THERE must be something more to life than mere existence. In Marc Chagall’s works, people fly, animals speak and the proverbial cow may perhaps jump over the moon. In one of his most well-known paintings, Birthday (1915), a woman in a boudoir flees the bed to deposit her flowers near the window frame, while her man seemingly flits in the air, impossibly flipping backward to steal a kiss from his departing lover. In another canvas, La Promenade (1918), it’s the woman’s turn to levitate outdoors, her dress full with the tempest of flowing wine, vibrant spring and joie de vivre. A beloved work from the same decade, The Fiddler (1912), has so resonated through the years that it became the influence from which the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof takes its name. One critic has called his art “Hebrew jazz in paint.” But who can plumb the depths of Marc Chagall’s soul?
The work of the artist speaks such a singular and joyous language that he, in turn, is loved universally. Chagall is a creative whirlwind who is known and recognized the world over and of all the 20th-century diviners of the soul, he is one of the few who never lost contact with his deepest humanity despite witnessing periods of racial cleansing, world wars, concentration camps, Nazi campaigns against modern art, famines, exiles and other social maelstroms.
Born Moishe Shagal (or Segal) in Liozna near Vitebsk, Russia, in 1887, Chagall underwent a life of permanent exile himself. That said, his art can be understood as the response to situations that have long marred the history of Russian Jews. Though they were often cultural innovators, Jews were considered outsiders in a frequently prejudiced society.
During World War II, Chagall fled to the United States. The Museum of Modern Art in New York gave him a retrospective in 1946, which came after retrospectives in 1924 at the Galerie Barbazanges-Hodebert, Paris, and in 1933 at the Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland. He settled permanently in France in 1948 and traveled the world over, often in response to new projects. He died in Saint-Paul de Vence near the Cote d’Azur in 1985, the last surviving master of European modernism, outliving Joan Miró by two years and Pablo Picasso by 13.
Revered today as the quintessential Jewish artist of the 20th century, Chagall was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in various media, including paintings, illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, sculptures, tapestries, mosaics and fine art prints.
Because of a resurgence of interest in the artist in recent years, art watchers may get a double dose of Marc Chagall on their next visit to Milan, Italy, where two exhibitions are ongoing simultaneously till February 1 next year at the Palazzo Reale and the Museo Diocesano.
Marc Chagall—Una Retrospettiva: 1908-1985 at the Palazzo Reale presents one of the largest retrospectives ever devoted to the artist whose work generally were based on emotional association rather than traditional pictorial production. Over 220 pieces will guide visitors from his first painting, Le Petit Salon (1908), to the last examples in his oeuvre. Meanwhile, the exhibition Marc Chagall and the Bible at the Diocesan Museum of Milan presents 60 artworks centered on messages of Scripture, including paintings, etchings, sculptures and ceramics. In the double exhibitions, one can perhaps reawaken to a poetry of representation which avoids factual illustration and depends largely on the soul. As poet André Breton said of Chagall, “with him alone, the metaphor made its triumphant return to modern painting.”