Lot Essay
Sold with a photo-certificate from the Comité Marc Chagall dated Paris, le 12 mai 1989.
The present work is a smaller version of the central panel of a monumental triptych which Chagall worked on from 1937 to 1952 (see illustration). The panels are titled from left to right Résistance, Libération and Résurection. It was highly typical for Chagall to take many years to complete a painting. In his introduction to the Jewish Theatre 1919-1920 Chagall said, "A child is conceived in a second; thus in a fraction of time is a painting conceived in the mind of the artist. But before and after this moment, years must pass! Years of gestation, of perfecting, perhaps, as each idea grows from theory to reality." During the time he spent in America between 1941 and 1948, Chagall returned frequently to his canvases.
It is interesting to compare the present work with the larger version, in the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Almost identical in composition, it differs only in the emphasis and the detailing of the highly symbolic and personal elements within the painting. The one dominating element in both works is the revolving sun, full of warmth, optimism and movement around which the artist paints, the lovers marry and the music plays on. This dominance of a central disc in the centre of the composition harks back to a painting of 1913, Hommage à Apollinaire, itself reminiscient of works by Robert Delaunay and Frantisek Kupka in its orphist composition of circular rhythm and simultaneaous discs. Apollinaire evaluated Chagall correctly when he said of him in 1914, "He is an extremely varied artist, capable of monumental paintings and he isn't troubled by any system".
The present work is typical of Chagall's variety and breadth of vision; the white crucifixion, the violin player, the artist, the bride and bridegroom, the cockerel and the red flags of the revolutionaries are all present. The title of the work leaves us to ponder the spiritual liberation of the dying man, the emotional liberation of the lovers, the political liberation of the revolutionary, the creative liberation of the artist to fulfill his artistic direction, and above all, the liberating influence of love, the passing of time and hope for future harmony. As Chagall himself said at a lecture in Chicago in 1958, "Life is indeed a miracle. We are parts of that life and we pass the years adding to the years, from one stage to another stage of life. When I first came to Paris, I was instinctively against the realism which I saw everywhere. Upon my return to France at the end of the war, I had the vision of glowing colours, not decorative screaming ones.....Now I feel the presence of a colour which is the colour of love".
The present work is a smaller version of the central panel of a monumental triptych which Chagall worked on from 1937 to 1952 (see illustration). The panels are titled from left to right Résistance, Libération and Résurection. It was highly typical for Chagall to take many years to complete a painting. In his introduction to the Jewish Theatre 1919-1920 Chagall said, "A child is conceived in a second; thus in a fraction of time is a painting conceived in the mind of the artist. But before and after this moment, years must pass! Years of gestation, of perfecting, perhaps, as each idea grows from theory to reality." During the time he spent in America between 1941 and 1948, Chagall returned frequently to his canvases.
It is interesting to compare the present work with the larger version, in the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. Almost identical in composition, it differs only in the emphasis and the detailing of the highly symbolic and personal elements within the painting. The one dominating element in both works is the revolving sun, full of warmth, optimism and movement around which the artist paints, the lovers marry and the music plays on. This dominance of a central disc in the centre of the composition harks back to a painting of 1913, Hommage à Apollinaire, itself reminiscient of works by Robert Delaunay and Frantisek Kupka in its orphist composition of circular rhythm and simultaneaous discs. Apollinaire evaluated Chagall correctly when he said of him in 1914, "He is an extremely varied artist, capable of monumental paintings and he isn't troubled by any system".
The present work is typical of Chagall's variety and breadth of vision; the white crucifixion, the violin player, the artist, the bride and bridegroom, the cockerel and the red flags of the revolutionaries are all present. The title of the work leaves us to ponder the spiritual liberation of the dying man, the emotional liberation of the lovers, the political liberation of the revolutionary, the creative liberation of the artist to fulfill his artistic direction, and above all, the liberating influence of love, the passing of time and hope for future harmony. As Chagall himself said at a lecture in Chicago in 1958, "Life is indeed a miracle. We are parts of that life and we pass the years adding to the years, from one stage to another stage of life. When I first came to Paris, I was instinctively against the realism which I saw everywhere. Upon my return to France at the end of the war, I had the vision of glowing colours, not decorative screaming ones.....Now I feel the presence of a colour which is the colour of love".