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Lot Essay
Rendered in vibrant shades of red, yellow, green, purple, and blue, Le couple et la végétation luxuriante is a joyous example of the whimsical aesthetic that defined the later stages of Marc Chagall’s career. By the 1970s, Chagall had long been settled in the South of France with his second wife, Vava. He had first moved from Paris to the Côte d’Azur in 1949, enchanted by the region’s brilliant sunlight and dazzling colors. He first moved to the small medieval town of Vence, before eventually settling just a few miles south in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Chagall spent his days there creating a new body of work inspired by the exquisite light and luscious vegetation that the Midi had to offer.
In this way, Le couple et la végétation luxuriante beautifully marries elements of both the classic and modern Chagall. Over the course of his career, Chagall continued to rely on the same fantastical set of characters, many of whom appear in the present composition. In the foreground, Chagall includes a small red rooster, a nude couple, and a yellow goat. Behind them, the background is more abstract—filled with bunches of flowers, a smiling donkey, and a glowing, red sun. These motifs come together in a composition removed from time or space, capturing Chagall’s enduring fascination with love, joy, and the imaginative worlds that bridge dreams and reality.
The vibrant passages of pure color in the gouache also speak to Chagall’s late career experimentation in stained glass. He first became interested in the medium after visiting the Cathedral of Chartres and was moved by the brilliance of the blue tones that reminded him of his own practice. He would go on to create his first windows in 1957, and from there began accepting large-scale commissions from a variety of venues. He designed windows for the Reims Cathedral in France, the synagogue of Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, and the United Nations headquarters in New York. His work in this new medium cemented Chagall as a generational talent when it came to color. As succinctly put by Pablo Picasso before Henri Matisse’s death in 1954, “When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is…His canvases are really painted, not just tossed together. Some of the last things he’s done in Vence convince me that there’s never been anybody since Renoir who has the feeling for light that Chagall has” (quoted in F. Gilot and C. Lake, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 282).
In this way, Le couple et la végétation luxuriante beautifully marries elements of both the classic and modern Chagall. Over the course of his career, Chagall continued to rely on the same fantastical set of characters, many of whom appear in the present composition. In the foreground, Chagall includes a small red rooster, a nude couple, and a yellow goat. Behind them, the background is more abstract—filled with bunches of flowers, a smiling donkey, and a glowing, red sun. These motifs come together in a composition removed from time or space, capturing Chagall’s enduring fascination with love, joy, and the imaginative worlds that bridge dreams and reality.
The vibrant passages of pure color in the gouache also speak to Chagall’s late career experimentation in stained glass. He first became interested in the medium after visiting the Cathedral of Chartres and was moved by the brilliance of the blue tones that reminded him of his own practice. He would go on to create his first windows in 1957, and from there began accepting large-scale commissions from a variety of venues. He designed windows for the Reims Cathedral in France, the synagogue of Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem, and the United Nations headquarters in New York. His work in this new medium cemented Chagall as a generational talent when it came to color. As succinctly put by Pablo Picasso before Henri Matisse’s death in 1954, “When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is…His canvases are really painted, not just tossed together. Some of the last things he’s done in Vence convince me that there’s never been anybody since Renoir who has the feeling for light that Chagall has” (quoted in F. Gilot and C. Lake, Life with Picasso, New York, 1964, p. 282).