.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from David McNeil.
Executed only one or two years after Nu debout (lot 587) and Nu étendu (lot 585), Chagall treats the nude subject in a completely different style in this sketch. It is part of a series of gouaches and drawings dating from 1911-1912, at the height of the School of Paris' history. Chagall had arrived in Paris in 1910 and he soon discovered the various avant-garde trends flourishing in the capital. The impact of the artistic Parisian scene was a turning-point in Chagall's art as he himself described, 'at that time, the sun shone in Paris alone and even today it seems to me that there is no greater revolution of the eye than that I came across on arriving in Paris'.
He first attended the Académie de la Palette where Henri Le Fauconnier and Dunoyer de Segonzac both taught, and then joined the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, where he could draw nudes. In the Nu bleu, Chagall seems to have absorbed Fauvist as well as Cubist features, using colour to build up the figure as well as focusing on the rhythm created rather than on the model itself. This style is also obvious in Chagall's Nu au peigne of 1911-1912 (M 88; Private collection, Paris) and in the expressionistic brushstrokes which define the painting Nu au bras levé of 1911 (M p. 119; Galerie Beyeler, Basel; fig. 1). The Russian artist was conscious of Paris' impact on his art, admitting that 'My art needed Paris like a tree needs water'.
(fig. 1) Marc Chagall, Nu au bras levé, 1911. Galerie Beyeler, Basel; © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2007.
Executed only one or two years after Nu debout (lot 587) and Nu étendu (lot 585), Chagall treats the nude subject in a completely different style in this sketch. It is part of a series of gouaches and drawings dating from 1911-1912, at the height of the School of Paris' history. Chagall had arrived in Paris in 1910 and he soon discovered the various avant-garde trends flourishing in the capital. The impact of the artistic Parisian scene was a turning-point in Chagall's art as he himself described, 'at that time, the sun shone in Paris alone and even today it seems to me that there is no greater revolution of the eye than that I came across on arriving in Paris'.
He first attended the Académie de la Palette where Henri Le Fauconnier and Dunoyer de Segonzac both taught, and then joined the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, where he could draw nudes. In the Nu bleu, Chagall seems to have absorbed Fauvist as well as Cubist features, using colour to build up the figure as well as focusing on the rhythm created rather than on the model itself. This style is also obvious in Chagall's Nu au peigne of 1911-1912 (M 88; Private collection, Paris) and in the expressionistic brushstrokes which define the painting Nu au bras levé of 1911 (M p. 119; Galerie Beyeler, Basel; fig. 1). The Russian artist was conscious of Paris' impact on his art, admitting that 'My art needed Paris like a tree needs water'.
(fig. 1) Marc Chagall, Nu au bras levé, 1911. Galerie Beyeler, Basel; © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2007.