Marc Chagall was a Russian Jewish artist who worked in Symbolism, Cubism, Fauvism, and Surrealism. He created famous works in painting, stained glass, stage design, tapestry, and printmaking. Chagall’s personal life and experiences during major twentieth-century events influenced his work. His famous works are displayed worldwide, including stained glass windows in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Mainz, Germany, and the United Nations lobby.
Marc Chagall, a prominent twentieth century Russian Jewish artist, achieved great success in different mediums and artistic styles. Chagall is known as a pioneer of modernism, working with Symbolism, Cubism, Fauvism and finally Surrealism. His long and celebrated career included famous works in painting, stained glass, stage design, tapestry and printmaking. The influences of Chagall’s experience as a Russian Jew who lived and produced art during the Russian Revolution, both World Wars, and many other major twentieth-century events are evident in his work.
Born on July 7, 1887, Chagall was the eldest of nine children in a poor Jewish family in Liozno, near Vitebsk, Russia. He began his art studies locally in 1906, but in 1907 he moved to St. Petersburg to pursue his career under Leon Bakst at the Zvantseva School of Drawing and Painting. During this time, Chagall was jailed for not being allowed to reside in the city as a Jewish resident. Her Jewish background and his happy family life were to inform the nature and subject matter of Chagall’s artistic work, although he was not a practicing Jew in later years.
Enjoying his early success, Marc Chagall moved briefly to Paris and formed relationships with many other pioneers of the modernist movement, including Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger and Guillaume Apollinaire. During this period, Chagall painted some of his most famous colorful works about Jewish folk life. Then he returned to Russia and married Bella Rosenfeld, who bore him a son, Ida. The couple returned to Paris in 1922, but when World War II broke out, the young Jewish family had to be smuggled out of Europe to the United States, where Chagall lived until four years after his wife’s death. Chagall had a son, David, after his wife died and then returned to Europe where he married Valentina (Vava) Brodsky and then died, in 1985.
Marc Chagall is well known for his use of bright, vibrant colors and inspiration from the Belarusian village of his childhood. He is often considered a member of the modernist avant-garde and popular art movements that came out of Paris before and after the First World War. His Surrealist works are often described as dreamlike, fantastical and inventive, blending Impressionism and Cubism. Chagall completed several stained glass windows and etchings illustrating scenes from the Bible, as well as works depicting Jewish subjects, such as “The Praying Jew.” His series, Mein Leben (“My Life”) shows scenes from his personal life, and many paintings and prints bring to life Russian Jewish city scenes, such as “Me and the Village”.
Chagall’s famous works are proudly displayed in various places around the world. Stained glass windows by him are notably found in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Mainz, Germany, in the synagogue of Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, and in the public lobby of the United Nations. Marc Chagall also designed tapestries, three of which are found in the state room of the Knesset in Israel. Like his tapestries, Chagall’s engravings and ceramics are extremely rare and poorly displayed. The Musée National Message Biblique Marc Chagall (Chagall Museum) in Nice, France exhibits many of his biblical works.
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