Bouquet de fleurs sur nappe rouge

First explored by Chagall in the early 1920s as a romantic extension to the symbolic vocabulary of the paintings depicting himself with his beloved wife Bella, the vase of flowers became a perennial theme in Chagall's art. 'It was in Toulon in 1924, Chagall recalls, that the charm of French flowers first struck him. He claims he had not known bouquets of flowers in Russia - or at least they were not so common as in France... He said that when he painted a bouquet it was as if he was painting a landscape. It represented France to him. But the discovery was also a logical one in the light of the change taking place in his vision and pictorial interests. Flowers, especially mixed bouquets of tiny blossoms, offer a variety of delicate color combinations and a fund of texture contrasts which were beginning to hold Chagall's attention more and more' (J.J. Sweeney, Marc Chagall, New York, 1946, p. 56).

As in the present work, Chagall's bouquets often consist of an explosion of colour emanating from a centralised composition. Colour was an essential part of Chagall's work in its own right and the bouquet allows him to manipulate dramatic contrasts and subtle harmonies with aplomb. Franz Meyer says of the works executed in the late 1920s that they have a 'refined, nervous, and elegant vivacity. The life force is transformed into a firework of figural magic and sparkling light' (Marc Chagall, Life and Work, New York, 1957, p. 366). The vibrancy of Chagall's flowers, which seem to shimmer with light and movement, is further enhanced and animated by the superb granular texture of the paint surface, while the composition is stabilised by Chagall's strong use of purples and reds in the vase and tablecloth, as well as by the inclusion of the figures of the lovers at the lower right.