.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Chagall’s return to France in 1923, after an absence of almost ten years, marked a crucial period in both his artistic and personal evolution. Just as World War I broke out, after spending much of his early career in Paris, Chagall returned to his birthplace in present-day Belarus, where he was forced to remain for the next several years. Although still richly inspired by the stories of his hometown, Vitebsk—where had produced some of the most important work of his career, many of which can be considered to be the origin of his distinctive mood of mysticism and playfulness—opposition to his religion and political views, compounded with fierce criticisms of his art, strained his creative expression. Chagall would always be from the East, but perhaps his art no longer was entirely.
Chagall finally returned to the West in 1923, settling in Berlin, where he was later joined by his wife Bella and young daughter Ida. His work was far better received in Germany than in the USSR, which resulted in a surge of productivity. But it was only upon his return to France that Chagall experienced the sense of freedom once so familiar to him in his youth, a liberty that allowed him to again feel a burst of organic creativity.
The works he created between 1924 and 1926 are especially pertinent to interpreting the significant shift in the artist’s style that ensued after his return to France. Far less charmed by the vivacity of cosmopolitan life than he had been in his youth, Chagall and his family spent significant periods of time outside of Paris. He quickly fell in love with the peace and tranquility of countryside life—which stood in stark contrast to the tumult and hardship of the war years in Russia—the landscape and routines of its inhabitants becoming a major source of artistic inspiration. Lionello Venturi noted, “for him, even the French countryside in all its variety was an object of love” (quoted in F. Meyer, Marc Chagall: Life and Work, New York, 1963, p. 337).
In 1925, the family rented rooms in the small village of Montchauvet, set in the verdant countryside between the Seine and Oise rivers and dotted with bucolic farmyards and picturesque pastures. During that peaceful summer, Chagall painted a many rustic landscapes and pastoral scenes, revisiting motifs and themes intrinsic to his practice, yet drawing his focus away from distant memories of Russia, laden with nostalgia, and towards a more lighthearted French future. La cour d’une ferme à Chambon-sur-Lac is a perfect example of this shift. In bright, opaque gouache, Chagall renders a farmyard typical of the region and the familiar, amiable elements of agrarian life: clusters of hay carpeting the ground, a small chicken, tools strewn about as though they have only just been set down, and a humble farmhand summoning a horse who seemingly trotting out of the foreground. Setting aside the mysticism of his earlier works, the present work depicts an undeniably familiar scene.
This said, Chagall’s characteristic playfulness and whimsy remains palpable, displayed in the quasi-caricatural mundanity of farm life, and the painting’s lack of linear perspective. His use of abstraction here, like in much of his oeuvre, is symbolic: rugged and uneven, the farmhouse seems as though it has existed within the landscape for centuries, and although slanted and in disrepair, its place is permanent. Historical and native to the land, it conjures feelings of stability and immovability that had been quite rare in the artist’s life. “Whereas in the first Paris period, his art had been metaphysical and passionate, the yearning expression of visionary youth, in this second French phase Chagall opened out to the world and the French countryside,” wrote Jackie Wulschlager. “He found the courage to express himself in a new idiom; away from ravaged Russia and its incidence on ideological positions, he was able to concentrate on painterly values” (Chagall: A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 321).
Chagall’s pastoral idyll is not only indicative of a stylistic shift in his practice, but evidence of his sense of belonging amongst those who have inhabited the land for generations. This feeling of anchoring allowed him to express himself freely. The present work's joyous and peaceful atmosphere is the visual symbol of a break from his turbulent past. Examining the artist’s oeuvre, it is only here, in the French provinces, that the quantity of Chagall’s romantic landscapes rivals those set in his native Vitebsk, also attesting to the displaced artist’s newfound sense of tranquility, safety, and genuine belonging. “There [were] very few places outside Vitebsk,” wrote Franz Meyer, “where Chagall did so many landscape studies, which shows what a close affinity he felt for the rustic world he discovered there” (op. cit., 1963, p. 349).
Chagall finally returned to the West in 1923, settling in Berlin, where he was later joined by his wife Bella and young daughter Ida. His work was far better received in Germany than in the USSR, which resulted in a surge of productivity. But it was only upon his return to France that Chagall experienced the sense of freedom once so familiar to him in his youth, a liberty that allowed him to again feel a burst of organic creativity.
The works he created between 1924 and 1926 are especially pertinent to interpreting the significant shift in the artist’s style that ensued after his return to France. Far less charmed by the vivacity of cosmopolitan life than he had been in his youth, Chagall and his family spent significant periods of time outside of Paris. He quickly fell in love with the peace and tranquility of countryside life—which stood in stark contrast to the tumult and hardship of the war years in Russia—the landscape and routines of its inhabitants becoming a major source of artistic inspiration. Lionello Venturi noted, “for him, even the French countryside in all its variety was an object of love” (quoted in F. Meyer, Marc Chagall: Life and Work, New York, 1963, p. 337).
In 1925, the family rented rooms in the small village of Montchauvet, set in the verdant countryside between the Seine and Oise rivers and dotted with bucolic farmyards and picturesque pastures. During that peaceful summer, Chagall painted a many rustic landscapes and pastoral scenes, revisiting motifs and themes intrinsic to his practice, yet drawing his focus away from distant memories of Russia, laden with nostalgia, and towards a more lighthearted French future. La cour d’une ferme à Chambon-sur-Lac is a perfect example of this shift. In bright, opaque gouache, Chagall renders a farmyard typical of the region and the familiar, amiable elements of agrarian life: clusters of hay carpeting the ground, a small chicken, tools strewn about as though they have only just been set down, and a humble farmhand summoning a horse who seemingly trotting out of the foreground. Setting aside the mysticism of his earlier works, the present work depicts an undeniably familiar scene.
This said, Chagall’s characteristic playfulness and whimsy remains palpable, displayed in the quasi-caricatural mundanity of farm life, and the painting’s lack of linear perspective. His use of abstraction here, like in much of his oeuvre, is symbolic: rugged and uneven, the farmhouse seems as though it has existed within the landscape for centuries, and although slanted and in disrepair, its place is permanent. Historical and native to the land, it conjures feelings of stability and immovability that had been quite rare in the artist’s life. “Whereas in the first Paris period, his art had been metaphysical and passionate, the yearning expression of visionary youth, in this second French phase Chagall opened out to the world and the French countryside,” wrote Jackie Wulschlager. “He found the courage to express himself in a new idiom; away from ravaged Russia and its incidence on ideological positions, he was able to concentrate on painterly values” (Chagall: A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 321).
Chagall’s pastoral idyll is not only indicative of a stylistic shift in his practice, but evidence of his sense of belonging amongst those who have inhabited the land for generations. This feeling of anchoring allowed him to express himself freely. The present work's joyous and peaceful atmosphere is the visual symbol of a break from his turbulent past. Examining the artist’s oeuvre, it is only here, in the French provinces, that the quantity of Chagall’s romantic landscapes rivals those set in his native Vitebsk, also attesting to the displaced artist’s newfound sense of tranquility, safety, and genuine belonging. “There [were] very few places outside Vitebsk,” wrote Franz Meyer, “where Chagall did so many landscape studies, which shows what a close affinity he felt for the rustic world he discovered there” (op. cit., 1963, p. 349).