Birthday.

Childhood

On July 6, 1887 (June 24, old style) in Vitebsk, Moishe 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, and his grandfather served as a teacher and cantor in the synagogue. As a child, Moishe 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. Bold start. Peng was so impressed with his daring color work that he allowed him to attend his school for free.

Here's a little about Yudel Moiseevich Pan . Russian and Belarusian painter, teacher, prominent figure of the "Jewish Renaissance" in the art of the early 20th century. This is his self-portrait.

In his paintings, Yudel Pen showed the life of the Jewish poor (“Watchmaker”, “Old Tailor”, “Old Soldier”, “After the Strike”). After 1905, religious motifs appear in Pan's work - "Jewish Rabbi”, “Last Saturday". In the 1920s, he created the paintings "Shoemaker-Komsomol" (1925), "Matchmaker" (1926), "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-Semenovskoye Cemetery in Vitebsk.

This is a portrait of Marc Chagall, under which is the signature "Yu. M. Peng" 1914

Moishe was the eldest of nine children, and all the household, as well as neighbors and merchants, and even ordinary peasants, were then his models. Wooden houses, onion churches, mother's grocery store, Jewish commandments, customs and holidays - this simple and difficult, but such a "substantial" life has forever flowed into the heart of the boy and the images of his beloved Vitebsk will be constantly repeated in the artist's work.

St. Petersburg

In 1907, with 27 rubles in his pocket, Moishe Segal went to the Russian capital. Since the Russian discriminatory policy towards Jews in St. Petersburg was much harsher, the young man was often forced to seek help from influential Jews. In addition, he was very limited in funds and lived in poverty, sometimes on the verge of poverty. But all these hardships, of course, had little meaning for the young artist, who got into the maelstrom of the artistic life of the capital at the junction of two revolutions.

Social revolutionary moods are always embodied in cultural life - avant-garde magazines are published, which then served as a kind of unifying centers for new ideas, innovative exhibitions are organized, doors are opened 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 away 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. Fairy-tale and metaphoric images are already beginning to appear in everyday life plots: "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", studied for two years with Lev Bakst at the Zvantseva school. According to Chagall, it was Bakst who gave him "to feel the breath of Europe" and encouraged him to go to study in Paris. Moisha 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 Apollon.

Leon Nikolaevich Bakst (real name - Leib-Khaim Izrailevich, or Lev Samoylovich Rosenberg; 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 of S.P. Diaghilev.

Lev Rosenberg was born on February 8 (January 27), 1866 in Grodno in a poor Jewish family of a Talmudic scholar. After graduating from high school, he studied as a volunteer atAcademy of Arts by illustrating books.

At his first exhibition in 1889, he adopted the pseudonymBakst- shortened grandmother's surname (Baxter). From the mid-1990s, he joined the circle of writersand artists, formed around Diaghilev and Alexander Benois, which later evolved into the association " World of Art ". In 1898 together with Diaghilev takes part in the founding of the publication of the same name. The graphics published in this magazine brought fame to Bakst.

The two most famous paintings by Bakst.

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, so am I. She looks - oh, her eyes! - I, 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, she 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 marry on July 25, 1915 and Bella will forever remain his first lover, wife and muse.

Paris

In August 1910, Maxim Vinaver, a member of the State Duma of 1905 and a philanthropist, offered the artist a scholarship that would enable him to go to study in Paris. Upon arrival, Moishe Segal takes on a creative pseudonym. Now he is Marc Chagall, in the French manner.
The first year he rents a studio from the artist Ehrenburg in Montparnasse. Chagall attends various classes in free art academies, writes at night, and disappears during the day at exhibitions, in salons and galleries, absorbing the art of the great masters: Delacroix, Courbet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and many others. Perfectly feeling the color, he quickly masters and uses the techniques of Fauvism. "Now Your Colors Are Singing", - says his St. Petersburg mentor Bakst.

In 1911, Chagall moved to the "Beehive", a building bought by Alfred Boucher after the sale of the World Exhibition of 1889 and which became a kind of squat art center and a haven for many poor foreign artists. Here Chagall met many representatives of 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", "Golgotha", "View of Paris from the window".

Violinist. 1911 - 1914

"Dedication to my bride (My betrothed)" 1911

"Golgotha" 1912

"View of Paris from the window" 1913

Despite the complete, headlong immersion in the Parisian artistic environment, he did not forget his native Vitebsk. "Snuff Tobacco", "Cattle Seller", "Me and the Village" are permeated with nostalgia and love.

"Snuff Tobacco" 1912

"Seller of cattle" 1912

"Me and the Village" 1911

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 his family and see Bella. But the First World War begins and the return to Europe is postponed indefinitely.

Russia

Bella's brother Yakov Rosenfeld helps to free Chagall from being drafted to the front and helps with the work: the artist gets a place in 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 on everyday everyday motifs ("Window in the Village").

Window in the village. 1915

But there is a war 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.

"Red Jew" 1915

"Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot)" 1916

The lyrical canvases created during these years are overflowing with love for Bella. Also at this time, Chagall begins to write an autobiographical book, My Life.

"Birthday" 1915

"Pink Lovers" 1916

"Walk" 1917 - 1918

"Bella in a white collar" 1917

August 9, 1918 In Petrograd, at a meeting dedicated to the establishment of the Ministry of Arts, Marc Chagall is offered the post of head of fine arts, but he refuses. However, with the assistance of Lunacharsky, he agrees to another proposal: the commissioner for 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" is published. The Free Academy, which has become a major creative center, operates in full force under his leadership in Vitebsk. Many well-known artists, both local and visiting, teach there. 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 staunch opponent of Suprematist art, Chagall, at the same time, being at the center of new cultural trends, significantly reconsiders his own style of painting, in many respects moving closer to the new, "revolutionary" style. However, party criticism, which is also facilitated by the artist's frankness and uncompromisingness, is increasing, although it does not yet take open forms, after all, Chagall is an artist of world renown and this has to be reckoned with.

On January 1, 1921, the premiere of the performance "Miniatures" based on the plays of the recently deceased famous Jewish writer Sholom Aleichem takes 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, the ceiling, and the curtain with nine monumental paintings, which, according to the artist's intention, 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 misunderstood, attacks and criticism from the "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 the homeless. Misunderstanding and rejection by the regime forced the artist to leave the country.

France

After Chagall's departure, 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 arrives 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", "Over Vitebsk" and others.

Ambroise Vollard, a passionate book lover, collector, publisher, after the war, plans to release a series of books illustrated by famous contemporary artists and offers Chagall cooperation. Chagall chooses Gogol's "Dead Souls" and does an excellent job with the task. The metaphorical-fantastic graphics of the master perfectly reflects Gogol's sharp satire.

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 movements and associations. On the offer of the surrealists to join them, he refuses: "deliberately fantastic painting is alien to me." He bypasses charters, manifestos and slogans, preferring the pure freedom of creativity.
Fame brought him material freedom - now he travels with his family in France and European countries, finding a sense of peace and tranquility after everything he has experienced. New paintings are joyful, bright and light: "Village Life", "Double Portrait", "Ida at the Window".

"Village life" 1925

Double portrait with a glass of wine

It must be said that during this period he creates not so many paintings, since most of his time and energy he devotes to illustrating "Dead Souls", "Fables" by La Fontaine and the Bible.

In 1931, the artist and his family visit Palestine, discovering the land of their ancestors and feeling close to the center of their 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, already established 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. Hitler's speeches and the clatter of Nazi boots are already clearly heard from Germany. New anti-Semitic laws are being adopted, an exhibition "Degenerate Art" is being held in Munich, which also presents the work of Chagall. Europe is again plunged into the darkness of war. Thanks to the help of the Emergency Committee for Rescue and the American consul in Marseilles, Chagall, with his family and paintings, sails on a ship to the USA.

USA

In America, which has received many emigrants from Europe, interest in European culture is growing sharply. In New York, which has become a kind of port for refugees, exhibitions are organized under the common theme "art in exile". Pierre Matisse, son of the famous artist, provides Chagall with his gallery for work and exhibitions. Chagall is working 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, invites Chagall to take part in the design of the ballet Aleko. The artist completed the back decorations and four huge colorful backgrounds, recreating the fabulous atmosphere of Pushkin's poem. Chagall is also ordered to design the play "The Firebird" by George Balanchine, but Igor Stravinsky did not like his scenery and preference was given to Picasso. But the costumes designed by Chagall, which were made by Ida, were accepted.

In August 1944, the Chagall family is happy to learn 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 just a few days later, on September 2, Bella dies of sepsis in a local hospital. "Everything is covered in darkness." The artist is completely stunned by the grief that has overtaken him, and only nine months later he picks up brushes to paint two paintings in memory of his beloved: "Wedding Lights" and "Next to Her."

"Wedding Lights" 1945

He moves to a small house in the town of High Falls, where after a while he begins to work on illustrations for "A Thousand and One Nights". The result is thirteen wonderful sparkling engravings, with their colorful richness in perfect harmony with the Arabian tales.

France

In 1945, Ida invited Virginia McNeill-Haggard, a French translator and daughter of the former British consul, to help. Virginia was almost half the age of the artist, but outwardly she somehow resembled Bella. Chagall could not stand being alone. And a romance broke out between them. Their son David (David) McNeill was born in 1946. Virginia lived with Chagall for about 7 years, moved with him to Paris, but then left the artist with her son. Thanks to success in the United States, including financial success, in 1948 Chagall finally managed to finally move to France, which was already so dear and dear to his heart. Unfortunately, Vollard, a friend and regular customer of the artist, dies at the beginning of the war. However, the Parisian publisher Terjad 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 was published in 1948, Lafontaine's Fables in 1952, and the Bible in French in 1956. The biblical theme would constantly accompany the artist's work and Chagall would 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 "Bible message" of the artist to the world, especially for which in 1973 in Nice Chagall will open a kind of museum, and the French government recognizes this "temple" as the official national museum.

In 1952, the artist met Valentina Brodskaya, who became simply "Vava" and the artist's official wife. Their marriage turns out to be happy, although Bella still remains the muse of the artist. In the 1950s, Chagall traveled a lot with his family, 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 "Dafins and Chloe" (1960-1962), as well as to the monumental techniques of frescoes and stained glass. Since the 1960s, Chagall has mainly switched to monumental art forms - mosaics, stained-glass windows, tapestries, and is also fond of 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 becomes a kind of "Andrey Rublev" of his time and receives many orders for the design of Catholic, Lutheran churches and synagogues throughout Europe, America and Israel.

In 1964, Chagall painted the ceiling of the Paris Grand Opera by order of French President 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 Four Seasons mosaic (1972).

"Master painting for the Paris Opera" 1963 - 1964

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. He is organizing an exhibition 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 held 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 theater productions. March 28, 1985, at the age of 98, Marc Chagall died in an elevator, rising after a day of work in the studio. He died "in flight", as a gypsy once predicted to him, and how he depicted himself flying in his paintings.

Gallery of paintings by Marc Chagall

Walk

Les Amoureux En Gris huile sur toile

Above the city

me and the village

flying wagon

Soldier

soldiers

Livestock seller

Le Saint Cocher de fiacre

La Naissance

Dedié à ma fiancée

De la Lune, Le Village Russe

la marchande de pain

Le Songe

Le Peintre et les Fiances

Sky of Paris

La Reine du Cirque

King David

Evening by the window

La Madonne du village

Bonjour Paris

Aleko

Le Village en Feu

Les Maries de la tour Eiffel

L "Acrobat

village russe

Les Amoureux

L "Ecuyère de Cirque

Juif a la Torah Gouache

la maison blue

Bella au col blanc

Autoportrait à la Palette

Mania en mangeant Kasher

Le Poete allonge

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. He received a traditional religious education at home (Hebrew, reading the Torah and the Talmud), studied for several years in a cheder (primary Jewish school), and then in a regular school. The talent of the artist manifested itself in early youth. In the center of the artistic world of Chagall, originally autobiographical and lyrical-confessional, there is a family, home, beloved Vitebsk. This world is imbued with the spirit of the national religious tradition, a sense of the inseparability of life and being, which makes the images of one's home and the entire universe interchangeable.

In 1906, Chagall studied at the Vitebsk art school of I. M. Pan, but not for long, and in 1907 he went to St. Petersburg, to the school of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts (1907–1908), then studied at the private studio of S. M. Seidenberg (1908) and the school E. N. Zvantseva, where M. V. Dobuzhinsky and L. S. Bakst became his mentors.

Chagall begins his artistic biography with the painting "Dead Man (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 the classical tradition and symbolism, but the artist's work is already full of originality and is developing in line with the neo-primitivist style. With his first works, Chagall was exhibited for the first time at the school exhibition in the premises of 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. Cendrars, M. Jacob, A. Salmon and others. He begins to create in the spirit of "supernaturalism" ("surnaturalism" - such a term is used in relation to the art of Chagall by Apollinaire). According to contemporaries, the artist becomes an expressionist and surrealist by 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 family commonality with the Russian tradition. The innovative techniques of cubism and orphism - geometrized deformation and faceting of volumes, rhythmic organization, conditional color - in Chagall 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 for the first time at the Autumn Salon; 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, the external and the internal. Hence the stunning expression of color and form, the 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) bring Chagall to the artistic leaders of the resurgent Jewish culture.

And finally, in June 1914, his first solo exhibition opened in Berlin, which included almost all the paintings and drawings created in Paris. They found a great response among young German painters, giving an immediate impetus to the expressionist movement that arose after the war in Germany.

In the summer of 1914, Chagall returned to Vitebsk, where he was caught by the First World War. Here, in 1914-1915, the artist creates a series of "documents" of more than seventy works dedicated not only to the war, but also written on the basis of natural impressions (portraits, landscapes, genre scenes): "View from the window. Vitebsk”, “Barbershop”, “House in the town of Liozno”. In them, he achieves a synthesis of purely poetic devices and an accurate depiction of reality.

In 1915, Chagall marries Bella Rosenfeld, and over time, the theme of passionate love comes to the fore in his work: Over the City (1914–1918, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow), Double Portrait with a Glass of Wine (1917), Day birth "(1915-1923) and pictures 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 typical 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) and others. 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 into spatio-temporal symbols of a cosmic scale ("Hours", 1914).

After the revolution, Chagall became the commissar of arts of the provincial department of public education in Vitebsk and decorates the city for the revolutionary holidays. But constant ideological disputes with the local leadership force him to move to Moscow. Here he tries himself as a theater artist, for some time he teaches drawing in a colony of homeless children near Moscow. In 1920-1922, he takes the first significant step towards monumental art: he writes a number of large wall panels for the Jewish Chamber Theater, where in 1921 his personal exhibition was held, and in 1922 - a joint exhibition with N. I. Altman and D. P. Shterenberg.

Having left for Berlin in 1922, since 1923 Chagall settled in France. Since then, he constantly lives in Paris or in the south of the country, which he leaves for several years only with the outbreak of war, the artist spends 1941-1947 in New York. He travels to different countries of Europe and the Mediterranean, and more than once happens in Israel.

Over time, the painting style of Chagall becomes easier and more relaxed. Not only the main characters, but also all the elements of the image soar up, forming compositions of color visions.

In 1930–1931, Chagall began collaborating with the publisher A. Vollard. By his order, the artist performs illustrations for the Bible (over 105), which predetermines the main theme of his later work - biblical. In 1955, work began on the so-called "Chagall Bible" - a huge cycle of paintings, drawings, sketches, revealing the world of the progenitors of the Jewish people in a surprisingly emotional and vivid, naive-wise form. By order of the same Vollard, Chagall performs sharply expressive illustrations for “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol and “Fables” by J. de La Fontaine in the technique of black and white drawing.

In 1933, a grandiose exhibition of Chagall's works was held in Basel (Switzerland), which consolidated his fame in Europe. In the same year, in Mannheim, on the orders of Goebbels, the master's works were publicly burned. The persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, a premonition of an approaching catastrophe color Chagall's paintings of the pre-war years in apocalyptic tones: crucifixion becomes one of the leading themes of his art: "White Crucifixion" (1938. Art Institute of Chicago, USA), "The Crucified Artist" (1938-1940 ), "Martyr" (1940), "Yellow Christ" (1941).

In 1942, Chagall created costumes and scenery for the ballet "Aleko" to the music of P. I. Tchaikovsky, staged by Leonid Myasin, and three years later, in 1945, he created costumes, sketches for the curtain and scenery for I. F. Stravinsky's ballet "The Firebird ".

A typical work of the New York period of Chagall's work - the period of World War II - is his painting "Feathers and Flowers" (1943). In 1944, the artist's wife dies - and since then her nostalgic image has often appeared in Chagall's work: Around Her (1945), Wedding Candles (1945), Nocturne (1947).

In 1952, for the sixty-five-year-old artist, who was grieving the loss of Bella, a second youth began. Marriage with Valentina (Vava) Brodskaya and a happy family life could not help but give impetus to the creation of new works, inspired by the same trip to the Mediterranean. Chagall begins to perform extensive cycles of color lithographs, easel and book works - of which illustrations for Long's bucolic novel Daphnis and Chloe become most famous in 1960–1962.

In the last stage of his life, Chagall worked more and more in monumental arts, engaged in mosaics, ceramics, tapestries, and sculpture. In the early 1960s, commissioned by the Israeli government, he created mosaics and tapestry 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, and Israel. This is a ceramic panel, and stained-glass windows of the chapel in Assy (Savoy), and stained-glass windows of the cathedral in Metz, and in the synagogue of the medical faculty of the Hebrew University near Jerusalem, and in the Fraumunster church in Zurich, and in the cathedrals of Reims, Mainz (St. others. These works, together with Chagall's secular decorative compositions - ceiling paintings of the Paris Opera (1964) and the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1965), the Four Seasons mosaic on the National Bank building in Chicago (1972) - radically update 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 the building conceived by Chagall, a museum of the artist's works "The Bible Message" was opened. The French government gave this peculiar Chagall "temple" the status of a national museum.

In 1977, the artist was awarded France's highest award - the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. In October 1977 - January 1978 in the Louvre, in derogation from the rules prohibiting the honoring of living artists, an exhibition is held on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Chagall.

A detailed biography of Marc Chagall written by his granddaughter Meret Meyer can be found.

One of the most famous representatives of avant-garde art in painting, graphic artist, illustrator, stage designer, poet, master of applied and monumental art of the twentieth century, Marc Chagall, was born in the city of Vitebsk on June 24, 1887. In the family of a small merchant Zakhar (Khatskel), he was the eldest of ten children. From 1900 to 1905, Mark studied at the First City Four-Class School. Vitebsk artist Yu. M. Pen led the first steps of the future painter M. Chagall. Then a whole cascade of events took place in Mark's life, and all of them were connected with his move to St. Petersburg.

From 1907 to 1908, Chagall studied at the school of the Public Encouragement of Arts, at the same time, throughout 1908, he also attended classes at the school of E.N. Zvyagintseva. The first painting painted by Chagall was the canvas “The Dead Man” (“Death”) (1908), which is now kept in Paris at the National Museum of Modern Art. This is followed by "Family" or "Holy Family", "Portrait of my bride in black gloves" (1909). These canvases were written in the manner of neo-primitivism. In the autumn of the same 1909, Marc Chagall's Vitebsk girlfriend - Thea Brahman, who also studied in St. Petersburg and was such a modern girl that she even posed nude for Chagall several times - introduced the artist to her friend Bella Rosenfeld. According to Chagall himself, as soon as he looked at Bella, he immediately realized that this was his wife. It is her black eyes that look at us from all the paintings of Chagall of that period, she, her marvelous features, are guessed in all the women depicted by the artist. 1st Parisian period.

Paris

In 1911, Marc Chagall received a scholarship and went to Paris to continue his studies there and get acquainted with French artists, as well as avant-garde poets. Chagall fell in love with Paris immediately. If, even before his departure to France, Chagall's manner of painting had something in common with Van Gogh's painting, that is, it was very close to expressionism, then in Paris the influence of Fauvism, Futurism and Cubism is already felt in the painter's work. Among Chagall's acquaintances are famous masters of painting and words A. Modigliani, G. Apollinaire, M. Jacob.

Return

Only in 1914 did the artist leave Paris to go to Vitebsk to see Bella and his family. The First World War found him there, so the artist had to postpone his return to Europe until better times. In 1915, Marc Chagall and Bella Rosenfeld got married, and a year later, in 1916, they had a daughter, Ida, who in the future would become the biographer of her famous father. After the October Revolution, Marc Chagall was appointed authorized commissar for the arts in the Vitebsk province. In 1920, on the recommendation of A. M. Efros, Chagall went to Moscow to work in the Jewish Chamber Theater. A year later, in 1921, he worked as a teacher in the Moscow region, in the Jewish labor school-colony for homeless children "Third International".

Emigration

In 1922, in Lithuania, in the city of Kaunas, an exhibition of Marc Chagall was organized, which the artist did not fail to take advantage of. Together with his family, he went to Latvia, and from there to Germany. And in the fall of 1923, Ambroise Vollard sent an invitation to Chagall to come to Paris, where in 1937 he received French citizenship. Then comes World War II. Chagall could no longer stay in Nazi-occupied France, so he accepts an invitation from the management of the Museum of Modern Art in New York to move to America in 1941. With what joy the artist received the news of the liberation of Paris in 1944! But his joy was short-lived. The artist suffered a deafening grief - his wife Bella died of sepsis in a New York hospital. Only nine months after the funeral, Mark dared to take up the brush again in order to paint two paintings in memory of his beloved: “Next to her” and “Wedding lights”.

When Chagall turned 58, he ventured into a new relationship with a certain Virginia McNeill-Haggard, who was in her thirties. They had a son, David McNeill. In 1947 Mark finally returned to Paris. Virginia, three years later, left Chagall, running away from him with a new lover. She took her son with her. In 1952, Chagall married again. His wife was the owner of the London fashion salon Valentina Brodetskaya. But for the rest of his life, Chagall's only muse was his first wife Bella.

In the sixties, Marc Chagall suddenly turned to monumental art: he worked in stained glass, mosaics, ceramics and sculpture. By order of Charles de Gaulle, Mark painted the ceiling of the Paris Grand Opera (1964), and in 1966 he created 2 panels for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. His mosaic "The Four Seasons", created in 1972, adorns the National Bank building in Chicago. And only in 1973 Chagall was invited to the USSR, where an exhibition of the artist was organized in the Tretyakov Gallery. Marc Chagall died on March 28, 1985. He died at the age of 98 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, where he was buried. Until now, there is no complete catalog of the works of the greatest artist, his creative heritage is so huge.

Chagall Mark Zakharovich (1887-1985) is 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.

Childhood and youth

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 the Vitebsk province belonged to the Russian Empire). In the family, he was the first child.

Father, Chagall Khatskel Mordukhovich (Davidovich), worked as a clerk. Mom, Feigi-Ita Mendelevna Chernina, was engaged in housekeeping and raising children. My father and mother were cousins ​​to each other. Mark had five more younger sisters and a brother.

Mark spent most of his childhood with his grandparents. Primary education, as was customary among the Jews, received at home. At the age of 11, Chagall became a student of the 1st Vitebsk four-year school. Since 1906, he studied painting with the Vitebsk artist Yudel Pen, who kept his own school of fine arts.

Petersburg

Mark really wanted to study further in 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 smugly sipped, 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 the 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 member 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 his first admirer of creativity - the then-famous lawyer and State Duma deputy Vinaver M. M. He bought two canvases from a novice artist and gave a scholarship for a trip to Europe.

Paris

So in 1911, with a scholarship, Mark managed to go to Paris, where he got acquainted with the avant-garde works of European poets and artists. Chagall fell in love with this city immediately, he called Paris the second Vitebsk.

During this period, despite the brightness and originality 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 be held in Berlin. Before such a significant event in the life of the artist, Mark decided to go on vacation to Vitebsk, especially since his sister was just getting married. He went for three months, and stayed for 10 years, everything was turned upside down by the outbreak of the First World War.

Life in Russia

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 position of authorized commissariat for arts 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 art designer, at 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 homeless children, which was located in Malakhovka. Mark was a teacher there.

All this time he did not stop creating, from under his brush came such world-famous canvases:

• "Me and my village";
• "Calvary";
• "Birthday";
• "Walk";
• "Above the city";
• "White Crucifix".

Life abroad

In 1922, Chagall emigrated from Russia with his wife and daughter, first they went to Lithuania, then to Germany. In 1923 the family moved to Paris, where 14 years later the artist was granted French citizenship.

During World War II, at the invitation of the American Museum of Modern Art, he went 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 in the Tretyakov Gallery, he presented 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 at 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.

Personal life

In 1909, in Vitebsk, Chagall's friend Thea Brahman introduced him to her girlfriend Bertha Rosenfeld. He realized in the first second of his acquaintance that this girl was everything for him - his eyes, his soul. He was sure at once that his wife was in front of him. He affectionately called her Bella, she became for him the one and only muse. Since the day they met, the theme of love has taken the main place in Chagall's work. Bella's features can be recognized in almost all the women depicted by the artist.

In 1915 they got married, and in the following 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 somewhere and would now return.

The second wife of Chagall 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.

Chagall did not pick up a brush for 9 months. Only thanks to the attention and care of his daughter Ida, he gradually returns to life.

They took Bella's manuscripts as the basis for a collection of her memoirs called Burning Fires: Chagall created 68 illustrations, and Ida translated from Yiddish.

Virginia Haggard in the life of Chagall

In the summer of 1945, Ida decided to hire a nurse to look after her father. So Virginia Haggard appeared in Chagall's life. Outwardly, she resembled Mark Bell. A romance broke out between them, which gave Mark a son.

Chagall set to work on the Firebird project by Igor Stravinsky. He designed the curtain, created three scenery and more than 80 costumes for the ballet. The premiere was a success. American critics took the artist with a bang.

In 1946, together with Virginia, Chagall moved into a new house in northeastern New York, where their son David was born. A year later, the artist's new family went to France.

There have been numerous exhibitions of Chagall's work around the world. Mark sees that he is remembered and loved. He settles on the Côte d'Azur in Saint-Paul-de-Vence near Nice.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Chagall's field of activity expanded. He receives numerous commissions for monumental painting, illustrations for books, sculptures, ceramics, stained glass, tapestries and mosaics.

In 1951, Virginia left Chagall. Taking her son with her, she moves in with a photographer, an affair with which has lasted for the past two years.

Marc Chagall was left alone again. After the departure of Virginia, biblical scenes again appear on his canvases, as during the Second World War.

In the spring of 1952, the artist met Valentina Brodskaya, or Vava, as her friends and relatives called her. Very soon, already on July 12 of the same year, they became husband and wife.

Life with Valentina Brodskaya

In the years when Vava entered Chagall's life, the artist's work reached the peak of recognition. The cost of his paintings is skyrocketing. Major collectors are eager to get their hands on them. Even in the restaurants where he and Vava often went to dine, there was a hunt for Chagall's drawings. He always had 2-3 pencils and pastels with him. While waiting for an order, he often painted on napkins and tablecloths. These "unconscious" creations cost hundreds and even thousands of francs.

Marc Chagall was in third place in the list of the most expensive masters of French painting (Picasso took the first place, Matisse the second).

Chagall managed to become one of the few artists who worked on religious themes of various denominations. His hand belongs to the authorship of the stained glass windows of the Catholic Cathedral in Mezza, the Protestant Church in Zurich, the synagogue in Jerusalem. His paintings can be seen in the collections of Arab sheikhs.

In 1964, the French Minister of Culture commissioned the artist to paint the ceiling of the citadel of French culture at the Paris Opera. On the ceiling, the artist depicted the silhouettes of two cities - Paris and Vitebsk, forever connecting them with an inseparable ring of painting.

In 1975 he wrote many large works on biblical and spiritual topics: Don Quixote, The Fall of Icarus, Job, The Prodigal Son.

Marc Chagall painted flying people all his life. On the canvas of one of the most famous paintings - "Lovers above the city" - he soars over his beloved Vitebsk together with Bella.

Fate decreed that Mark died in flight. On March 28, 1985, 98-year-old Chagall boarded an elevator to go up to the second floor at his castle in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. During the ascent, his heart stopped.