Les Chagall de Chagall

Chagall : Les vitraux

Un guide destiné au grand public pour connaître ce peintre qui fait l'objet d'une exposition au Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris en avril 1995.

L'abcdaire de Chagall

"Pénétrer dans la lumière du plein jour" c'est pour accomplir cette "mystérieuse obligation" qu'après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Marc Chagall s'adonne, avec un génie enchanteur et visionnaire, à l'art du vitrail. En s'associant avec le maître rémois Charles Marc, il fait revivre les techniques médiévales de l'artisan-artiste. En un voyage du Plateau d'Assy à Chicago, en passant par Metz, Moissac, Nice, Reims et Sarrebourg, Israël, l'Allemagne, la Suisse et l'Angleterre, ce volume détaille la technique du maître, du travail préparatoire à l'application finale de la grisaille sur des oeuvres d'art de formes et de couleurs resplendissantes.

Les vitraux de Chagall

Les Céramiques de Chagall

Léger monumental

Marc Chagall was born into a strict Jewish family for whom the ban on representations of the human figure had the weight of dogma. A failure in the entrance examination for the Stieglitz School did not stop Chagall from later joining that famous school founded by the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and directed by Nicholas Roerich. Chagall moved to Paris in 1910. The city was his "second Vitebsk". At first, isolated in the little room on the Impasse du Maine at La Ruche, Chagall soon found numerous compatriots also attracted by the prestige of Paris: Lipchitz, Zadkine, Archipenko and Soutine, all of whom were to maintain the "smell" of his native land. From his very arrival Chagall wanted to "discover everything". And to his dazzled eyes painting did indeed reveal itself. Even the most attentive and partial observer is at times unable to distinguish the "Parisian", Chagall from the "Vitebskian". The artist was not full of contradictions, nor was he a split personality, but he always remained different; he looked around and within himself and at the surrounding world, and he used his present thoughts and recollections. He had an utterly poetical mode of thought that enabled him to pursue such a complex course. Chagall was endowed with a sort of stylistic immunity: he enriched himself without destroying anything of his own inner structure. Admiring the works of others he studied them ingenuously, ridding himself of his youthful awkwardness, yet never losing his authenticity for a moment. 
    At times Chagall seemed to look at the world through magic crystal - overloaded with artistic experimentation - of the Ecole de Paris. In such cases he would embark on a subtle and serious play with the various discoveries of the turn of the century and turned his prophetic gaze like that of a biblical youth, to look at himself ironically and thoughtfully in the mirror. Naturally, it totally and uneclectically reflected the painterly discoveries of Cézanne, the delicate inspiration of Modigliani, and the complex surface rhythms recalling the experiments of the early Cubists (See-Portrait at the Easel, 1914). Despite the analyses which nowadays illuminate the painter's Judaeo-Russian sources, inherited or borrowed but always sublime, and his formal relationships, there is always some share of mystery in Chagall's art. The mystery perhaps lies in the very nature of his art, in which he uses his experiences and memories. Painting truly is life, and perhaps life is painting.

Chagall and artworks

Dans cet ouvrage, trois grandes spécialistes de l'art moderne et de Marc Chagall se penchent sur le travail d'illustration de la Bible réalisé par l'artiste en 1930 et 1931, à la demande de l'éditeur Ambroise Vollard. La critique connaissait déjà les quarante gouaches préparatoires aux gravures de la Bible. Mais la découverte récente des vingt-deux études inédites rassemblées dans ce livre bouleverse la compréhension de cette oeuvre. Par un jeu subtil de couleurs et de formes, Chagall ne se limite pas à illustrer la narration biblique : il construit sa propre interprétation du texte, révélant sa vocation prophétique. Les vingt-deux études inédites forment un ensemble où se mêlent l'aquarelle, la gouache, le pastel, l'encre et le crayon. Plus spontanées encore que les gouaches, elles semblent refléter l'inquiétude et les menaces sourdes d'un temps tragique. Les auteurs nous racontent l'oeuvre de Chagall, son imprégnation de la philosophie russe du XXe siècle, ses références à l'art grec, aux icônes russes et à la peinture occidentale. Une nouvelle lecture de l'oeuvre de Chagall.

Les Chagall de Chagall

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Critiques

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