Lot Essay
The inspiration behind the work of Marc Chagall lies in the spiritual and artistic culture of the world from which he sprang; the world of Russian Judaism. His early work in particular seems part allegory and part illustration of aspects of traditional Jewish life. Dating from 1915, The Visit to the Grandparents, is one such work, conjuring up an image of Chagall's childhood in Vitebsk.
The distinctive characteristic of the Jewish artist in this epoch was his desire to draw on the artistic tradition of his own people. As Effros wrote: "Our rapture at the depiction of village life and our almost solemn excitement at the sight of gaudy pictures...no doubt make us seem like ludicrous dandies in the eyes of the art world. But we still say: we would respectfully return the tickets admitting us to the high society of the art world if the price of admission were that we renounce our tears of joy at the humble beauty of the ornaments of the Pinkassim (Jewish community record books)...Our whole artistic future lies buried there; we were born to resurrect it, to spawn a new epoch of Jewish art." (A. Effros, "Aladdin's Lamp", in The Jewish World, 1918, I, p. 299).
In 1914 Chagall left Paris and returned to his native Russia, and went to live in Petrograd, commencing what Susan Compton has called his 'Second Russian Period'. It was also at this time that he began to move away from pure representation towards his own blend of fantasy, with modifications borrowed from Cubism. For example, in Over the City (Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow), the fanciful position of the artist and his wife in mid-air is in surprising conjunction with the view of the town below. This is as also seen in The Birthday (Museum of Modern Art, New York), where the ecstatic couple again seem to be defying the laws of gravity, and this is also apparent in the Visit to the Grandparents, which shows there was a progression from one theme to the next.
The Visit originates from designs made for a cycle of small murals which Chagall was commissioned to complete for a Jewish Secondary School housed in the same edifice as the chief synagogue of Petrograd. The themes are typically rooted in Chagall's own reminiscences of his Jewish upbringing. One depicts the men of the house eating in the Tabernacle on the feast of the Tabernacles (Meyer 257), another one portrays the games on Purim (Meyer 259), the third (Meyer 255), renders a homely scene in which the chief figure is a child in bassinette. The three designs reappear, more or less modified, in pictures painted at the same time or later, and the domestic scene corresponds approximately to Visit to the Grandparents (Meyer 256).
Of this particular work, Compton writes, "This exquisite pencil drawing has unusually restrained colour added in wash. Accents are given by the purple skirt of the grandmother, the contrasting orange in the doorway and the mellow straw-coloured perambulator, which relieve the black and grey; a little splash of colour on the loaf of bread adds the finishing touch." Compton also notes that, Visit to the Grandparents is related to the Sketch for the Baby-carriage, belonging to Ida Chagall (Meyer 255)...But Visit to the Grandparents is altogether more informal, with the grandfather stretching out his arms and the grandmother throwing the child up into the air in a gesture of joyful recognition, echoed by the curiously stylized figure by the window. There are delightful touches such as the cat playing with the wheel of the pram and the little pullet standing on the shelf above the bread oven." (S. Compton, Chagall, Royal Academy, London, 1985, p. 192). It is also possible to see a direct link with the drypoints and etching used to illustrate Chagall's autobiography, Mein Leben. For example, Die Grossvater (no. 3) is drawn in the same fragmented, stylized way as the figure of the Grandfather in The Visit. The cross-links between The Visit and other works from this period, both in style and subject-matter, clearly demonstrates that this work is a seminal picture in Chagall's development.
This work has been requested for the forthcoming exhibition Marc Chagall: Les Années Russes, 1907-1921 to be held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, April-Sept. 1995.
The distinctive characteristic of the Jewish artist in this epoch was his desire to draw on the artistic tradition of his own people. As Effros wrote: "Our rapture at the depiction of village life and our almost solemn excitement at the sight of gaudy pictures...no doubt make us seem like ludicrous dandies in the eyes of the art world. But we still say: we would respectfully return the tickets admitting us to the high society of the art world if the price of admission were that we renounce our tears of joy at the humble beauty of the ornaments of the Pinkassim (Jewish community record books)...Our whole artistic future lies buried there; we were born to resurrect it, to spawn a new epoch of Jewish art." (A. Effros, "Aladdin's Lamp", in The Jewish World, 1918, I, p. 299).
In 1914 Chagall left Paris and returned to his native Russia, and went to live in Petrograd, commencing what Susan Compton has called his 'Second Russian Period'. It was also at this time that he began to move away from pure representation towards his own blend of fantasy, with modifications borrowed from Cubism. For example, in Over the City (Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow), the fanciful position of the artist and his wife in mid-air is in surprising conjunction with the view of the town below. This is as also seen in The Birthday (Museum of Modern Art, New York), where the ecstatic couple again seem to be defying the laws of gravity, and this is also apparent in the Visit to the Grandparents, which shows there was a progression from one theme to the next.
The Visit originates from designs made for a cycle of small murals which Chagall was commissioned to complete for a Jewish Secondary School housed in the same edifice as the chief synagogue of Petrograd. The themes are typically rooted in Chagall's own reminiscences of his Jewish upbringing. One depicts the men of the house eating in the Tabernacle on the feast of the Tabernacles (Meyer 257), another one portrays the games on Purim (Meyer 259), the third (Meyer 255), renders a homely scene in which the chief figure is a child in bassinette. The three designs reappear, more or less modified, in pictures painted at the same time or later, and the domestic scene corresponds approximately to Visit to the Grandparents (Meyer 256).
Of this particular work, Compton writes, "This exquisite pencil drawing has unusually restrained colour added in wash. Accents are given by the purple skirt of the grandmother, the contrasting orange in the doorway and the mellow straw-coloured perambulator, which relieve the black and grey; a little splash of colour on the loaf of bread adds the finishing touch." Compton also notes that, Visit to the Grandparents is related to the Sketch for the Baby-carriage, belonging to Ida Chagall (Meyer 255)...But Visit to the Grandparents is altogether more informal, with the grandfather stretching out his arms and the grandmother throwing the child up into the air in a gesture of joyful recognition, echoed by the curiously stylized figure by the window. There are delightful touches such as the cat playing with the wheel of the pram and the little pullet standing on the shelf above the bread oven." (S. Compton, Chagall, Royal Academy, London, 1985, p. 192). It is also possible to see a direct link with the drypoints and etching used to illustrate Chagall's autobiography, Mein Leben. For example, Die Grossvater (no. 3) is drawn in the same fragmented, stylized way as the figure of the Grandfather in The Visit. The cross-links between The Visit and other works from this period, both in style and subject-matter, clearly demonstrates that this work is a seminal picture in Chagall's development.
This work has been requested for the forthcoming exhibition Marc Chagall: Les Années Russes, 1907-1921 to be held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, April-Sept. 1995.