Chagall: 1887-1985 - Softcover

Baal-Teshuva, Jacob

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3822829072 ISBN 13: 9783822829073

Publisher: Taschen America Llc, 2003

Synopsis

Marc Chagall, who died in 1985 at the age of 97, is regarded as one of the greatest artist in modern art. He used his great talent to create a unique world full of magic, poetry, enchantment and fantasy. His use of intense, glowing colours conjured up memories of his childhood and youth in Vitebsk, in today's Belarus.
Rich in mythological and symbolic references, his paintings were influenced by Byzantine and Russian icons and folk art and often depicts couples floating blissfully through the air, seeming to defy the laws of gravity. The poetry and biblical inspiration of his paintings have always appealed to a broad public and his works are popular amongst collectors all over the world.

Chagall continued, in his paintings, to invoke his birthplace of Vitebsk, with its strong Jewish traditions, customs and everyday life, even long after he moved to Paris permanently in 1923. Picasso once said: ""Since the death of Matisse, Chagall has been the only artist to really understand the true nature of colour. His oil paintings are really painted, not just put together... no artist since Renoir has had such a feeling for light as Chagall.""

Chagall's best paintings, gouaches, water-colours, graphic works, sculptures, pottery, mosaics and tapestries, together with his works for the theatre, opera and ballet, are reproduced in full colour in this book. Written by a friend of Chagall, it presents several unpublished works for the first time.

About this title

Review

Henry Miller once described Marc Chagall as a "poet with the wings of a painter." The pages of Chagall are filled with images that prove the writer's words true. Though Chagall is remembered primarily as a painter, his artistic vision expressed itself in many other forms, including sculpture, mosaics, and the stained glass windows that grace the Art Institute of Chicago as well as synagogues and churches in both Europe and the United States. The volume affords readers glimpses of his profligate work as well as the opportunity to follow Chagall as he moved from his early years in Russia to Paris, the United States, and back to France. During that time, his painting flirted with the various art movements around him--surrealism and fauvism most notably--but his dominant themes remained constant throughout the seven decades that he made art. Chagall's mysticism, his deep religious sentiment, and his playfulness are revealed in the hundreds of full-color images lushly reproduced in this volume. The commentary provided by Chagall scholar and friend Jacob Baal-Teshuva expertly guides readers through the artist's various moods and media and underscores the passion of belief and feeling that informed all of his artwork.

From the Back Cover

Despite a life buffeted by war and revolution, by exile and official condemnation in Russia, Marc Chagall preserved in his work a sense of peace and beauty. This comprehensive and incisive exploration of one of the greatest and most beloved artists of this century brings together the writings of art critics, the reminiscences of family, friends, and colleagues, and Chagall's own words to create a striking portrait of an artist who delighted the world with his unique brand of creativity. Chagall: A Retrospective traces the artist's personal and artistic development from his humble beginnings in the Russian town of Vitebsk to his continuing contributions to world art at the time of his death at the age of ninety-seven.

About this edition

• Publisher: Taschen America Llc
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 3822829072
• ISBN 13: 9783822829073
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280