Marc Chagall

Marc Zaharovich Chagall (fr. Marc Chagall July 7, 1887, Liozno, Vitebsk province, Russian Empire - March 28, 1985, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Provence, France) is a Belarusian, Russian and French artist of 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.

He received a traditional Jewish education at home, having studied the Hebrew language, the Torah and the 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 Marc Chagall's book "My Life":

«Having seized twenty-seven rubles - the only money in my life that my father gave me for an art education - I, a ruddy and curly youth, set off for Petersburg with a friend. Decided! Tears and pride choked me when I picked up money from the floor - my father threw it under the table. Crawled and picked up. To my father's questions, I stuttered and answered that I wanted to enter an art school ... I don’t remember exactly what mine he cut and what he said. Most likely, at first he kept silent, then, as usual, warmed up the samovar, poured himself some tea, and only then, with his mouth full, said:

«But remember, I don't have any more money. You know. That's all I can scrape together. I will not send anything. You can't count."»

In St. Petersburg, Chagall studied for two seasons at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, which was headed by N. K. Roerich (he was admitted to this 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 Thea Brahman, the daughter of a Vitebsk doctor who also studied in St. Petersburg, Marc Chagall entered the circle of young intellectuals who were passionate about art and poetry.

Thea Brahman was an educated and modern girl, several times she posed nude for Chagall. In the autumn of 1909, during her stay in Vitebsk, Teya introduced Marc Chagall to her friend Bertha (Bella) Rosenfeld, who at that time studied at one of the best educational institutions for girls - the Guerrier school in Moscow. This meeting was decisive in the fate of the artist. «With her, not with Thea, but with her I should be - it suddenly illuminates me! She is silent, and so am I. 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 current 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 shining 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.»

The love theme in the work of Chagall 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 depicted by him.

In May 1911, on a scholarship received from Maxim Vinaver, Chagall went to Paris,

where he continued to study and met avant-garde artists and poets living in the French capital (with the spouses Sonia and Robert Delaunay, A. Lot, G. Apollinaire, M Jacob, R. Canudo and others). While in Paris, he first started referring to himself as Mark. During this period, his friendship began with the poet Blaise Cendrars, who spoke Russian (when, many years later, Chagall was asked to name the most significant events in his life, he replied: "My meeting with Cendrars and the Russian revolution"). The scholarship allowed Chagall in the first half of 1912 to move to the famous "Beehive" - a house in which there were living quarters and artists' studios. He participated in the Autumn Salon, which opened on October 1, 1912, and in which more than half of all the works were written in a cubist manner. Despite some influence of cubism on Chagall (he studied at the Academie de la Palette, where this artistic direction dominated), the critic Ya. cubists: “Among the Russian youth, the works of Chagall stop their attention.

Researchers find greater or lesser influence of cubism in many paintings of this period: “Self-portrait with seven fingers”, “Adam and Eve”, “Thirty-thirty (Poet)”, “Soldier drinks”. At the beginning of 1913, Chagall's first solo exhibition took place at the Maria Vasilyeva Academy, and already in September his paintings were exhibited at the First German Autumn Salon in Berlin, from where Chagall returned to Russia.

In the summer of 1914, the artist came to Vitebsk to meet with his family and see Bella. Then he planned to return to Europe, but the outbreak of war did not allow these plans to come true. On July 25, 1915, the wedding of Mark and Bella took place. In 1916, their daughter Ida was born, who later became a biographer and researcher of her father's work.

In 1960, Marc Chagall won the Erasmus Prize. Since the 1960s, Chagall has 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 received many orders for the design of Catholic and Lutheran churches, as well as synagogues throughout Europe, America and Israel.

In 1964, Chagall, commissioned by French President Charles de Gaulle, painted the ceiling of the Paris Grand Opera, 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 Four Seasons mosaic (1972). In 1966, Chagall moved to a house built specially for him in the province of Nice - Saint-Paul-de-Vence, which served as both housing and a workshop.

During this period, Chagall creates engravings for the books “Daphnis and Chloe” (“Daphnis et Chloé”) by Long (1962), “Marc Chagall. Poems” (“Marc Chagall. Poèmes”, 1969), “Antimémoires” (“Antimémoires”) by A. Malraux (1970), “The Fairy and the Kingdom” (“La Féerie et le Royaume”) by C. Burnickel (1972), “ Odyssey "("L'Odyssee") by Homer (1974), "The Tempest" ("The Tempest") by Shakespeare (1975), "He who says something without saying anything" ("Celui qui dit les choses sans rien dire" ) L. Aragon (1975), “And on the ground” (“Et sur la terre”) A. Malraux (1977), “Psalms of David” (“Psaumes de David”, 1978), as well as a cycle of etchings “Circus” ( Cirque, 1967).

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 held in the Louvre, timed to coincide with his 90th birthday. Against all the rules, the Louvre exhibited works by a still living author.

Chagall died on March 28, 1985 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Buried at the local cemetery.