Les fleurs de St Jean Cap-Ferrat ou L'arbre en fleur

Les fleurs de St Jean Cap-Ferrat ou L'arbre en fleur was created at a time of great personal happiness for Marc Chagall, reflected through the buoyant, dream-like imagery depicted in the painting. Lyrical and hopeful, the canvas is adorned with many of Chagall’s recurrent motifs, such as the oversized luxuriant bouquet, amorous couple, and mystical animals hovering over the outlines of a town. Across the canvas, Chagall used a variety of brushstrokes, from staccato marks to thicker impasto, adding to the sense of exuberance, both technical and visual. This is particularly evident in the dazzling blossoms that erupt against the night sky. <br>The theme of the lovers was one that Chagall frequently returned to throughout his career, and for the artist, the motif was intensely personal. In Chagall’s world, love was his central artistic subject. As he explained, ‘In it lies the true Art: from it comes my technique, my religion. All other things are a sheer waste of energy, waste of means, waste of life, of time... Art, without Love – whether we are ashamed or not to use that well-known word – such a plastic art would open the wrong door’ (quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., <i>Chagall: A Retrospective</i>, New York, 1995, p. 179). Across countless paintings, the bridal couple return again and again, representing an abstract idea of love as well as his own experience of it.<br>By 1957, when the present work was created, Chagall was happily living in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the South of France with Valentina Brodsky, known as Vava; the two had married in 1952. That he was able to conceive of his life with new clarity and vision only speaks to his enthusiasm for the future. A sense of harmony emanates from <i>Les fleurs de Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat</i>, a feeling that matched Chagall’s life during this period. Living and working in Provence, with Vava by his side, he enjoyed days of happiness, describing his life as ‘a bouquet of roses’ (quoted in S. Alexander, <i>Marc Chagall: A Biography</i>, New York, 1978, p. 492).<br>Owing to the personal nature of his iconography, Chagall’s canvases are often interpreted through the lens of biography, but they evince a technical mastery, as seen in <i>Les fleurs de Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat</i>, particularly with regards to colour. The artist lavished paint on this canvas, seemingly bringing each petal and leaf to life. The burst of colour that so often characterises these floral arrangements allowed the artist to play with dramatic contrasts and subtle harmonies. By setting the flowers against a vivid ground of deep blue, his decadent palette is further emphasised, and here the pink and white blossoms seem to melt against the midnight blue. <br>The image of the bouquet has a long art historical precedent, and the traditional still-life motif – one tackled for centuries by artists as varied as Jan Bruegel the Elder and Georgia O'Keeffe – here has been rendered fantastical, with unreal and oversized proportions. Chagall did not ignore reality or naturalism but instead transfigured totems drawn from his own experiences into surreal symbols. He likely drew inspiration for these blooms straight from life, as bouquets of freshly cut flowers were brought daily to his studio during these years, yet by making them colossal, he has upended the conventional subject and made it surreal.<br><i>Les fleurs de Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat</i> highlights the profound impact the French Riviera had on the artist – a significance made clear by the painting’s title – and the way in which its peaceful atmosphere and charming landscape came to influence Chagall’s painting. As Franz Meyer, Chagall’s biographer and son-in-law, explained: ‘The light, the vegetation, the rhythm of life, all contributed to the rise of a more relaxed, airy, sensuous style in which the magic of colour dominates…’ (<i>Marc Chagall: Life and Work</i>, London, 1964, p. 519).