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Marc Chagall
Book by Werner Haftmann
162 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1998
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February 10, 2024
Another book I will have to buy ( I got this from my library). I highly recommend this book to Chagall fans.
As an art museum ( or museum in general ) junkie, reading this book was a really amazing experience.
With its large colourplates, detailed introduction and great analysis on each of the paintings, it ALMOST felt like a top-notch guided Chagall exhibition.
( of course, any art fans would agree it’s never the same as viewing the real deal.)
Some notes/ quotes:
“We think of Marc Chagall as the painter-poet of the twentieth century. He shares this distinction only with Paul Klee….yet it was on this point that criticism of Chagall began. Aimed at the poetic side of his art, it consisted of accusations of infatuation with literary, symbolic, folkloristic, and religious ideas, and was voiced especially by ideologists of Cubist and Constructivist persuasion.”
Paul Klee is one of my favourites too, I guess I have a certain taste for “ painter- poets “ …
“And the Cubists, following Cézanne, had found a crystalline, perspective pictorial architecture which revealed the harmony of forms underlying visible objects.
The next task in developing the new pictorial language was to fill out the newly found syntax with fresh imagery and previously inexpressible emotions, from the sphere of the unseen and the irrational. The landscape, the nude, and the still life, with which both the Fauves and the Cubists had developed the new syntax, were no longer adequate as motifs, and a powerful influx of new ideas was necessary. The French intellect had supplied the design; now was the time for elaboration.
Marc Chagall supplied just that.”
( irrational perception from dreams, visions, legends inspired by his Byelorussian and Eastern Jewish origins, which enchanced the expressive powers of colour and forms)
Painters such as Delaunay were interested in Chagall’s Chromatism; the poets and thinkers how the subjects unexpectedly widens the intellectual horizon:
“ in 1911, and through Chagall alone, metaphor made its triumphal entry into modern painting."
-André Breton
Chagall himself wished to be regarded as a painter instead of a teller of fables and legends or …a poet ; however he was on closer terms with poets than painters. He remained largely outside of the painters’ conventions and had an insurmountable fear of their theories.
His best poet friend was Blaise Cendrars , who so mesmerized by Chagall, even invented titles for some of his paintings.
Aponllinaire, after visiting Chagall, wrote a poem dedicated to Chagall on the back of the menu at the nearby cafe ( I couldn’t find the poem but Chagall ‘s homage to Aponllinaire is included in this book ).
“One cannot compare suburban Vitebsk with the general notion of a ghetto, but there was no lack of regulation, discrimination, and anti-Semitic pronouncements in czarist Russia. When it had been decided that Chagall should attend the municipal school, it took all his mother's cunning and a few bribes to get around the ruling forbidding Jewish children to go to state schools. When he went to St. Petersburg to study painting, he had to pretend to be a servant in a lawyer's house in order to avoid the residence restriction on Jews. The outer world was hostile.”
The Fauves and the Cubists ( notably Orphic Cubism, pioneered by Delaunay and Leger) had the greatest influence on Chagall. Leger’s painting Les Noces gave Chagall a moment of enlightenment.
Chagall was never keen on the “ revolutionary art” in Russian and was repelled, in 1922, when social realism became pure propaganda in reaction to what Lenin called “ intellectual confusion of Leftist Trend “.
My favourites:
I AND THE VILLAGE (Moi et le village), 1911-1912 , MoMA
"The cow in our yard, with her milk as white as snow, the cow who used to falk to us."- Chagall
THE DRUNKARD(Le saoul)
1911-1912 Collection Frau Milada Neumann, Caracas
Shows influence from Delaunay and Section d’Or ( colours , geometric patterns), detached from analytical cubism for more receptivity to poetic expression.
THE HOLY COACHMAN (Le saint voiturier)
1911-1912 , private collection
THE SOLDIER DRINKS(Le soldat boit)
1912, The Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York City
“The Soldier Drinks is one of the first among the burlesque figure pictures describing a piece of reality remembered from the warmhearted atmosphere of small-town Russian life.”
THE PROMENADE(La promenade)
1917-1918
State Russian Museum, Leningrad
The ecstasy and exuberance : a result of both the new phase of Chagall’s artistic achievement and an exhilarating sense of freedoms brought about by the October revolution, which for the Jews meant true liberation as now they were entitled to full rights as every other citizens of the State.
Fanatical x a sense of credibility:
“It is the same kind of meta-realism which had developed in Chagall's years in Vitebsk—a surrealistic moment in which the real and the fantastic merge into one, the sort of thing Apollinaire had in mind with his term sur-naturel.”
COMPOSITION WITH CIRCLESAND GOAT
(Composition aux cercles et à la chèvre)
1920
Collection the artist
PEASANT LIFE(La vie paysanne)
1925
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
FRUITS AND FLOWERS
(Fruits et fleurs)
1929
Private collection, Paris
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
(Songe d'une nuit d'été)
1939
Musée de Peinture et de Sculpture, Grenoble
“If we compare this painting with White Crucifixion (color-plate 22) we sense that the topical themes so movingly portrayed in the ex-voto have been left behind, and the pure poetry of color has moved into the foreground. With this picture a new chapter in Chagall's painting began, which developed during the years in America and led on to the style of his later years. At the time of his flight from France, Midsummer Night's Dream was in his luggage, as an exemplary reminder of the autonomous strength of color.”
THE JUGGLER(Le jongleur)
1943
Collection Mrs. Gilbert W. Chapman, New York City
“this ( central ) figure is woman, man, animal, demon, and angel all at the same time, comprising all manifestations of humanity.”
THE WEDDING CANDLES
(Les lumières du mariage)
1945
Private collection
Bella passed away in 1944, at Cranberry Lake, due to a virus infection.
THE BLUE FACE
(Le visage bleu)
1967
Collection A. Maeght, Paris
THE MAGICIAN
(Le magicien)
1968
Private collection
As an art museum ( or museum in general ) junkie, reading this book was a really amazing experience.
With its large colourplates, detailed introduction and great analysis on each of the paintings, it ALMOST felt like a top-notch guided Chagall exhibition.
( of course, any art fans would agree it’s never the same as viewing the real deal.)
Some notes/ quotes:
“We think of Marc Chagall as the painter-poet of the twentieth century. He shares this distinction only with Paul Klee….yet it was on this point that criticism of Chagall began. Aimed at the poetic side of his art, it consisted of accusations of infatuation with literary, symbolic, folkloristic, and religious ideas, and was voiced especially by ideologists of Cubist and Constructivist persuasion.”
Paul Klee is one of my favourites too, I guess I have a certain taste for “ painter- poets “ …
“And the Cubists, following Cézanne, had found a crystalline, perspective pictorial architecture which revealed the harmony of forms underlying visible objects.
The next task in developing the new pictorial language was to fill out the newly found syntax with fresh imagery and previously inexpressible emotions, from the sphere of the unseen and the irrational. The landscape, the nude, and the still life, with which both the Fauves and the Cubists had developed the new syntax, were no longer adequate as motifs, and a powerful influx of new ideas was necessary. The French intellect had supplied the design; now was the time for elaboration.
Marc Chagall supplied just that.”
( irrational perception from dreams, visions, legends inspired by his Byelorussian and Eastern Jewish origins, which enchanced the expressive powers of colour and forms)
Painters such as Delaunay were interested in Chagall’s Chromatism; the poets and thinkers how the subjects unexpectedly widens the intellectual horizon:
“ in 1911, and through Chagall alone, metaphor made its triumphal entry into modern painting."
-André Breton
Chagall himself wished to be regarded as a painter instead of a teller of fables and legends or …a poet ; however he was on closer terms with poets than painters. He remained largely outside of the painters’ conventions and had an insurmountable fear of their theories.
His best poet friend was Blaise Cendrars , who so mesmerized by Chagall, even invented titles for some of his paintings.
Aponllinaire, after visiting Chagall, wrote a poem dedicated to Chagall on the back of the menu at the nearby cafe ( I couldn’t find the poem but Chagall ‘s homage to Aponllinaire is included in this book ).
“One cannot compare suburban Vitebsk with the general notion of a ghetto, but there was no lack of regulation, discrimination, and anti-Semitic pronouncements in czarist Russia. When it had been decided that Chagall should attend the municipal school, it took all his mother's cunning and a few bribes to get around the ruling forbidding Jewish children to go to state schools. When he went to St. Petersburg to study painting, he had to pretend to be a servant in a lawyer's house in order to avoid the residence restriction on Jews. The outer world was hostile.”
The Fauves and the Cubists ( notably Orphic Cubism, pioneered by Delaunay and Leger) had the greatest influence on Chagall. Leger’s painting Les Noces gave Chagall a moment of enlightenment.
Chagall was never keen on the “ revolutionary art” in Russian and was repelled, in 1922, when social realism became pure propaganda in reaction to what Lenin called “ intellectual confusion of Leftist Trend “.
My favourites:
I AND THE VILLAGE (Moi et le village), 1911-1912 , MoMA
"The cow in our yard, with her milk as white as snow, the cow who used to falk to us."- Chagall
THE DRUNKARD(Le saoul)
1911-1912 Collection Frau Milada Neumann, Caracas
Shows influence from Delaunay and Section d’Or ( colours , geometric patterns), detached from analytical cubism for more receptivity to poetic expression.
THE HOLY COACHMAN (Le saint voiturier)
1911-1912 , private collection
THE SOLDIER DRINKS(Le soldat boit)
1912, The Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, New York City
“The Soldier Drinks is one of the first among the burlesque figure pictures describing a piece of reality remembered from the warmhearted atmosphere of small-town Russian life.”
THE PROMENADE(La promenade)
1917-1918
State Russian Museum, Leningrad
The ecstasy and exuberance : a result of both the new phase of Chagall’s artistic achievement and an exhilarating sense of freedoms brought about by the October revolution, which for the Jews meant true liberation as now they were entitled to full rights as every other citizens of the State.
Fanatical x a sense of credibility:
“It is the same kind of meta-realism which had developed in Chagall's years in Vitebsk—a surrealistic moment in which the real and the fantastic merge into one, the sort of thing Apollinaire had in mind with his term sur-naturel.”
COMPOSITION WITH CIRCLESAND GOAT
(Composition aux cercles et à la chèvre)
1920
Collection the artist
PEASANT LIFE(La vie paysanne)
1925
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
FRUITS AND FLOWERS
(Fruits et fleurs)
1929
Private collection, Paris
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
(Songe d'une nuit d'été)
1939
Musée de Peinture et de Sculpture, Grenoble
“If we compare this painting with White Crucifixion (color-plate 22) we sense that the topical themes so movingly portrayed in the ex-voto have been left behind, and the pure poetry of color has moved into the foreground. With this picture a new chapter in Chagall's painting began, which developed during the years in America and led on to the style of his later years. At the time of his flight from France, Midsummer Night's Dream was in his luggage, as an exemplary reminder of the autonomous strength of color.”
THE JUGGLER(Le jongleur)
1943
Collection Mrs. Gilbert W. Chapman, New York City
“this ( central ) figure is woman, man, animal, demon, and angel all at the same time, comprising all manifestations of humanity.”
THE WEDDING CANDLES
(Les lumières du mariage)
1945
Private collection
Bella passed away in 1944, at Cranberry Lake, due to a virus infection.
THE BLUE FACE
(Le visage bleu)
1967
Collection A. Maeght, Paris
THE MAGICIAN
(Le magicien)
1968
Private collection
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