1. Student of Leon Bakst
2. The monumental art of Marc Chagall

The parents of Marc Chagall dreamed that their son would be an accountant or a clerk. However, he became a world-famous artist when he was not even 30 years old. Marc Chagall is considered his own not only in Russia and Belarus, but also in France, the USA and Israel - in all countries where he lived and worked.

Student of Leon Bakst

Marc Chagall (Moishe Segal) was born in the Jewish suburb of Vitebsk on July 6, 1887. He received his primary education at home, like most Jews at that time, he studied the Torah, the Talmud and the Hebrew language. Then Chagall entered the Vitebsk four-year school. From the age of 14, he studied drawing with the Vitebsk artist Yudel Pan. The master of the Jewish renaissance was an academician, he worked in the domestic and portrait genre, and his student, on the contrary, leaned towards the avant-garde. But the bold pictorial experiments of the young Chagall shocked the experienced teacher so much that he began to study with the young artist for free, and after a while invited the young Chagall to go to St. Petersburg and study with a mentor from the capital. In those years, avant-garde art magazines were published in St. Petersburg, and exhibitions of contemporary Western art were held.

“Having captured twenty-seven rubles - the only money in my life that my father gave me for an art education - I, a ruddy and curly youth, go to Petersburg with a friend. To my father's questions, I stuttered and answered that I wanted to go to art school.

Marc Chagall

In St. Petersburg, he studied at the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists and in the studio of Goveliy Seidenberg, studied painting with Lev Bakst. At this time, the artistic language of Chagall was formed: he wrote early works in the spirit of expressionism and tried new painting techniques and techniques.

In 1909 Chagall returned to Vitebsk. He recalled wandering the city streets in search of inspiration: “The city burst like a violin string, and people, leaving their usual places, began to walk above the ground. My friends sat down to rest on the roof. Paints mix, turn into wine, and it foams on my canvases..

On many canvases of the artist you can see this provincial town: rickety fences, humpbacked bridges, brick streets, an old church, which he often saw from the window of his studio.

Here, in Vitebsk, Chagall met his only love and muse - Bella Rosenfeld.

“She looks—oh, her eyes! - I, too.<...>And I realized: this is my wife. Eyes shining on a pale face. Big, bulging, black! These are my eyes, my soul."

Marc Chagall

Almost all of his canvases with female images depict Bella Rosenfeld - "Walk", "Beauty in a White Collar", "Above the City".

Marc Chagall. "Birthday". 1915

Marc Chagall. "Walk". 1917

Marc Chagall. "Above the city". 1918

Parisian paintings on nightgowns

In 1911, Chagall met State Duma deputy Maxim Vinaver, who helped the artist to travel to Paris. At that time, many Russian avant-garde artists, writers and poets lived in the capital of France. They often got together with foreign colleagues, discussed new trends in painting and literature. At such meetings, Chagall met the poets Guillaume Apollinaire and Blaise Cendrars, the publisher Herwart Walden.

In Paris, Chagall saw poetics in everything: "In things and in people - from a simple worker in a blue blouse to sophisticated champions of cubism - there was an impeccable sense of proportion, clarity, form, picturesqueness". Chagall attended classes at several academies at once, while simultaneously studying the work of Eugene Delacroix, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin. At the same time, the artist said that “no academy would give me all that I learned while wandering around Paris, looking at exhibitions and museums, looking through windows”.

Marc Chagall. "Bride with a Fan" 1911

Marc Chagall. "View of Paris from the Window". 1913

Marc Chagall. "Me and the Village" 1911

A year later, he moved to the "Beehive" - ​​a building in which poor foreign artists lived and worked. Here he painted "The Bride with a Fan", "View of Paris from the Window", "Me and the Village", "Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers". The money that Vinaver sent him was only enough for the bare necessities: food and the rent of a workshop. Canvases were expensive, so more and more often Chagall wrote on pieces of tablecloth stretched on stretchers, sheets and nightgowns. Out of necessity, he sold his paintings cheaply and in bulk.

Chagall did not join associations and groups. He believed that there was no direction in his painting, but only "colors, purity, love".

“Their [Cubist] undertakings did not resent me at all. “Let them eat their square pears on triangular tables for their health,” I thought.<...>My art does not reason, it is molten lead, the azure of the soul pouring onto the canvas. Down with naturalism, impressionism and cube-realism! They are boring and disgusting to me"

Marc Chagall

In September 1913, the publisher Herwart Walden invited Chagall to participate in the first German Autumn Salon. The artist offered three of his canvases: “Dedicated to my bride”, “Golgotha” and “Russia, donkeys and others”. His paintings were exhibited with the works of contemporary artists from different countries. A year later, Walden organized a personal exhibition of Chagall in Berlin - in the editorial office of the magazine Der Sturm. The exposition included 34 paintings on canvas and 160 drawings on paper. Society and critics highly appreciated the presented works. The artist has followers. Art critics associate the development of German expressionism in those years, including with the painting of Chagall.

Chagall - founder of the Vitebsk Art School

In 1914, Chagall returned to Vitebsk and the following year married his beloved Bella Rosenfeld. He dreamed of returning to Paris with his wife, but World War I ruined his plans. Service in the Petrograd Military-Industrial Committee saved the artist from being sent to the front. At that time, Chagall worked on paintings infrequently: much attention had to be paid to work and family. In 1916, they had a daughter, Ida, with Bella. In rare moments, when Marc Chagall was in the workshop, he painted views of Vitebsk, portraits of Bella, canvases dedicated to the war.

Marc and Bella Chagall with their daughter Ida. 1924. Photo: kulturologia.ru

Marc and Bella Chagall. Paris. 1929. Photo: orloffmagazine.com

Marc and Bella Chagall. Photo: posta-magazine.ru

After the revolution, Marc Chagall became the plenipotentiary for the arts in the Vitebsk province. In 1919, he organized the Vitebsk Art School in one of the nationalized mansions.

“The dream that the children of the urban poor, who lovingly soiled paper somewhere at home, would join art, is coming true ... We can afford the luxury of “playing with fire”, and guides and workshops are freely presented and functioning within our walls all directions from left to "right" inclusive.

Marc Chagall

School students were engaged in posters with slogans, advertising signs, and on the anniversary of October they painted walls and fences with revolutionary stories. Marc Chagall created a system of free workshops at the school. The artists who ran the workshops could use their own teaching methods. Kazimir Malevich, Alexander Romm, Nina Kogan taught here. Marc Chagall offered his old teacher, Yudel Pen, to head the preparatory department.

However, disagreements soon arose in the team. The school took on a Suprematist bias and Chagall left for Moscow. In Moscow, the artist taught drawing to children in a colony for homeless children, he painted scenery for the Jewish Chamber Theater. He did not leave the thought of returning to Paris, but crossing the border at that time was not easy.

Illustrator of Gogol, Long, La Fontaine

The opportunity to leave the USSR came from Marc Chagall in 1922. To participate in the First Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin, the artist took out most of his paintings, and then left with his family. The exhibition was a success. The press published rave reviews about his work, publishers published a biography and catalogs of Chagall's paintings in all European languages.

The artist stayed in Berlin for more than a year. He studied the technique of lithography - printing drawings with the help of a print.

“When I took a lithographic stone or a copper plate, it seemed to me that I had a talisman in my hands. It seemed to me that I could put all my sorrows and joys on them ... "

Marc Chagall

In the spring of 1923, Chagall returned to Paris. The paintings he left in the Paris Hive are gone. The artist restored some of them from memory, among them "Cattle Dealer", "Birthday".

Soon Marc Chagall returned to lithography again. His friend, the publisher Ambroise Vollard, offered to create etchings for Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls. The two-volume "Dead Souls" itself was released in a limited edition - only 368 copies. It was a collector's edition: each illustration in the book was numbered and signed by the artist, and the handmade paper is protected by the watermark Ames mortes - "Dead Souls". One set of engravings - 96 works - was donated by Marc Chagall to the Tretyakov Gallery.

In 1944, he was going to return to Paris liberated from the Germans. But these days, Bella suddenly died. Chagall was very upset by the loss. He did not paint for nine months, and when he returned to creativity, he created two works dedicated to Bella - “Wedding Candles” and “Around Her”.

Marc Chagall. Wedding candles. 1945

Marc Chagall. Around her (In memory of Bella). 1945

After that, Marc Chagall was married twice more. First, on the American translator Virginia McNeill-Haggard, the couple had a son, David, and then on Valentina Brodskaya.

The artist continued to illustrate books, painted frescoes and made stained glass windows for cathedrals and synagogues. At the request of André Malraux, Minister of Culture of France, Chagall painted the ceiling at the Paris Grand Opera. It was the first object of classical architecture, which was decorated by an avant-garde artist. Chagall divided the ceiling into colored sectors, in each of which he depicted scenes from operas and ballet performances. The scenery was complemented by the silhouettes of the Eiffel Tower and Vitebsk houses. Marc Chagall also created mosaics for the Parliament building in Israel, two picturesque panels for the Metropolitan Opera in the USA.

In 1973, Marc Chagall visited the USSR. Here he held an exhibition of works in the State Tretyakov Gallery, after which he presented several paintings to the Tretyakov Gallery and the Pushkin Museum.

In 1977, Marc Chagall was awarded France's highest award, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. At the end of the same year, on the occasion of the anniversary of Chagall, the Louvre hosted a personal exhibition of the artist.

Chagall died in a mansion in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. He is buried in the local cemetery in Provence.

Chagall is one of the few artists who formed an entire era in art. It is difficult to name a person who has not even heard about this great man with an incredible imagination and a unique vision of his place in painting. Until now, Chagall is a unique phenomenon, at least no one has managed to come close to the level of which.

The future recognized leader of avant-gardism was born on the outskirts of Vitebsk, which was one of the small towns of the Russian province, in 1887. It was a time of mass persecution of foreigners and terrible Jewish pogroms, which caused mass emigration of the Jewish population to other countries, with a more loyal attitude towards representatives of the Jewish faith. But for little Movshe, all this was ahead. He received a traditional education for Jewish children, having studied the Torah, the Talmud and mastering the Hebrew language. After graduating from four classes of the school, Chagall studied the art of painting in Vitebsk at the school of Yudel Pan.

Realizing that his talent cannot be developed on the periphery, the artist decides to move to St. Petersburg - the then center of artistic thought. The father reluctantly lets him go, allocating a very meager amount and refusing to continue to financially help his son. In the city, Chagall studies at the Roerich school, and then with Bakst. At this time, Mark meets Bella Rosenfeld, who until the end of his life remains a muse and beloved woman, whose face is recognizable in literally every image created by the master.

In 1911, the artist's life begins, during which he was constantly thrown from one city and country to another. Having changed his Jewish name Movshe Khatskelevich to a more European-sounding Mark Zakharovich, he leaves on a scholarship to study at, returning home to Vitebsk in 1914 and just at the beginning of the First World War. The following year, he marries Bella, and a year later they have a daughter, Ida. She subsequently becomes a biographer and researcher of her father's work. At the end of the revolution, Chagall became the commissar for arts in the Vitebsk province and opened his own art school.

In 1920, he moved to work on the design of theatrical performances, and in 1922 he went to Lithuania for his own exhibition with his family. Then begins Chagall's journey to the West. He moved to, and then to, where he received citizenship in 1937. However, in 1941, the family had to flee from impending fascism to the United States, where Bella died in 1944. She was not the last woman in the life of the artist, but until the moment of his death she remained his love and eternal muse.

Since the 60s, Marc Chagall became interested in large forms and monumental art. His interests included paintings, including ceiling paintings, tapestries and stained-glass windows. Over the years, the master has created many significant things, including painting the ceiling of the Opera Garnier in France and panels for the Metropolitan Opera, mosaics for the National Bank in the United States.

Mark Zakharovich Chagall lived a great life and left a significant mark on the art of the avant-garde. He died at the age of 98, until the end of his life, remembering his origin and weaving motifs from the life of his native Vitebsk into his works.

Mark Zakharovich Chagall is a great expressionist and modernist artist. Born in Vitebsk (Belarus) on July 6, 1887. Painter, graphic artist and illustrator, one of the most famous artists in the world. Despite the fact that most of the paintings were created on biblical and folklore themes, the style of execution still seems to many to be very bold and unusual.

The first teacher of Chagall was the Vitebsk painter Yu. M. Pen. To improve his skills, Mark went to St. Petersburg, where he entered the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. He was extremely interested in all trends in art, at an early stage - under the impression of which he created his first paintings, which now hang in European museums: “Dead Man”, “Portrait of My Bride in Black Gloves”, “Family”, etc.

In 1910, Marc Chagall moved to Paris. Here he makes friends with such poets and writers as: G. Apollinaire, B. Cendrars, M. Jacob, A. Salmon. Apollinaire even called his art supernaturalism.

Marc Chagall spent part of his life in France, but at the same time he always called himself a Russian artist. In Paris, to his unique style, he added well-studied - and. All this contributed to its further development. The paintings of this time are distinguished by a tense emotional atmosphere, spirituality and a bright subtext to the cycle of being - life and death, eternal and momentary.

In 1914 the artist returned to Vitebsk, where he found the beginning of the First World War. Here he lived, worked and painted his immortal paintings until 1941. Then, at the invitation of the New York Museum, he moved with his family to America. In the USA, Marc Chagall worked on theatrical sketches and design of theatrical productions.

In 1948, the artist finally moved to France. Near Nice, he built his own workshop - now it is the National Museum of France, dedicated to the great artist. In Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the artist died on March 28, 1985.

Marc Chagall paintings with titles

Adam and Eve

Anyuta. Portrait of a sister

Birthday

Jew in prayer

Beauty woman in white collar

red nude

flying wagon

Above the city

bride with fan

Who was supposed to be one of the eight children born at the end of the nineteenth century in a small town near Vitebsk in the family of a poor Jew - a herring peddler? Probably a global celebrity. And so it happened. And if someone has not yet guessed who they are talking about, you should know that this is the famous artist Marc Chagall. A brief biography of his childhood, of course, does not contain any hints of a stellar future. And yet, the name of this person today is quite popular.

The beginning of the creative path

As a child, Chagall began studying at a Jewish elementary school, and then went to the state, where the lessons were already held in Russian. After mastering the basics of education at school, until starting from 1907 to 1910, he managed to learn a little painting in St. Petersburg. A notable work of the early period of his work is the painting "Death", which depicts a violinist (a fairly often repeated image for the artist we are considering) against the backdrop of nightmarish events on stage.

Then the young Marc Chagall moved to Paris, to a studio on the outskirts of the city of Bohemia, in a well-known area called La Rouche. There he met several famous writers and artists, including Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay and others. Experimentation was welcomed in this company, and Chagall quickly began to develop poetic and innovative tendencies, influenced by the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

Return to native places

And since that time, his creative biography has just begun. Marc Chagall fell in love with Paris forever. The artist called it the second Vitebsk. The French capital was the center of world painting, and there Mark suddenly gained fame for himself. It was Paris that Mark Zakharovich considered the source of his inspiration. And here he was practically declared one of the founders of such a genre of painting as surrealism. But he's leaving.

After the Berlin exhibition, Mark Zakharovich returns to Vitebsk, where, however, he does not intend to stay for too long, only to have time to marry his bride Bella. However, it got stuck due to the outbreak of the First World War, as the Russian borders were closed for an indefinite period.

But, instead of falling into despair, Marc Chagall continues to create. Marrying Bella in 1915, he creates such masterpieces as "Birthday" and a playful acrobatic canvas called "Double Portrait with a Glass of Wine". All works of this period act as witnesses of the joyful state of the artist during the first years of his married life.

Revolutionary period in the life of the artist

The Jews had every reason to love the revolution. After all, she destroyed the Pale of Settlement and made it possible for many representatives of this nationality to become commissars. And how did Mark Zakharovich feel about the revolution? And what information about this period does his biography contain? Marc Chagall also tried to love the revolution. In his native Vitebsk, in 1918, he even became a commissar for culture, and later founded and directed an art school, which is becoming very popular.

Mark Zakharovich, together with his students, decorated the city for the celebration of the first anniversary of October. Officials were not as pleased with the design of the celebration as the artist himself. And when the representatives of the new government began to ask the master why his cows are green and his horses fly in the sky, and most importantly, what Shagalov's characters have in common with the great revolutionary principles and Karl Marx, the enthusiasm for the revolution quickly disappeared. Moreover, the Bolsheviks established a new Pale of Settlement, and not only for Jews.

Moving to the capital and the decision to leave Russia

What did Chagall Mark Zakharovich begin to do? His biography is still connected with Russia, and now he is moving to Moscow, where he begins to teach orphans of the revolution in a children's colony how to draw. These were children who had repeatedly been subjected to terrible treatment by criminals, many remembered the gleam of the steel blade of the knife with which their parents were stabbed, deafened by the whistle of bullets and the sound of broken glass.

Once, passing by the Kremlin, Mark Zakharovich saw Trotsky getting out of the car. With heavy steps he made his way to his quarters. Then the artist realized how tired he was, and acutely felt that more than anything in the world he wanted to paint his pictures. Neither the tsarist nor the Soviet authorities, in his opinion, needed him.

Marc Chagall decides to take his wife and daughter, who had already appeared by that time, and leave Russia. He becomes the first commissioner who leaves the new state in order not only to save the lives of loved ones, but also his soul from lack of freedom.

New Life, or Attitude to the Work of an Artist Abroad

Marc Chagall, whose biography and work is now no longer connected with his homeland, went to France - towards his immortality. In subsequent years, the phrases "genius of the century", "patriarch of world painting" were added to his name. The French declared Mark Zakharovich the head of the Paris School of Art. And at the same time, Chagall's paintings were burned in a huge fire in Germany. Why, then, did some consider his painting the pinnacle of modern art, while for others it interfered with the realization of their "cannibalistic" ideas.

Perhaps he was struck by a sense of personal independence. He was free as God in the process of creating the universe. Wherever Chagall lived - in Vitebsk, New York or Paris - he always depicted almost the same thing. One or two human figures soaring into the air... A cow, a rooster, a horse or a donkey, several musical instruments, flowers, the roofs of houses in native Vitebsk. Almost nothing else was written by Marc Chagall. The description of the paintings shows not only recurring images, but also almost the same storylines.

A waking dream, or what the paintings of Mark Zakharovich say

And yet connoisseurs and connoisseurs were amazed. Mark Zakharovich showed ordinary objects as if the viewer was seeing them for the first time. He portrayed fantastic things very naturally. For simple, inexperienced art lovers, the paintings of Mark Zakharovich are ordinary childhood dreams. They have an irresistible desire to fly. Daydreams about something inexpressibly beautiful, joyful and sad at the same time. Marc Chagall is an artist who conveyed in his works what every person feels at least once in his life. This is unity with the big Universe.

This man is famous all over the world

This rarest moment of enlightenment lasted for Mark Zakharovich for eighty years. That is how much fate let go of the great artist for creativity. He painted hundreds of paintings. His painting is in New York at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Grand Opera in Paris. His works are also dozens of stained glass windows in cathedrals in Europe and in buildings around the world, where many people live who know who Marc Chagall is. His biography and paintings are popular today not only in Russia. Even in the United Nations, there are elements of painting by this most talented artist.

Creative biography. Marc Chagall and world fame

When Hitler came to power, they began to express the artist's anxiety about the future fate of mankind. This is "Solitude", where Jewish and Christian symbols are mixed with a Nazi mob terrorizing Jews. Mark Zakharovich is evacuated to the United States and continues his work there.

It is worth noting another period in the artist's work, which describes his biography. Marc Chagall lost his wife in 1944, and, of course, this was reflected in his works. Bella appears in such paintings by the artist as "Nocturne" and others: in several forms, with ghosts, in the form of an angel or the ghost of a bride.

Return to Paris

In 1948, Marc Zakharovich Chagall settled again in France, on the Cote d'Azur. Here he receives many orders, designs scenery and costumes for ballets. In 1960, he began to create stained glass windows for the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Center.

Later, he takes on the creation of large projects in the design of the cathedral in Zurich, St. Stephen's Church in Mainz in Germany and in the Church of All Saints in the United Kingdom. The greatest artist Marc Zakharovich Chagall died on March 28, 1985, leaving behind an extensive collection of works in a number of branches of art.

Marc Chagall became one of the symbols of the twentieth century, but not of its dark destructive sides, but of love, the desire for harmony, the hope of finding happiness. His immortality lies in the ability to convey the presence of the Divine spirit in every object of the surrounding world.

Painter.

"Despite all the difficulties of our world, I have retained a part of that spiritual love in which I was brought up, and faith in a person who has known Love. In our life, as in the palette of an artist, there is only one color that can give meaning to life and Art, Color of Love.

Marc Chagall, an outstanding artist of the 20th century, was born on July 6, 1887 in Vitebsk, within the boundaries of settlement, which were determined by Catherine II for the compact residence of Jews. He was the ninth child in the family.

The artist's father Khatskel (Zakhar) Mordukh worked as a loader in a herring merchant's shop. He was a deeply religious man, quiet and kind. Mother Feiga Ita, the daughter of a butcher from Liozno, unlike her husband, was a talkative, cheerful and active woman. Chagall in his character and work combined the features of both his father and mother.

Marc Chagall - born Moishe Chagall, or in Russian transcription Movsha Khatskelevich Shagalov. The real family name is Segal; according to Chagall, it was changed to "Chagall" by the artist's father. In 1906, Mark entered the I. Pan School of Drawing and Painting in Vitebsk, and at the same time worked as a retoucher in a photo studio.

In 1907, Mark left for St. Petersburg, received a temporary permit to stay there and entered the Drawing School of the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of Arts, headed by Nicholas Roerich. He worked as a tutor in a lawyer's family for the sake of earning money and as an apprentice in a sign shop to obtain an artisan's certificate, which gave the right to live in the capital. In 1908, Chagall moved to the art school of E. N. Zvantseva, where he studied with L. Bakst and M. Dobuzhinsky.

In 1910, leaving for the first time in Paris, he is angry with his father:

- Listen, you have an adult son, an artist. When will you stop yelling like hell at your master? You see, I did not die in Petersburg? Did I have enough for meatballs? So what will become of me in Paris?

- Leave the job? - the father was indignant. - And who will feed me? Are you not? How do we know.

Mom grabbed her heart:

- Son, do not forget your father and mother. Write often. Ask for what you need.

In 1910, Chagall participated for the first time in an exhibition of student works in the editorial office of the Apollo magazine. In the same year, thanks to M. Vinaver, a member of the State Duma, who bought paintings from him and assigned him a financial allowance for the period of study, Chagall left for Paris. He rented a studio in the famous refuge of the Parisian bohemia "La Ruche" ("Beehive"), where many young avant-garde artists lived and worked in those years, mostly emigrants: A. Modigliani, O. Zadkine, a little later - H. Soutine and others . Chagall quickly entered the circle of the Parisian literary and artistic avant-garde.

There Chagall met the avant-garde poets Blaise Centrare, Max Jacob and Guillaume Appolinaire, the expressionist Hundred, the colorist Delaunay and the cubist Jean Metzinger. Such a company was fertile ground for the development of any direction in art.

It was then that Chagall began to demonstrate and develop his unique artistic technique, the beginnings of which appeared back in St. Petersburg. During those four years in Paris, Chagall painted "I and the Village" (1911), "Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers" (1912), "Violinist" (1912), etc. Often in his paintings discreet heroes of pleasant appearance, with an oriental type of face and curly hair, in which it is easy to recognize the author.

In 1911-13 his work was exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, at the Der Sturm Gallery in Berlin.

In addition, Chagall took part in exhibitions of art associations in Russia. In 1914, with the assistance of G. Apollinaire, the first personal exhibition of Chagall took place in the Der Sturm Gallery. After its discovery, Chagall left for Vitebsk; in connection with the outbreak of the First World War, he could not, as expected, return to Paris and remained in Russia until 1922.

In 1915, Chagall married Bella Rosenfeld, the daughter of a famous Vitebsk jeweler, who played a huge role in his life and work; Chagall himself considered her his muse. Bella also became a frequent subject in his paintings, such as "Double Portrait with a Glass of Wine" (1917) and "Birthday" (1915-1923).

Bella's mother was extremely unhappy with her daughter's choice: “You will disappear with him, daughter, you will disappear for nothing. Painter! Where does it fit? What will people say?

Bella and Mark spent their honeymoon in a rural paradise. “At noon, our room looked like a magnificent panel - even now exhibit in Paris.” Then the First World War broke out. They took away Chagall's passport and put him in a military office as a clerk.

“The Germans won their first victories. Asphyxiating gases reached me even at work, on Liteiny Prospekt. The painting is gone." Upon learning that somewhere in the center there was a pogrom, Chagall ran there. He must have seen it with his own eyes.

“Suddenly, thugs appear from around the corner right in front of me - four or five, armed to the teeth. - Jew? I hesitated for a second, no more. Night, there is nothing to pay off, I can’t fight back or run away. My death would be meaningless. I wanted to live…” He was released. Wasting no time, he ran further to the center. And I saw everything: how they shoot, how they rob, how they throw people into the river. “And then,” he writes, “ice moved over Russia. Madame Kerensky fled. Lenin delivered a speech from the balcony. They yawn. Huge and empty. There is no bread."

They had a daughter with Bella, Idochka. There was nothing. For several years they rushed between Vitebsk, Petrograd and Moscow. Everything was taken from the wife's parents. The mother-in-law was taken. Mom died. Father was run over by a truck. The wife changed the last rings for a piece of butter.

He was offered to teach in a children's colony named after the III International. There were about fifty orphans there. “All of them were homeless children, beaten by criminals, who remembered the brilliance of the knife with which they stabbed their parents, who never forgot the dying groans of their father and mother. Before their eyes, the bellies of the raped sisters were ripped open. And so I taught them how to draw. How eagerly they drew! They pounced on paints like animals on meat. Barefooted, they clamored with each other: “Comrade Chagall! Comrade Chagall! Only their eyes did not smile at all: they did not want to or could not.

Chagall maintained relations with artists and poets who lived in Petrograd, participated in exhibitions (“Jack of Diamonds”, 1916, Moscow; “Spring Exhibition of Contemporary Russian Painting”, 1916, St. Petersburg; “Exhibition of the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Arts”, 1916, Moscow, and others ).

In 1917, Chagall again left for Vitebsk. Like many other artists, he enthusiastically accepted the October Revolution, and was actively involved in organizing the new cultural life of Russia. In 1918, Chagall became Commissar of Arts of the provincial department of the Narobraz of Vitebsk and in the same year developed a project for a grandiose festive decoration of the streets and squares of Vitebsk in connection with the anniversary of the October Revolution. At the beginning of 1919, he organized and headed the Vitebsk Folk Art School, where he invited I. Pen, M. Dobuzhinsky, I. Puni, E. Lissitzky, K. Malevich and other artists as teachers.

However, fundamental disagreements soon arose between him and Malevich regarding the tasks of art and teaching methods. Malevich believed that Chagall was not "revolutionary" enough. These disagreements grew into an open conflict, and at the beginning of 1920 Chagall left school and went to Moscow with his wife and daughter, where, before leaving for the West in 1922, he worked in the Jewish Chamber Theater, headed by A. Granovsky. Over the years, Chagall designed the play “The Evening of Shalom Aleichem” based on his one-act plays “Agentn” (“Agents”), “Mazltov!” (“Congratulations!”) and made several picturesque panels for the theater foyer. Chagall also collaborated with the Khabima Theater, which at that time was headed by E. Vakhtangov.

In 1921, Chagall taught painting at a Jewish orphanage colony named after the Third International in Malakhovka, not far from Moscow. He continued to participate in exhibitions in 1921-22. took an active part in artistic life - was a member of the Artistic Section of the Culture League in Moscow (a joint exhibition with N. Alterman and D. Shterenberg, organized by the section, took place in the spring of 1922 in Moscow). There were also two personal exhibitions of Chagall (1919, Petrograd and 1921, Moscow).

In 1922, Chagall finally decided to leave Russia and went first to Kaunas to organize his exhibition, and then to Berlin, where he completed a series of etchings and engravings for the autobiographical book “My Life” by order of the publisher P. Cassirer (an album of engravings without text was published in Berlin in 1923; the first edition of the text "My Life" appeared in Yiddish in the journal "Tsukunft", March-June 1925; the text of the book "My Life", illustrated with early drawings, was published in Paris in 1931; in Russian, translated from French, M., 1994).

At the end of 1923, Chagall settled in Paris, where he met many avant-garde poets and artists - P. Eluard, A. Malraux, M. Ernst, as well as A. Vollard, a patron of the arts and publisher, who ordered illustrations for him, including for Bible.

Starting to work on biblical drawings, Chagall went to the Middle East in 1931. At the invitation of M. Dizengoff, Chagall visited Eretz Israel; during the trip, he worked hard, wrote a significant number of sketches of "biblical" landscapes. Then he went to Egypt. In 1924 he participated in the almanac "Halastre", published by P. Markish.

In the 1920s and 30s Chagall traveled in connection with solo exhibitions (1922, Berlin; 1924, Brussels and Paris; 1926, New York; 1930s, Paris, Berlin, Cologne, Amsterdam, Prague and others), and also studied classical art. In 1933, his retrospective exhibition was opened in Basel. In the same year, in Mannheim, on the orders of Goebbels, a public burning of Chagall's works was arranged, and in 1937-39. his works were exhibited at the Degenerate Art exhibitions in Munich, Berlin, Hamburg and other German cities.

In 1937, Chagall took French citizenship. At the beginning of World War II, in connection with the occupation of France, Chagall and his family left Paris for the south of the country; in June 1941, the day after the German attack on the Soviet Union, he moved to New York at the invitation of the Museum of Modern Art.

In New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities, there were many personal and retrospective exhibitions of Chagall. In 1942, Chagall designed the ballet to music by P. Tchaikovsky "Aleko" in Mexico City, in 1945 - "The Firebird" by I. Stravinsky at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In 1944, Chagall's wife Bella died. Marc Chagall could not bring himself to pick up a brush for a long time, all the work started in the workshop were placed facing the wall. Only after a year of silence, Chagall again returns to work.

After the end of the war, in 1947, Marc Chagall returned to France and settled in the Villa "Hill" near the city of Saint-Paul-de-Vence on the Cote d'Azur of the Mediterranean Sea.

Bella's memoirs "Burning Candles" with illustrations by Chagall were published posthumously in 1946. In the same year, a retrospective exhibition of Chagall was held in New York, and in 1947, for the first time after the war, in Paris; it was followed by exhibitions in Amsterdam, London and other European cities. In 1948, Chagall returned to France, settled near Paris. In 1952 he married Valentina Brodskaya. In 1948, at the 24th Venice Biennale, Chagall was awarded the "Grand Prix" for engraving.

In 1951, Chagall visited Israel in connection with the opening of his retrospective exhibition in the museum at the Bezalel school in Jerusalem, and also visited Tel Aviv and Haifa. In 1977, Chagall was awarded the title of honorary citizen of Jerusalem.

Since the 1950s Chagall worked primarily as a muralist and graphic artist. Since 1950 he began to work in ceramics, in 1951 he made the first sculptural works, since 1957 he was engaged in stained-glass windows, since 1964 - in mosaics and tapestries. Chagall created frescoes for the foyer of the Watergate Theater in London (1949), a ceramic panel "Crossing the Red Sea" and stained glass windows for the church in Assy (1957), stained glass windows for cathedrals in Metz, Reims and Zurich (1958-60), stained glass windows " The Twelve Tribes of Israel" for the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem (1960-62), ceiling at the Grand Opera in Paris (1964), mosaic panels for the UN building (1964) and the Metropolitan Opera (1966) in New York, and others.

In 1967, the Louvre hosted an exhibition of Chagall's works, united in the Biblical Images cycle. In 1973, the National Museum "Biblical images of Marc Chagall" founded in 1969 was opened in Nice. In the same 1973, for the first time after emigration, Chagall visited Russia (Leningrad and Moscow), where an exhibition of his lithographs was opened for the arrival of the artist, and wall panels were removed from the storerooms and restored, made in 1920 for the foyer of the Jewish Chamber Theater and considered lost . Chagall confirmed the authenticity of the panels by signing them. Since the 1950s in the largest galleries and exhibition halls of the world, exhibitions of Chagall's works were held, retrospective or dedicated to any topic or genre. Chagall's works are in the largest museums in the world.

The painting system of Chagall was formed under the influence of various factors, paradoxically, but organically rethought and forming a single whole. In addition to Russian art (including icon painting and primitive art) and French art of the early 20th century, one of the defining elements of this system is Chagall's sense of self, which for him is inextricably linked with his vocation. “If I were not a Jew, as I understand it, I would not be an artist or would be a completely different artist,” he formulated his position in one of his essays. From his first teacher, I. Pan, Chagall took the idea of ​​a national artist; national temperament found expression in the features of its figurative structure. In the first independent works of Chagall, the visionary nature of his work is clearly manifested: reality, transformed by the artist's fantasy, acquires the features of a fantastic vision. Nevertheless, all surreal images - fiddlers on the roof, green cows, heads separated from their bodies, people flying in the sky - are not an arbitrariness of unbridled fantasy, they contain a clear logic, a specific “message”. Chagall's artistic techniques are based on the visualization of Yiddish sayings and the embodiment of images of Jewish folklore. Chagall introduces elements of Jewish interpretation even into the depiction of Christian subjects (Holy Family, 1910, Chagall Museum; Dedication to Christ / Calvary /, 1912, Museum of Modern Art, New York) - a principle to which he remained true to the end life.

In the first years of his work, the scene of action of his works was Vitebsk - a street, a square, a house ("Dead", 1908, Center Pompidou, Paris). During this period, in the landscapes of Vitebsk, scenes from the life of the community, there are features of the grotesque. They resemble theatrical mise-en-scenes, subject to a precisely adjusted rhythm. The color scheme of the early works is mainly built on greens and browns with the presence of purple; the format of the paintings approaches a square (“Shabbat”, 1910, Ludwig Museum, Cologne).

The first period of stay in Paris (1910-14) played an important role in the work of Chagall: the artist came into contact with new artistic trends, of which cubism and futurism had a direct influence on him; to an even greater extent, we can talk about the influence of the atmosphere of the artistic Paris of those years. It was during these years and in the "Russian period" that followed that the basic principles of Chagall's art were formed, passing through all his work, permanent symbolic types and characters were determined. There are few purely cubist, as well as purely futuristic, works by Chagall, although they occur throughout the 1910s. ("Adam and Eve", 1912, Art Museum, St. Louis, USA). Chagall's style of this time can be defined rather as cubo-futuristic, which was one of the important areas of avant-garde art in Russia. Sharp ratios of yellow, red, blue, green and purple form the basis of Chagall's color scheme; they are often combined with the black that sometimes forms the background.

The subsequent "Russian period" (1914-22) was a time of generalization of the accumulated experience. The themes and style of Chagall are diverse - from sketches of Vitebsk and portraits of loved ones to symbolic compositions ("Mother on the Sofa", 1914, private collection; "Reclining Poet", 1915, Tate Gallery, London; "Above the City", 1914-18, Tretyakov Gallery , Moscow); from searches in the field of spatial forms (“Cubist Landscape”, 1918; “Collage”, 1921, both - Center Pompidou, Paris) to works where the symbolism of color plays the main role, in which the influence of Jewish tradition and impressions from works of ancient Russian art are felt ( "Jew in Red", 1916, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow). The avant-garde orientation was especially clearly manifested in the graphics of those years (“Movement”, 1921, ink, Center Pompidou, Paris) and in works related to the theater: in the panel “Jewish Theater” (1920, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), a complex symbolism was developed, including elements of Jewish tradition, encrypted comments on backstage theatrical events, Chagall's declaration on the tasks of the Jewish theater.

The first years after returning to Paris were the calmest in the life and work of Chagall. The artist seemed to be summing up his life; he, in particular, worked on an illustrated autobiographical book.

Almost until the end of the 1920s. Chagall was mainly engaged in graphics - book illustrations for "Dead Souls" by N. Gogol (1923-27, published in 1948) and "Fables" by J. La Fontaine (1926-30, published in 1952).

During these years, Chagall continued to paint, wrote many studies from nature (Ida at the Window, 1924, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam). His palette brightened and became more colorful, the compositions abounded in details. Chagall returned to his old works, creating variations on their themes ("Reading", 1923-26, Art Museum, Basel; "Birthday", 1923, S. Guggenheim Museum, New York).

In 1931, Chagall created, commissioned by A. Vollard, 39 gouaches - illustrations for the Bible, in which changes in the figurative structure are clearly visible: Chagall abandoned the reminiscences of the “shtetl” theme (see. Mestechko), his landscapes are monumental, and the images of the patriarchs evoke portraits the elders of Rembrandt.

In the late 1930s a sense of impending Holocaust found expression in The Crucifixions (White Crucifixion, 1938, Art Institute, Chicago; Martyr, 1940, family meeting). The composition and color scheme of these works goes back to the Russian icon, but Jesus is depicted in tallit, and all the attributes of the picture are associated with Judaism (Torah scrolls, menorah); the landscape and characters bring the viewer back to Vitebsk and the Hasidim.

Religious themes predominate in Chagall's later work. Made in the 1950s and 60s. The 17 large canvases included in the Biblical Images cycle were partly based on Chagall's earlier works (Paradise, Abraham and the Three Angels, Song of Songs, all from the Chagall Biblical Images Museum, Nice). Chagall's paintings of the late period, associated with biblical themes, are characterized by expression and tragedy ("Moses Breaking the Tablets", Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne).

Chagall's monumental works, both on religious themes and devoted to the theater, are stylistically close to the "Biblical images", but the specifics of the technique - the luminosity of the stained-glass windows, the dim shimmer of the mosaic, the deep tones of the carpets - gave the artist additional opportunities. In addition, symbolism, which has always played a large role in Chagall's works, was especially carefully thought out in the artist's monumental works on religious themes. Thus, the very arrangement of the stained-glass windows in the Hadassah synagogue - four groups of three stained-glass windows each - is dictated by the arrangement of the twelve tribes of Israel around the Tabernacle of the Covenant at a halt in the Sinai desert, and the colors used in the stained-glass windows are determined by the colors of 12 stones (according to the number of tribes) that adorned clothes high priest.

Painting by Chagall 1970-80s also includes lyrical works that return the artist to the past - to the image of the town, to memories of loved ones ("Rest", 1975; "Bride with a Bouquet", 1977, both - P. Matisse Gallery, New York). Made in oil, they resemble pastels - blurry contours, multi-colored haze create the feeling of a ghostly vision-mirage.

In 1964, Chagall designed the glass façade of the UN building in New York and the project for a new interior design for the Paris Opera, and two years later completed work on the frescoes at the New York Metropolitan Opera. In 1967, he participated as an artist in a production of Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Metropolitan Opera. In 1973, the Marc Chagall Museum opened in Nice, and in 1977, a personal exhibition of the artist's works appeared in the Louvre.

Throughout his life, Chagall wrote poetry, first in Yiddish and Russian, and then in French. Chagall's lyrics are permeated with Jewish motifs; in it one can find responses to the tragic events of Jewish history - for example, the poem "In Memory of Jewish Artists - Victims of the Holocaust." Many of Chagall's poems are a kind of key to understanding his painting. (A selection of Chagall's poems - translated from Yiddish and written in Russian - was published in M. Chagall's collection "Angel over the roofs. Poems, prose, articles, letters", M., 1989).

The work of Marc Chagall, in whose paintings there are massive bouquets, and melancholy clowns, and lovers soaring in the clouds, and mythical animals, and biblical prophets, and even violinists on the roof, has become a landmark stage in the development of world art.

Chagall lived a long life: almost a hundred years. He witnessed terrible events, but the folly of the 20th century did not prevent the artist from perceiving the world with the bright sadness of a true sage.

Marc Chagall lived until the end of his life on the French Riviera.

He said about himself: "I lived my life in anticipation of a miracle"

Only that country is mine - that is in my heart.
In which, as your own, without any visas and types,
I enter. She can see my sadness and bitterness.
She, my country, will put me to sleep,
She will cover me with a fragrant stone.
I think now go I even reverse -
I'll still go ahead, There,
To the high, mountain gates.