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Lot Essay
In 1923, Chagall left Russia for Paris, losing possession or access to a number of works that he painted in his foundational years, including the seminal oil composition Le Mort, to which he returned to in the present gouache. Chagall himself described the 1908 painting, now in the collection of Centre Pompidou, Paris, as one of the most important works of his early years and it marked the beginning of his career as an artist, anticipating many elements that would become synonymous with his distinctive artistic language.
In his autobiographical text My Life, Chagall recalled a youthful memory that became the basis for the event and some of the characters depicted in Le Mort:
"One evening, well before dawn, cries suddenly rose from the street, beneath the windows. In the feeble glow of the night-light, I managed to make out a woman running alone through the deserted streets. She is waving her arms, sobbing, imploring the occupants, who are still asleep, to come and save her husband, … Startled people come running from every side. ...The steadiest, prepared for everything, push the woman aside, quietly light the candles and, in the midst of the silence, begin to pray aloud over the dying man's head... The dead man is already lying on the ground in sad solemnity, his face illumined by six candles. In the end, they carry him away" (in My Life, english ed., London, 1965, pp. 65-66).
Chagall returned to the composition in several oil and gouache versions. In the present work, he heightens its expressive impact through the use of vivid, saturated color and flatter, more modernist forms, intensifying the contrasts between the figures and their surroundings. During this period in Paris, Chagall was strongly influenced by the Orphist and Fauvist circles, experimenting with broad expanses of pure, unmodulated primary color.
A key motif within Chagall’s oeuvre appears in the upper left: the figure of the fiddler perched on a roof. Abraham Efross, a friend of Chagall in their youth, noted the significance of the figure, "he is fiddling his melody to the dancing wind that howls over the sullen sky" (quoted in F. Meyer, Marc Chagall: Life and Work, New York, 1964, p. 63). The music of the fiddler represents the voice of humanity, plaintive or joyous by turns, as it evokes the greater plan of God's universe, as counterpoint to the life of the village and death of one of its inhabitants in the street below.
In his autobiographical text My Life, Chagall recalled a youthful memory that became the basis for the event and some of the characters depicted in Le Mort:
"One evening, well before dawn, cries suddenly rose from the street, beneath the windows. In the feeble glow of the night-light, I managed to make out a woman running alone through the deserted streets. She is waving her arms, sobbing, imploring the occupants, who are still asleep, to come and save her husband, … Startled people come running from every side. ...The steadiest, prepared for everything, push the woman aside, quietly light the candles and, in the midst of the silence, begin to pray aloud over the dying man's head... The dead man is already lying on the ground in sad solemnity, his face illumined by six candles. In the end, they carry him away" (in My Life, english ed., London, 1965, pp. 65-66).
Chagall returned to the composition in several oil and gouache versions. In the present work, he heightens its expressive impact through the use of vivid, saturated color and flatter, more modernist forms, intensifying the contrasts between the figures and their surroundings. During this period in Paris, Chagall was strongly influenced by the Orphist and Fauvist circles, experimenting with broad expanses of pure, unmodulated primary color.
A key motif within Chagall’s oeuvre appears in the upper left: the figure of the fiddler perched on a roof. Abraham Efross, a friend of Chagall in their youth, noted the significance of the figure, "he is fiddling his melody to the dancing wind that howls over the sullen sky" (quoted in F. Meyer, Marc Chagall: Life and Work, New York, 1964, p. 63). The music of the fiddler represents the voice of humanity, plaintive or joyous by turns, as it evokes the greater plan of God's universe, as counterpoint to the life of the village and death of one of its inhabitants in the street below.