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拍品专文
In Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux painted in 1927, Marc Chagall tackles two key aspects of his œuvre, that of a magical lyricism embodied by the lively flower bouquet, and of romance incarnated by the floating couple holding each other’s hands above the moon’s crescent. Emerging from a misty blue haze, a firework of flowers seems to burst out from its proportionally small blue vase set on top of what seems to be rooftops – possibly a reference to one of Chagall’s leit motiv, his beloved native town, Vitebsk. The bouquet is illuminated by the light blue halo around it and it appears to corner the lovers in the upper left quadrant next to the moon. Encompassing several of Chagall’s distinctive themes of love and fantasy, the present painting epitomizes the artist’s deeply personal artistic vision and emotions of that time, confirming the artist’s statement that the 1920s were ‘the happiest time of my life’ (Chagall, quoted in J. Wullschlager, Chagall Love and Exile, London, 2008, p. 333).
Indeed, Chagall painted Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux during a period of unequaled contentment in his long life. In September 1923, nearly a decade after the outbreak of war had interrupted his youthful first stay in Paris, Chagall left Russia with his wife Bella and their daughter Ida and returned to the French capital, which bubbled with life in this peaceful decade preceding the Depression. Quickly befriending a cosmopolitan, erudite circle of companions – the painters Robert and Sonia Delaunay, the publisher Florent Fels, and the poets Ivan and Claire Goll and Joseph Delteil, to name a few – Chagall participated avidly in the social and cultural milieu of the city. At the end of 1926, he signed a contract with the prestigious gallery Bernheim-Jeune, which provided him with financial security for the very first time; and in 1927, the prominent art critic Maurice Raynal awarded him a place in his book Modern French Painters, affirming his leadership role within the École de Paris. That same year, he painted Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux and he was commissioned to produce 19 gouaches on the circus theme by the prominent Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard.
During his first stay in France in 1910-1914, Chagall had rarely ventured beyond Paris. On his second trip to France, he took every opportunity to travel into the provinces, immersing himself in the gentle light and varied terrain of la douce France. ‘I want an art of the earth and not merely an art of the head’, he explained to Florent Fels (quoted in F. Meyer, op. cit., 1964, p. 337). In Normandy and Brittany, in the Auvergne and the Savoy, Bella brought bunches of flowers home from the market each day for Chagall to paint, their vibrant colors serving the artist as a link with the surrounding countryside. The rich blue, dreamlike haze from which the image emerges could have developed from Chagall’s fascination with the French landscape, particularly the Côte d’Azur, which the artist had visited for the first time in 1926. He absorbed the rich colors and glowing light of the Mediterranean coast, transposing them into his painting so imbuing it with a warm harmonious atmosphere. The gentle glow of light lends the painting a pictorial cohesion and compositional unity while evoking the fantastical, imaginary context.
"It was in French landscapes, paintings of flowers, and a few portraits that his art advanced in these years’, Jackie Wullschlager has written. ‘All speak of a new harmony with and interest in nature. Whereas in the first Paris period, his art had been metaphysical and passionate, the yearning expression of visionary youth, in this second French phase Chagall opened out to the world and the French countryside. He found the courage to express himself in a new idiom; away from ravaged Russia and its insistence on ideological positions, he was able to concentrate on painterly values" (Chagall: A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 321).
In Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux, the various compositional elements occupy an abstract and elusive space, imbuing the canvas with a sense of poetic enchantment. ‘The atmosphere encompasses and pervades the flowers like a magically light, airy fluid, vibrant with their vitality’, Franz Meyer has written. ‘The flower pieces of this period, as Chagall said later, were des exercices dans la couleur-lumière, which might be translated ‘exercises in the equation of color and light’. Yet at the same time the material quality of the heavy roses, like that of the scintillating still-lives of fruits, is accentuated’ (op. cit., p. 369).
Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux was first purchased directly from the artist by the female tennis player, Colette Rosambert (1910-1987), married to Philippe Boegner in 1935. Rosambert/Boegner reached the final of the women's doubles at the French Open (Roland-Garros) in 1933, with her compatriot Sylvie Jung Henrotin. The following year, she won the mixed-doubles tournament there, this time with Jean Borotra.
Indeed, Chagall painted Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux during a period of unequaled contentment in his long life. In September 1923, nearly a decade after the outbreak of war had interrupted his youthful first stay in Paris, Chagall left Russia with his wife Bella and their daughter Ida and returned to the French capital, which bubbled with life in this peaceful decade preceding the Depression. Quickly befriending a cosmopolitan, erudite circle of companions – the painters Robert and Sonia Delaunay, the publisher Florent Fels, and the poets Ivan and Claire Goll and Joseph Delteil, to name a few – Chagall participated avidly in the social and cultural milieu of the city. At the end of 1926, he signed a contract with the prestigious gallery Bernheim-Jeune, which provided him with financial security for the very first time; and in 1927, the prominent art critic Maurice Raynal awarded him a place in his book Modern French Painters, affirming his leadership role within the École de Paris. That same year, he painted Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux and he was commissioned to produce 19 gouaches on the circus theme by the prominent Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard.
During his first stay in France in 1910-1914, Chagall had rarely ventured beyond Paris. On his second trip to France, he took every opportunity to travel into the provinces, immersing himself in the gentle light and varied terrain of la douce France. ‘I want an art of the earth and not merely an art of the head’, he explained to Florent Fels (quoted in F. Meyer, op. cit., 1964, p. 337). In Normandy and Brittany, in the Auvergne and the Savoy, Bella brought bunches of flowers home from the market each day for Chagall to paint, their vibrant colors serving the artist as a link with the surrounding countryside. The rich blue, dreamlike haze from which the image emerges could have developed from Chagall’s fascination with the French landscape, particularly the Côte d’Azur, which the artist had visited for the first time in 1926. He absorbed the rich colors and glowing light of the Mediterranean coast, transposing them into his painting so imbuing it with a warm harmonious atmosphere. The gentle glow of light lends the painting a pictorial cohesion and compositional unity while evoking the fantastical, imaginary context.
"It was in French landscapes, paintings of flowers, and a few portraits that his art advanced in these years’, Jackie Wullschlager has written. ‘All speak of a new harmony with and interest in nature. Whereas in the first Paris period, his art had been metaphysical and passionate, the yearning expression of visionary youth, in this second French phase Chagall opened out to the world and the French countryside. He found the courage to express himself in a new idiom; away from ravaged Russia and its insistence on ideological positions, he was able to concentrate on painterly values" (Chagall: A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 321).
In Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux, the various compositional elements occupy an abstract and elusive space, imbuing the canvas with a sense of poetic enchantment. ‘The atmosphere encompasses and pervades the flowers like a magically light, airy fluid, vibrant with their vitality’, Franz Meyer has written. ‘The flower pieces of this period, as Chagall said later, were des exercices dans la couleur-lumière, which might be translated ‘exercises in the equation of color and light’. Yet at the same time the material quality of the heavy roses, like that of the scintillating still-lives of fruits, is accentuated’ (op. cit., p. 369).
Bouquet de fleurs avec amoureux was first purchased directly from the artist by the female tennis player, Colette Rosambert (1910-1987), married to Philippe Boegner in 1935. Rosambert/Boegner reached the final of the women's doubles at the French Open (Roland-Garros) in 1933, with her compatriot Sylvie Jung Henrotin. The following year, she won the mixed-doubles tournament there, this time with Jean Borotra.