Chagall in the shtetl
by Joy Neumeyer at 25/06/2012
Chagall, Marc: The Origins of the Master’s Creative Language

Marc Chagall’s fantastical canvases— with their floating fiddlers, two-faced cats and explosions of color—are instantly recognizable, and uniquely beloved. But where did these visions come from?

The State Tretyakov Gallery endeavors to answer this question with an anticipated new exhibition in honor of the artist’s 125th birthday. It displays dozens of rare early graphics and paintings from his youth in Belarus, as well as mature collages, illustrations and ceramics from the 1960s and ’70s, allowing viewers to trace the motifs that Chagall would continue developing until his death at age 97.

“Regardless of when his works were created, in youth or in old age, he drew on the same sources,” Chagall’s granddaughter Meret Meyer said at the exhibition opening.

Chagall was born Moishe Shagal in 1887 near Vitebsk, Belarus. Under the Russian Empire, Vitebsk was part of the “Pale of Settlement,” which relegated Russian Jews to specific areas in Eastern Europe. He grew up in a shtetl, or small Jewish settlement; his father hauled barrels for a herring merchant, and his mother sold groceries.

After studying art in St. Petersburg, he arrived in Paris in 1910. His mystical visions of shtetl life contrasted starkly with the city’s then-dominant Cubism, leaving him excluded from artists’ circles but attracting interest from poets such as Guillaume Apollinaire. After fleeing to the United States in 1941, he returned to France after the war, remaining there for the rest of his life.

The Tretyakov’s first major Chagall exhibition, the popular “Hello, Motherland,” was held in 2005. According to curator Yekaterina Seleznyova, the current show is a continuation of the past one, presenting graphics and early works that were previously left out.

Marc Chagall. ‘Lilac Nude,’ 1967. Paper, textile, gouache, ink. Private collection, Switzerland“It’s impossible to present a complete, exhaustive exhibition of Chagall all at once,” she said.

Seleznyova said the focus on Chagall’s roots stemmed from responses to the 2005 show.

“Of course there were many positive reviews and thanks, but there were also very many questions,” she said.

“Some of them were simple – ‘Why is there a green goat in the painting, or a person with a yellow face?’ But there were also more complicated questions about his persistent motifs.” Some of the answers can be found in rarely seen graphic works from the artist’s youth in Vitebsk. Drawings, watercolors and gouache paintings from the early 1900s depict everyday scenes of shtetl life. People attend weddings, play street music, put out fires and gather for meals, highlighting the warmth and community that could flourish amidst the poverty of the shtetl. The most intimate works, on loan from Chagall’s descendants, depict moments from the artist’s family life, such as his grandmother sweeping or taking a nap.

“The exhibition gives the strong impression that we’re seeing, in essence, his diary,” Seleznyova said.

To help viewers explore Chagall’s formative influences, there are real-life artifacts from Eastern European shtetls, on loan from St. Petersburg’s Ethnographic Museum and the Museum of Jewish History in Moscow. Next to a painting of a family gathered around a baby carriage, for example, visitors see a real carriage from the same time. Other period objects on display include suitcases, Torahs, menorahs and hair clippers.

‘Nude Over Vitebsk’ at the Chagall exhibition in the Tretyakov Gallery Chagall’s work was far from static. He became increasingly enamored with color, as reflected in vibrant paintings and collages from the 1960s and ’70s. (The works, which were studies for murals at New York’s Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Opera, are being shown for the first time in Russia.) He also incorporated images from other life experiences, from youthful Parisian nights to his late-in-life rural retreat in Provence.

But he would never abandon the themes of his childhood village, which was decimated during World War II. In one bold red collage from 1966, for example, there appears the familiar figure of a man playing a fiddle, looking straight from Chagall’s sketches of turn-of-the-century Vitebsk.

Other notable works in the exhibition include Chagall’s Bible illustrations, with their richly colored renditions of Old Testament characters, and black-and-white designs for Gogol’s “Dead Souls.” The latter inspired the book’s first French translation in 1925. Other rare treats are the 69-piece wedding service Chagall created for his daughter Ida’s marriage in 1951, which Chagall’s granddaughter recalled eating borshch from, and two marble fountain sculptures from 1964.