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Commissar of Art
Following the Bolshevik Revolution in late
1917, he was appointed Commissar of Art in Vitebsk, where he began organizing
exhibitions and opening museums of art, attracting major artists to the
city, such as Kasimir Malevich and
El Lissitzky. However, not being a natural organizer, he resigned his
post in 1920 and moved to Moscow. Here, life was altogether harder and
he scraped a living teaching, designing stage decorations and painting
murals. Meanwhile, Soviet attitude to art was becoming more politicized:
modern art (like Chagall's) was out, Socialist Realism was in. As a result,
he received permission to emigrate, and in 1922, at the age of 35, left
for Berlin. He would not see Russia again for another 50 years.
Return to Europe
After settling up with Herwarth Walden
in Berlin, where he also completed his illustrated autobiography My
Life (published 9 years later), Chagall moved to Paris, taking up
an offer from Ambroise Vollard, the art dealer to illustrate Nikolai Gogol's
book Dead Souls. There now followed a period of peace and prosperity
for the Chagalls. As a result, the dark, foreboding compositions and colours
that had characterized his previous works began to be replaced with a
brighter idiom, as exemplified by The Watering Trough (1925), Peasant
Life (1925), Bella in Mourillon (1926), Equestrienne
(1927) and Fruits and Flowers (1929) and Lovers in the Lilacs
(1931). In addition, he enjoyed several solo exhibitions in Paris, including
a major retrospective (1924). Three years later he had his first solo
exhibition in New York. In the 1930s he visited British Palestine, as
well as Holland (where he studied many works by Rembrandt), Switzerland,
Poland and Spain (where he saw paintings by El Greco).
This period of calm was duly shattered by the rise of Nazism in Germany,
where Chagall's paintings was labelled Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst),
to which his artistic response was Solitude (1933), depicting the
deep depression experienced by Jews amid the gathering storm. Fellow artists
labelled degenerate by the Nazis included: Paul
Klee (1879–1940), Kurt Schwitters
(1887-1948), Oskar Kokoschka (1885-1980),
Max Beckmann (1884-1950), Otto
Dix (1891-1969) and Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner (1880-1938).
Another significant work of the pre-war
period was In The Revolution (1937) which features the chaos and
carnage of Bolshevism. Then in 1938, he produced a masterpiece - the White
Crucifixion, an eloquent and evocative depiction of the commonality
of Christianity and Judaism, which combined a crucified Christ with images
of Jewish persecution - and a last angst-ridden canvas The Three Candles
(1938-40).
World War II
Less than a year after the outbreak of
war, Germany invaded and occupied France. Chagall fled, together with
his family and paintings, to the south of France, and although he was
arrested by the Vichy authorities, pressure from the United States secured
his release and in June 1941 he sailed for America. He remained here for
five years, mostly in New York, painting works that reflected his deep
unease with anti-semitic events in Europe. Examples include, The Obsession
(1943), Listening to the Cock (1944) and The Wedding (1944).
He also completed another masterpiece, The Juggler (1943; private
Collection).
Death of His Wife
Chagall then suffered his greatest personal
tragedy: in 1944, Bella Chagall died, from a virus infection. Distraught
at the loss of his beloved partner and muse, Chagall stopped painting
for nearly a year. As it was, in 1946, the painter met Virginia Haggard
McNeill, and their relationship revived him.
Settles in France: Marries Valentina
Brodsky
Returning to Paris in 1946, he finally
completed The Falling Angel (1923-1947), a painting he had worked
on for almost a quarter of a century, which combined images of Biblical
and Torah lore with those of the modern world, along with a number of
Chagall's personal motifs. In 1950, in keeping with his new desire for
seclusion, he moved to Cap-Ferrat on the Cote d'Azur, and in 1952 - following
the departure of Virginia Haggard McNeill - married the forceful, controlling
Valentina Brodsky (Vava), who isolated him in a new home in Provence,
censored his letters and helped to poison him against his daughter Ida.
Stained Glass
Happy, or reconciled, to this prison-like existence, Chagall devoted himself
to painting, and also - in line with Vava's desire to "Christianize"
him - executed designs for stained-glass windows for churches like Metz
Cathedral (1958), the Zurich Minster (1972), the Rheims Cathedral (1974),
the All Saints Church in Tudeley, England (1978) and St Stephen's Cathedral
in Main, Germany (1978). Seemingly oblivious to the significance of all
this, Chagall also accepted commissions to design stained glass and murals
for many public buildings in Israel.
Last Years
During the 1950s Chagall visited numerous countries, including the Holy
Land, England, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Germany, the United
States, among others. In 1959, he was made an Honorary Member of the American
Academy of Arts, and received an honorary Doctorate from the University
of Glasgow. Finally, in 1973, at the invitation of the Soviet authorities,
Chagall visited his native country for the first time since he left in
1922. In his honour, the Soviet Ministry of Culture and the Moscow Tretyakov
Gallery hosted a major exhibition of his works - an event which (given
the Jewish persecutions of the day) remains inexplicable to many.
Chagall's final works are simple but highly
expressive, an approach exemplified by paintings like The Fall of Icarus
(1975), The Grand Parade (1979-80), and Couple on a Red Background
(1983). In 1977, in recognition of his services to French art, he was
awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour by the French government.
Chagall passed away in Provence in 1985. Although his wife Valentina arranged
his burial in a Catholic cemetery, although his daughter Ida Chagall ensured
that the Jewish funeral prayer, the Kaddish, was recited at the end of
the ceremony.
Paintings by Marc Chagall
Works by Marc Chagall hang in many of the
best art museums throughout the world,
including the Guggenheim
Museum New York. His Interior of a Synagogue in Safed (1931)
is in the Jewish Art Museum, Jerusalem.
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