Yudel Peng showed the life of the Jewish poor (The Watchmaker, The Old Tailor, The Old Soldier, After the Strike). After 1905, religious motives appeared in Pen's work - “The Jewish Rabbi"," Last Saturday". In the 1920s, he created the pictures "Shoemaker-Komsomolets" (1925), "Swat" (1926), "The Seamstress" (1927), "Baker" (1928).
The artist was killed at his home in Vitebsk on the night of February 28 to March 1, 1937... The circumstances of the murder have not yet been clarified. According to the official version: killed by relatives who wanted to take possession of the inheritance. Buried at the Staro-Semenovsky cemetery in Vitebsk.
This is a portrait of Marc Chagall, under which there is a signature "Yu M. Peng " 1914 g.
Moishe was the eldest of nine children and everyone at home, as well as neighbors and merchants, and even simple men were then his models. Wooden houses, onions of churches, mother's grocery store, Jewish commandments, customs and holidays - this simple and difficult, but such "solid" life has forever merged into the boy's heart and the images of his beloved Vitebsk will be constantly repeated in the artist's work.
In 1907, with 27 rubles in his pocket, Moishe Segal went to the Russian capital. Since the Russian discriminatory policy against Jews in St. Petersburg was much harsher, the young man was often forced to resort to help from influential Jews. In addition, he was very limited in means and lived in poverty, sometimes on the verge of poverty. But all these hardships, of course, had little meaning for the young artist, who fell into the whirlpool of the artistic life of the capital at the junction of two revolutions.
Social revolutionary sentiments are always embodied in cultural life - avant-garde magazines are published, which then served as a kind of uniting centers for new ideas, innovative exhibitions are organized, doors open for acquaintance with modern Western art: French Fauvism, German Expressionism, Italian Futurism and many other trends. All this makes a huge impression on the formation of a young artist.
But, learning and absorbing everything new, Moishe keeps aloof from various associations and groups, starting to form her own unique style.
In his early works, the search for his own pictorial language is already obvious. The fabulousness and metaphorical nature of images in everyday life plots are already beginning to appear: "Birth", "Death", "Holy Family".
Birth (1910) Death (1908)
Holy Family (1909)
For several years of his life in St. Petersburg, he studied at the private school of Seidenberg, worked in the editorial office of the Jewish magazine "Voskhod", for two years he studied with Lev Bakst at the Zvantseva school. According to Chagall's recollections, it was Bakst who gave him "feel the breath of Europe" and prompted him to go to study in Paris. Moishe also attended the class of the innovative artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. In the spring of 1910, the first exhibition was held in the editorial office of the avant-garde magazine Apollo.
Leon N. Bakst (real name - Leib-Khaim Izrailevich, or Lev Samoilovich Rozenberg; 1866 - 1924) - Russian artist, set designer, book illustrator, master of easel painting and theatrical graphics, one of the most prominent figures in the World of Art association and theatrical and artistic projects S.P. Diaghilev.
Lev Rosenberg was born on February 8 (January 27) 1866 in Grodno into a poor Jewish family of a Talmudist scholar. After graduating from high school, he studied as a volunteer inAcademy of Arts moonlighting by illustration of books.
At his first exhibition in 1889, he adopted the pseudonymBakst- the shortened surname of the grandmother (Baxter). Since the mid-90s, he joined the circle of writersand artists that formed around Diaghilev and Alexander Benois, which later turned into an association " World of Art ". In 1898 Together with Diaghilev, he takes part in the founding of the publication of the same name. The graphics published in this magazine brought fame to Bakst.
Two of Bakst's most famous paintings.
Dinner Portrait of Zinaida Gippius
In the summer of 1909, in Vitebsk, Marc Chagall met Bella Rosenfeld, the daughter of a Vitebsk jeweler.
"... She is silent, me too. She looks - oh, her eyes! - Me too. As if we have known each other for a long time and she knows everything about me: my childhood, my present life and what will happen to me; how- as if she was always watching me, was somewhere nearby, although I saw her for the first time. And I realized: this is my wife. Eyes shine on her pale face. Big, bulging, black! These are my eyes, my soul ... " ... Marc Chagall, "My Life".
They will be married on July 25, 1915, and Bella will forever remain his first lover, wife and muse.
In August 1910, Maxim Vinaver, a 1905 State Duma deputy and philanthropist, offered the artist a scholarship that would enable him to go to study in Paris. Upon Moishe's arrival, Segal takes on a creative pseudonym. Now he is Marc Chagall, in the French manner.
The first year he rented a studio with the artist Ehrenburg in Montparnasse. Chagall attends various classes in free art academies, writes at night, and during the day disappears at exhibitions, in salons and galleries, absorbing the art of the great masters: Delacroix, Courbet, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and many others. Feeling great color, he quickly masters and uses the techniques of Fauvism. "Now your colors are singing"- says his Petersburg mentor Bakst.
In 1911, Chagall moved to the "Beehive", a building bought by Alfred Boucher after the sale of the 1889 World Exhibition and became a kind of squat art center and a haven for many poor foreign artists. Here Chagall met many representatives of the Parisian bohemia - poets, artists; here he masters the techniques of new trends - cubism, futurism, orphism, as always, reshaping them in his own way; here he makes his first real successes: "Violinist", "Dedication to my bride", "Calvary", "View of Paris from the window". 
Despite the complete immersion in the Parisian artistic environment, he did not forget his native Vitebsk. "Snuff of Tobacco", "Cattle Seller", "Me and the Village" are permeated with nostalgia and love.
In the spring of 1914, Chagall was taking his works, several dozen canvases and about one hundred and fifty watercolors to exhibitions in Berlin. Several personal and joint exhibitions with other artists are held with great success with the public. Then he leaves for a visit to Vitebsk to meet with his family and see Bella. But the First World War begins and the return to Europe is postponed indefinitely.
Bella's brother Yakov Rosenfeld assists in the release of Chagall from being drafted to the front and helps with work: the artist gets a job on the Military-Industrial Committee in Petrograd. Chagall's work in these turbulent years is very multifaceted: visiting his native Vitebsk, he plunges into nostalgia and with new energy and new experience takes up everyday motives ("A Window in the Village").
But the war is going on, he sees the wounded, sees human sorrows and hardships and also pours out his feelings on the canvas "War" in 1915.
He also sees how during the war years the persecution of Jews intensified and a number of very religious works were born.
Lyric canvases created during these years are filled with love for Bella. Also at this time, Chagall began to write his autobiographical book "My Life".
August 9, 1918 In Petrograd, at a meeting dedicated to the establishment of the Ministry of Arts, Marc Chagall was offered the post of head of the fine arts, but he refused. However, with the assistance of Lunacharsky, he agrees to another proposal: the Commissioner for the Arts in the Vitebsk province. By the anniversary of the October Revolution, as it turned out, an excellent organizer, Chagall decorated Vitebsk with great enthusiasm, "bringing art to the masses." Also at this time his article "Revolution in Art" was published. The Free Academy, which has become a major creative center, is operating in full force under his leadership in Vitebsk. It is taught by many famous artists, both locals and visitors. But, one day, returning from Moscow, Chagall discovers that the Free Academy has been turned into the Academy of Suprematism. This was the first result of the growing discontent on the part of the new government.
In 1920, Mark, with Bella and their daughter Ida, who was born to them in 1916, moved to Moscow, where he took an active part in the theatrical life of the capital - preparing sketches of scenery for performances. A convinced opponent of Suprematist art, Chagall, at the same time, being in the center of new cultural trends, significantly revises his own style of writing, in many ways coming closer to the new, "revolutionary" style. However, party criticism, which is also promoted by the artist's frankness and uncompromising attitude, is growing, although it does not yet take open forms, nevertheless, Chagall is an artist of world renown and this has to be reckoned with.
On January 1, 1921, the premiere of the play "Miniatures" based on the plays of the recently deceased famous Jewish writer Sholem Aleichem took place. On this occasion, Chagall is entrusted with the design of a small hall in which it is planned to present the production. He paints the walls, ceiling, curtain with nine monumental paintings, which, according to the artist's conception, are a call for the cultural revival of the Jewish theater. " ... Finally, I will be able to turn around and express what I consider necessary for the revival of the national theater"But his step remained unclear, attacks and criticism from" truly revolutionary "artists and the party grew, and a year later the People's Committee of Education sent Chagall to teach drawing in a colony for homeless people. Misunderstanding and rejection by the regime forced the artist to leave the country.
After leaving, Chagall, Bella and Ida live for a year in Berlin, which has become a haven for emigrants from Russia and other countries. At first, the artist tries to get the money owed to him for the 1914 exhibition, but to no avail - inflation has done its job. All that he manages to return is three paintings and a dozen watercolors.
In the spring of 1923 Paul Cassirer, a Berlin publisher and gallery owner, invited the artist to publish the book "My Life" with author's illustrations. Chagall accepts the offer and plunges headlong into mastering the art of engraving. And at the end of the summer of the same year, a letter comes from his old Parisian friend: "Come back, you are famous. Vollard is waiting for you."
Returning to Paris, Chagall discovers another loss: most of the paintings for which he is now known, left in the "Hive" eight years ago, are lost. He gathers his strength and carefully, restoring from memory, drawings and reproductions, re-writes part of the works of the first Parisian period: "Birthday", "Me and the Village", "Above Vitebsk" and others.
Ambroise Vollard, a passionate book lover, collector, publisher, after the war conceives the release of a series of books illustrated by famous contemporary artists and offers Chagall cooperation. Chagall chooses "Dead Souls" by Gogol and does an excellent job with the task. The master's metaphorical and fantastic graphics reflect Gogol's poignant satire in the best possible way.
In Paris, Chagall reconnects with old friends and makes new ones. Being a very sociable and cheerful person, he easily finds a common language with everyone, but this does not prevent him, as usual, from staying away from various currents and associations. On the offer of the surrealists to join them, he refuses: "deliberately fantastic painting is alien to me." Charters, manifestos and slogans, he bypasses, preferring pure creative freedom.
Fame also brought him material freedom - now he travels with his family to France and Europe, gaining a sense of peace and tranquility after everything he has experienced. The new paintings are joyful, light and light: "Country Life", "Double Portrait", "Ida at the Window". 
I must say that during this period he creates not so many paintings, since most of his time and effort he devotes to illustrating "Dead Souls", "Fables" by La Fontaine and the Bible.
In 1931, the artist and his family visited Palestine, discovering the land of their ancestors and feeling close to the center of his faith. These few months spent in the Holy Land, according to the artist, made the strongest impression on him in his entire life. Returning to Paris, he embarks on a new project, illustrating the Bible, in which, having already taken place as an artist and as a person, he ponders and realizes biblical symbols and plots on etchings.
Outside the window - the end of the 30s. From Germany, Hitler's speeches and the clatter of Nazi boots are already clearly heard. New anti-Semitic laws are being adopted, and the exhibition "Degenerate Art" is being held in Munich, where Chagall's works are also presented. Europe is plunging into the darkness of war again. Thanks to the help of the Emergency Rescue Committee and the American Consul in Marseille, Chagall sails with his family and paintings on a steamer to the United States.
In America, which has received many emigrants from Europe, interest in European culture is sharply increasing. In New York, which has become a kind of port for refugees, exhibitions are organized under the common theme of "art in exile". Pierre Matisse, son of the famous artist, lends his gallery to Chagall for work and exhibitions. Chagall worked at this time mainly on unfinished paintings brought from the Old World.
In the spring of 1942, Leonid Myasin, choreographer and former dancer of the Russian Ballet, invited Chagall to take part in the design of the Aleko ballet. The artist created the back scenery and four huge colorful backgrounds that recreate the fairy-tale atmosphere of Pushkin's poem. Chagall was also commissioned to design the play "The Firebird" by George Balanchine, but Igor Stravinsky did not like his scenery and Picasso was preferred. But the costumes designed by Chagall, which Ida were making, were accepted.
In August 1944, the Chagall family is happy to hear about the liberation of Paris. The war is drawing to a close and they can't wait to return to France as soon as possible. But literally a few days later, on September 2, Bella dies of sepsis at a local hospital. "Everything was covered with darkness." The artist is completely stunned with grief and only nine months later he picks up his brushes to paint two paintings in memory of his beloved: "Wedding Lights" and "Next to Her".
He moved to a small house in the town of High Falls, where after a while he began to work on illustrations for "A Thousand and One Nights". As a result, thirteen wonderful sparkling engravings are obtained, with their colorful richness in perfect harmony with Arabian fairy tales.
In 1945, Ida invited a translator from French and the daughter of the former British consul, Virginia McNeill-Haggard, to help. Virginia was almost half the age of the artist, but outwardly she was somewhat reminiscent of Bella. Chagall, on the other hand, could not stand loneliness. And a romance broke out between them. In 1946, they had a son, David (David) McNeill. Virginia lived with Chagall for about 7 years, moved with him to Paris, but then left the artist with her son. Thanks to the success in the United States, including the financial one, in 1948 Chagall finally managed to finally move to France, already dear and dear to his heart. Unfortunately, the artist's friend and regular customer, Vollard, dies at the beginning of the war. However, the Parisian publisher Teriad buys Vollard's legacy and finally publishes Chagall's many years of work in the field of book design. Thanks to this, Gogol's Dead Souls were published in 1948, La Fontaine's Fables in 1952, and the Bible in French in 1956. The biblical theme will constantly accompany the artist's work and Chagall will return to it during the later period of his life. In addition to 105 etchings (1935-1939 and 1952-1956) for the publication of the French Bible, he will create many more paintings, engravings, drawings, ceramic images, stained-glass windows, tapestries on biblical themes. All this will make up the "Biblical message" of the artist to the world, especially for which a kind of museum will be opened in Nice by Chagall in 1973, and the French government recognizes this "temple" as the official national museum.
In 1952, the artist met Valentina Brodskaya, who simply became "Vava" and the artist's official wife. Their marriage turns out to be happy, although Bella still remains the artist's muse. In the 1950s, Chagall traveled with his family a lot, including the Mediterranean - Greece and Italy. He admires the Mediterranean culture: frescoes, the works of icon painters, all this inspires the artist to create color lithographs for the work of the ancient Greek writer Long "Daphins and Chloe" (1960-1962), as well as to fascinate with the monumental techniques of frescoes and stained glass windows. Since the 1960s, Chagall mainly switched to monumental art forms - mosaics, stained-glass windows, tapestries, and also became interested in sculpture and ceramics. In the early 1960s, commissioned by the Israeli government, Chagall created mosaics and tapestries for the parliament building in Jerusalem. After this success, he became a kind of "Andrei Rublev" of his time and received many orders for the design of Catholic, Lutheran churches and synagogues throughout Europe, America and Israel.
In 1964, Chagall painted the ceiling of the Parisian Grand Opera by order of the President of France Charles de Gaulle himself, in 1966 he created two panels for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and in Chicago he decorated the building of the National Bank with the mosaic "Four Seasons" (1972).
In 1966, Chagall moved to a house built especially for him, which served at the same time as a workshop, located in the province of Nice - in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. In 1973, at the invitation of the Ministry of Culture of the Soviet Union, Chagall visited Leningrad and Moscow. An exhibition is organized for him at the Tretyakov Gallery. The artist donates several of his works to the USSR. In 1977, Marc Chagall was awarded the highest award of France - the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, and in 1977-1978 an exhibition of the artist's works was organized in the Louvre, timed to coincide with the artist's 90th birthday. Contrary to all the rules, the works of a still living author were exhibited in the Louvre!
Until his last days, Chagall continued to paint, make mosaics, stained-glass windows, sculptures, ceramics, and work on scenery for performances in theaters. On March 28, 1985, at the 98th year of his life, Marc Chagall died in an elevator, getting up after a day of work in the workshop. He died "in flight", as the gypsy once predicted for him, and as he portrayed himself flying in his paintings.
Walk
Les Amoureux En Gris huile sur toile
Above the city
Me and the village
Flying carriage
Soldier
The soldiers
Cattle seller
Le Saint Cocher de fiacre
La naissance
Dédié à ma fiancée
De la Lune, Le Village Russe
la marchande de pain
Le songe
Le Peintre et les Fiancés
Paris sky
La Reine du Cirque
King david
Evening at the window
La Madonne du village
Bonjour paris
Aleko, Un champ de blé par un après-midi d "été
Le Village en Feu
Les Mariés de la tour Eiffel
L "Acrobate
Village russe
Les amoureux
L "Ecuyère de Cirque
Juif à la Torah Gouache
la maison bleue
Bella au col blanc
Autoportrait à la Palette
Mania en mangeant Kasher
Le Poète allongé
Le Juif en Rouge
Birthday
Le Violonniste
June 24 (July 6) 1887 (Vitebsk) - March 28, 1985 (France, Alpes-Maritimes, Saint-Paul-de-Vence)
Artist, painter, graphic artist, theater artist, illustrator, master of monumental and applied arts
One of the leaders of the world avant-garde of the 20th century, who at the same time followed an original path, he managed to organically combine the ancient traditions of Jewish culture with cutting-edge innovation.
Chagall was born in the family of a clerk, was the eldest child of nine children. Received a traditional religious education at home (Hebrew, reading the Torah and Talmud), studied for several years in a cheder (primary Jewish school), and then in a regular school. The artist's talent manifested itself in his early youth. In the center of Chagall's artistic world, initially autobiographical and lyrically-confessional, is his family, home, his beloved Vitebsk. This world is imbued with the spirit of the national religious tradition, a sense of the inseparability of everyday life and being, which makes the images of the home and the whole universe interchangeable.
In 1906 Chagall studied at the Vitebsk art school of I.M. Pen, but not for long, and in 1907 he went to St. E. N. Zvantseva, where M. V. Dobuzhinsky and L. S. Bakst became his mentors.
Chagall begins his artistic biography with the painting "The Dead (Death)" (1908, now this work is kept in the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris). In 1909 he wrote "Portrait of my bride in black gloves" (Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland), "Family (Holy Family)" (National Museum of Modern Art, Paris). All these paintings were created under the influence of classical tradition and symbolism, but the artist's work is already full of originality and is developing in the mainstream of neo-primitivist stylistics. With his first works, Chagall was exhibited for the first time at the school's exhibition in the Apollo magazine in the spring of 1910.
Deciding that his apprenticeship was over, in August 1910 the artist left for Paris, where he settled in the artistic colony "Beehive". In the first Parisian period, he became close to the poets and writers G. Apollinaire, B. Sandrard, M. Jacob, A. Salmon and others. Begins to create in the spirit of "supernaturalism" ("surnaturalism" - this term is used in relation to the art of Chagall Apollinaire). An expressionist and surrealist, according to contemporaries, makes an artist a certain “dreamlike” essence of his works, coupled with a deep “human dimension”.
Despite the turbulent Parisian life, Chagall stubbornly calls himself a "Russian artist", emphasizing his generic community with Russian tradition. Chagall's innovative techniques of Cubism and Orphism - geometrized deformation and faceting of volumes, rhythmic organization, conditional color - are aimed at creating a tense emotional atmosphere. Life on his canvases is illuminated by eternally living myths that inspire the cycle of life - birth, wedding, death.
In 1912, Chagall exhibited at the Autumn Salon for the first time; sends his works to the Moscow exhibitions "World of Art", "Donkey's Tail", "Target". The central works of the first Parisian period are such paintings as "Me and My Village" (1911. Museum of Modern Art, New York), "Russia, Donkeys and Others" (1911-1912. National Museum of Modern Art, Paris), "Self-portrait with seven fingers ”(1912. Amsterdam, the Netherlands),“ Calvary ”(1912. Museum of Modern Art, New York),“ Motherhood. Pregnant Woman "," Paris from the Window "(both - 1913), and others. In these paintings, the artist manifests himself as a dreamer, erasing all boundaries between the visible and the imaginary, external and internal. Hence the stunning expression of color and shape, fantastic metamorphoses of the objective world.
At the same time, the painted canvases "Snuff of tobacco" (1912. Private collection, Germany) and "Praying Jew" (1912-1913. National Museum, Jerusalem, Israel) lead Chagall to the artistic leaders of the reviving Jewish culture.
And finally, in June 1914, his first solo exhibition opens in Berlin, which included almost all paintings and drawings created in Paris. They found a great response among young German painters, giving an immediate impetus to the expressionist movement that emerged in Germany after the war.
In the summer of 1914, Chagall returned to Vitebsk, where he was found by the First World War. Here in 1914-1915 the artist creates a series of "documents" of more than seventy works devoted not only to the war, but also written on the basis of natural impressions (portraits, landscapes, genre scenes): "View from the window. Vitebsk "," Hairdresser "," House in the town of Liozno ". In them, he achieves a synthesis of purely poetic techniques and an accurate depiction of reality.
In 1915, Chagall married Bella Rosenfeld, and over time, the theme of passionate love came to the fore in his work: "Above the City" (1914-1918, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), "Double Portrait with a Glass of Wine" (1917), "Day birth "(1915-1923) and paintings of the cycle" lovers ":" Blue Lovers "(1914)," Green Lovers "(1914-1915)," Pink Lovers "(1916). In the pre-revolutionary Vitebsk years, the artist created epic monumental type portraits ("Newspaper Seller", "Green Jew", "Praying Jew", "Red Jew"); genre, portrait, landscape compositions: "Mirror" (1915, Russian Museum), "Portrait of Bella in a White Collar" (1917, National Museum of Modern Art, Paris), etc. Things transformed by Chagall's brush acquire, as it were, human habits and characteristic faces - "Window to the Garden" (c. 1917), "Interior with Flowers" (1918) - and sometimes grow to space-time symbols of a cosmic scale ("Clock", 1914).
After the revolution, Chagall became the commissioner of arts of the provincial department of public education in Vitebsk and decorated the city for the revolutionary holidays. But constant ideological disputes with the local leadership are forcing him to move to Moscow. Here he tries himself as a theater artist, for some time he teaches drawing in a colony of street children near Moscow. In 1920-1922 he made the first significant step towards monumental art: he wrote a number of large wall panels for the Jewish Chamber Theater, where in 1921 his personal exhibition was held, and in 1922 - jointly with N. I. Altman and D. P. Shterenberg.
Having left in 1922 for Berlin, from 1923 Chagall settled in France. Since then, he permanently lives in Paris or in the south of the country, which he leaves for several years only with the beginning of the war, 1941-1947 the artist spends in New York. He travels to different countries of Europe and the Mediterranean, and more than once visits Israel.
Over time, Chagall's painting style becomes easier and more relaxed. Not only the main characters, but all the elements of the image soar upward, forming compositions of colored visions.
In 1930–1931, Chagall began collaborating with the publisher A. Vollard. By his order, the artist makes illustrations for the Bible (over 105), which predetermines the main theme of his later work - the biblical one. In 1955, work began on the so-called "Chagall's Bible" - a huge cycle of paintings, drawings, sketches, revealing the world of the ancestors of the Jewish people in a surprisingly emotional and vivid, naively wise form. By order of the same Vollard, Chagall made in the technique of black-and-white drawing the island-expressive illustrations for "Dead Souls" by N. V. Gogol and "Fables" by J. de La Fontaine.
In 1933 in Basel (Switzerland) a grandiose exhibition of Chagall's works was held, which consolidated his fame in Europe. In the same year, in Mannheim, by order of Goebbels, the master's works are publicly burned. The persecution of Jews in fascist Germany, the presentiment of an impending catastrophe paint Chagall's canvases of the pre-war years in apocalyptic tones: one of the leading themes of his art is the crucifixion: "The White Crucifixion" (1938. Chicago Institute of Art, USA), "The Crucified Artist" (1938-1940 ), The Martyr (1940), The Yellow Christ (1941).
In 1942, Chagall created costumes and sets for the ballet Aleko to the music of PI Tchaikovsky, staged by Leonid Massin, and three years later, in 1945, he created costumes, curtain sketches and scenery for the ballet by IF Stravinsky The Firebird ".
His painting Feathers and Flowers (1943) becomes a typical work of Chagall's New York period - the period of World War II. In 1944, the artist's wife dies - and since then her nostalgic image often appears in Chagall's works: Around Her (1945), Wedding Candles (1945), Nocturne (1947).
In 1952, a second youth began for the sixty-five-year-old artist, who was grieving over the loss of Bella. A marriage with Valentina (Vava) Brodskaya and a happy family life could not fail to give an impetus to the creation of new works inspired, moreover, by a trip to the Mediterranean. Chagall began to perform extensive cycles of color lithographs, easel and book works - of which the illustrations for Long's bucolic novel "Daphnis and Chloe" gained great popularity in 1960-1962.
In the last stage of his life, Chagall worked more and more in monumental forms of art, was engaged in mosaics, ceramics, tapestries, and sculpture. In the early 1960s, commissioned by the Israeli government, he created mosaics and tapestries for the Parliament building in Jerusalem. During the 1960s - 1970s, he made numerous stained glass windows for ancient Catholic churches, Lutheran churches, synagogues, public buildings in Europe, America, Israel. This is a ceramic panel, and stained-glass windows of the chapel in Assi (Savoy), and stained-glass windows of the cathedral in Metz, and in the synagogue of the Faculty of Medicine of the Hebrew University near Jerusalem, and in the Fraumünster church in Zurich, and in the cathedrals of Reims, Mainz (St. Stefan) and many others. These works, together with Chagall's secular decorative compositions - the ceiling paintings of the Paris Opera (1964) and the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1965), the Four Seasons mosaic on the building of the National Bank in Chicago (1972) - radically renew the language modern monumental art, enriching it with powerful colorful lyricism.
In 1973 Chagall visited Moscow and Leningrad in connection with an exhibition of his works at the Tretyakov Gallery. In July of the same year, in Nice, in a building conceived by Chagall, a museum of the artist's works "Biblical Message" was opened. The French government gave this peculiar Chagall "temple" the status of a national museum.
In 1977 the artist was awarded the highest award of France - the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. In October 1977 - January 1978 in the Louvre, in deviation from the rules prohibiting honoring living artists, an exhibition was organized on the occasion of Chagall's 90th birthday.
A detailed biography of Marc Chagall, written by his granddaughter Meret Meyer, can be found.
Mark Zakharovich (Moisei Khatskelevich) Shagal (French Marc Chagall, Yiddish מאַרק שאַגאַל; July 7, 1887, Vitebsk, Vitebsk province, Russian Empire (present Vitebsk region, Belarus) - March 28, 1985, Saint-Paul-de-Vence , Provence, France) - Russian and French artist of Belarusian-Jewish origin. In addition to graphics and painting, he was also engaged in scenography, wrote poetry in Yiddish. One of the most famous representatives of the artistic avant-garde of the 20th century.
Movsha Khatskelevich (later Moisey Khatskelevich and Mark Zakharovich) Chagall was born on June 24 (July 6), 1887 in the Peskovatik area on the outskirts of Vitebsk, was the eldest child in the family of the clerk Khatskel Mordukhovich (Davidovich) Chagall (1863-1921) and his wife Feiga-Ita Mendelevna Chernina (1871-1915). He had one brother and five sisters. The parents got married in 1886 and were cousins to each other. The artist's grandfather, Dovid Yeselevich Shagal (in the documents also Dovid-Mordukh Ioselevich Sagal, 1824-?), Came from the town of Babinovichi, Mogilev province, and in 1883 he settled with his sons in the town of Dobromysli, Orshansk district, Mogilev province, so property of the city of Vitebsk "the artist's father Khatskel Mordukhovich Chagall is recorded as a" dobromyslyansky bourgeoisie "; the artist's mother came from Liozno. Since 1890, the Chagall family owned a wooden house on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street in the 3rd part of Vitebsk (significantly expanded and rebuilt in 1902 with eight apartments for delivery). Marc Chagall also spent a significant part of his childhood in the house of his maternal grandfather Mendel Chernin and his wife Basheva (1844- ?, the artist’s father’s grandmother), who by that time lived in the town of Liozno, 40 km from Vitebsk.
Received a traditional Jewish education at home, studying Hebrew, Torah and Talmud. From 1898 to 1905, Chagall studied at the 1st Vitebsk four-year school. In 1906 he studied fine arts at the art school of the Vitebsk painter Yudel Pen, then moved to St. Petersburg.
From the book by Marc Chagall "My Life": "Having grabbed twenty-seven rubles - the only money in my whole life that my father gave me for an art education, - I, a ruddy and curly-haired youth, go to St. Petersburg with a friend. Decided! Tears and pride stifled me, when I was picking up money from the floor, my father threw it under the table. at first he was silent, then, as usual, he warmed up the samovar, poured himself some tea and even then, with a full mouth, said: "Well, go if you want. But remember: I have no more money. You know yourself. This is all that I am I can scrape together. I will not send anything. You can not count. "
In St. Petersburg, for two seasons, Chagall studied at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, which was headed by Nicholas Roerich (he was admitted to the school without an exam for the third year). In 1909-1911 he continued his studies with L. S. Bakst at the private art school of E. N. Zvantseva. Thanks to his Vitebsk friend Viktor Mekler and Teya Brakhman, the daughter of a Vitebsk doctor who also studied in St. Petersburg, Marc Chagall entered the circle of young intelligentsia, keen on art and poetry. Thea Brahman was an educated and modern girl, several times she posed nude for Chagall. In the fall of 1909, while in Vitebsk, Thea introduced Marc Chagall to her friend Bertha (Bella) Rosenfeld, who at that time was studying at one of the best educational institutions for girls - the Gerje School in Moscow. This meeting turned out to be decisive in the fate of the artist. “With her, not with Thea, but with her I must be - suddenly it illuminates me! She is silent, so am I. She looks - oh, her eyes! - I also. As if we have known each other for a long time, and she knows everything about me: my childhood, my present life, and what will happen to me; as if she was always watching me, was somewhere nearby, although I saw her for the first time. And I realized: this is my wife. Eyes shine on a pale face. Big, bulging, black! These are my eyes, my soul. Thea instantly became a stranger and indifferent to me. I entered a new house, and it became mine forever "(Marc Chagall," My Life "). The love theme in Chagall's work is invariably associated with the image of Bella. From the canvases of all periods of his work, including the later one (after Bella's death), her "bulging black eyes" look at us. Her features are recognizable in the faces of almost all the women he depicts.
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Chagall Mark Zakharovich (1887-1985) was an artist of Jewish origin who worked in Russia and France. He was engaged in painting, graphics, scenography, was fond of writing poetry in Yiddish. He is a prominent representative of avant-garde art in the art of the twentieth century.
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 Vitebsk province belonged to the Russian Empire). He was the first child in the family.
Father, Shagal Khatskel Mordukhovich (Davidovich), worked as a salesman. Mom, Feigi-Ita Mendelevna Chernina, was engaged in housekeeping and raising children. Father and mother among themselves were cousins and siblings. 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 the Jews, at home. At the age of 11, Chagall became a student of the 1st Vitebsk four-year school. From 1906 he studied painting with the Vitebsk artist Yudel Pen, who had his own school of fine arts.
Mark really wanted to study further the fine arts, he asked his father to give him money to study in St. Petersburg. He threw 27 rubles to his son, poured himself some tea and sipped smugly, said that there was no more and he would not send him a penny anymore.
In St. Petersburg, Mark began to study at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, where he studied for two seasons. This school was led by the Russian artist Nicholas Roerich, Chagall was taken to the third year without passing exams.
After 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 a part of the circle of young intellectuals, poets and artists. Chagall lived very poorly, he had to earn a living day and night, working as a retoucher.
Here in St. Petersburg Chagall painted his first two famous paintings "Death" and "Birth". And Mark also had the first admirer of creativity - the famous lawyer and State Duma deputy Vinaver MM at that time. He bought two canvases from the aspiring artist and gave him a scholarship to travel to Europe.
So in 1911, on the scholarship he received, Mark managed to go to Paris, where he got acquainted with the avant-garde work of European poets and artists. Chagall fell in love with this city right away, 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 was delayed for 10 years, everything was turned upside down by the outbreak of the First World War.
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 the 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, from under his brush came out such world-famous canvases:
In 1922, with his wife and daughter, Chagall emigrated from Russia, 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 the Second World War, at the invitation of the American Museum of Modern Art, he fled to 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 windows, 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 was held at the Tretyakov Gallery, 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 in the Louvre.
Mark died in France on March 28, 1985, where he is buried in the cemetery of the Provencal town of Saint-Paul-de-Vence.
In 1909, in Vitebsk, Chagall's friend Thea Brakhman introduced him to her friend Berta Rosenfeld. In the first second of his acquaintance, he realized that this girl was everything to him - his eyes, his soul. He was immediately sure that his wife was in front of him. He affectionately called her Bella, she became for him the one and only muse. From the day they met, the theme of love occupied the main place in Chagall's work. Bella's features can be recognized in almost all women depicted by the artist.
In 1915 they got married, and the next 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 broke up.
In 1952, Mark married for the third time. His wife Vava - Valentina Brodskaya - owned a fashion salon in London.
