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Lot Essay
Marc Chagall’s return to Paris in the autumn of 1923 brought an end to the uncertainty and hardship that had marked his life for almost a decade, ushering in a new period of creative development after years of upheaval and uncertainty. However, when the artist had reached Europe the previous year he had been dismayed to discover that many of the paintings which he had left behind before the First World War, both in his studio in Paris and with Herwarth Walden in Berlin, had been lost, sold without his consent, or destroyed during the conflict. To Chagall, these highly personal works were like chapters in a diary of his life, and their disappearance caused him great distress. In response, the artist took it upon himself to create new versions of several of the most important compositions that had vanished, along with other key works which had been sold to collectors or left behind in Russia. Working largely from memory and photographs, Chagall saw these paintings as a way to reconnect to the essential essence of his oeuvre. Forming part of this key series of transitional works, the present Au-dessus de Vitebsk explores a familiar subject that had occupied the artist’s imagination for several years – a mysterious man floating above the roofs of the small village in which he grew up – through a new language of color and form.
The subject had first emerged in Chagall’s oeuvre in 1914 (Over Vitebsk, 1914, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto), during the artist’s unexpectedly prolonged sojourn to his hometown of Vitebsk. Though he had only intended to stay for three months, in order to attend his sister’s wedding and to see his beloved fiancé Bella, the outbreak of the First World War made it impossible to travel across the continent, and he was forced to extend his stay indefinitely. During this period, Chagall turned his artistic eye to the quotidian life of Vitebsk, to the rituals and routines that dominated life in the small village, and the characters whose stories played out amongst its winding streets. “I painted everything I saw,” he later wrote. “I was satisfied with a hedge, a signpost, a floor, a chair” (M. Chagall, quoted in J. Wullschlager, Chagall: A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 182). Eschewing the dynamic, vibrant colors and fragmented forms that had marked his pre-war Parisian paintings, Chagall embraced a softer, more traditional formal language in these works, as he sought to capture a timeless vision of a way of life on the brink of disappearing.
According to Franz Meyer, the winter scene depicted in Au-dessus de Vitebsk records the view from the room the artist had rented from a local policeman during his stay. Recalling the space, Bella wrote: “It wasn’t far from your parents’ house … It was on a corner, by a long wall enclosing a convent standing in a large garden” (B. Chagall, First Encounter, p. 227, quoted in S. P. Compton, Chagall, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1985, p. 189). Here, the crossroads is blanketed with a thick layer of snow, its pristine white surface interrupted by the swirling dark patterns of tracks left by carts as they trundled through the junction, while to the right stand the soaring walls and distinctive outline of the domes of the Ilyinskaya church. This very real, identifiably setting, which the artist would use again as the backdrop for his composition Le marchand de journaux (1914, Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris), makes the fantastical presence of the figure floating above the rooftops all the more unexpected and ethereal. Despite his solid form, which is laden down by the weight of the small sack he carries over his shoulder, the aged man appears weightless as he soars above the village. Representing the mythical, Wandering Jew, who roams from town to town, eternally displaced, he appears at once a familiar part of the landscape and distinct from it, never rooted in the life he observes as he passes through.
While the present version of Au-dessus de Vitebsk follows the original 1914 composition closely in form and structure, there is a distinct shift in the artist’s approach to color within the scene, as he employs more luminous, warm tones that show a greater sensitivity to light. Having spent much of 1922 working variously on illustrations for his autobiography My Life and a publication of Gogol’s Dead Souls, Chagall’s paintings of the mid-1920s demonstrate a greater appreciation for tonal nuance and fluidity of line, inspired by his experiments in print. This is evident in the richer modulation of color seen in Au-dessus de Vitebsk, most notably in the soft blues of the roof of the church, the warm golden hue of the yellow stone of the buildings and the subtle play of light on the snow. No longer underpinned by cool, silvery tones, the present version of the scene appears to be bathed in the warm glow of an unseen sun, its light filtered through the thick bank of clouds. These subtle alterations point to the beginnings of a new, distinct direction within Chagall’s painting, inspired by his experiences of France, its landscape, and its unique quality of light, which would find their full expression in his paintings of 1924-25.
The subject had first emerged in Chagall’s oeuvre in 1914 (Over Vitebsk, 1914, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto), during the artist’s unexpectedly prolonged sojourn to his hometown of Vitebsk. Though he had only intended to stay for three months, in order to attend his sister’s wedding and to see his beloved fiancé Bella, the outbreak of the First World War made it impossible to travel across the continent, and he was forced to extend his stay indefinitely. During this period, Chagall turned his artistic eye to the quotidian life of Vitebsk, to the rituals and routines that dominated life in the small village, and the characters whose stories played out amongst its winding streets. “I painted everything I saw,” he later wrote. “I was satisfied with a hedge, a signpost, a floor, a chair” (M. Chagall, quoted in J. Wullschlager, Chagall: A Biography, New York, 2008, p. 182). Eschewing the dynamic, vibrant colors and fragmented forms that had marked his pre-war Parisian paintings, Chagall embraced a softer, more traditional formal language in these works, as he sought to capture a timeless vision of a way of life on the brink of disappearing.
According to Franz Meyer, the winter scene depicted in Au-dessus de Vitebsk records the view from the room the artist had rented from a local policeman during his stay. Recalling the space, Bella wrote: “It wasn’t far from your parents’ house … It was on a corner, by a long wall enclosing a convent standing in a large garden” (B. Chagall, First Encounter, p. 227, quoted in S. P. Compton, Chagall, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1985, p. 189). Here, the crossroads is blanketed with a thick layer of snow, its pristine white surface interrupted by the swirling dark patterns of tracks left by carts as they trundled through the junction, while to the right stand the soaring walls and distinctive outline of the domes of the Ilyinskaya church. This very real, identifiably setting, which the artist would use again as the backdrop for his composition Le marchand de journaux (1914, Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris), makes the fantastical presence of the figure floating above the rooftops all the more unexpected and ethereal. Despite his solid form, which is laden down by the weight of the small sack he carries over his shoulder, the aged man appears weightless as he soars above the village. Representing the mythical, Wandering Jew, who roams from town to town, eternally displaced, he appears at once a familiar part of the landscape and distinct from it, never rooted in the life he observes as he passes through.
While the present version of Au-dessus de Vitebsk follows the original 1914 composition closely in form and structure, there is a distinct shift in the artist’s approach to color within the scene, as he employs more luminous, warm tones that show a greater sensitivity to light. Having spent much of 1922 working variously on illustrations for his autobiography My Life and a publication of Gogol’s Dead Souls, Chagall’s paintings of the mid-1920s demonstrate a greater appreciation for tonal nuance and fluidity of line, inspired by his experiments in print. This is evident in the richer modulation of color seen in Au-dessus de Vitebsk, most notably in the soft blues of the roof of the church, the warm golden hue of the yellow stone of the buildings and the subtle play of light on the snow. No longer underpinned by cool, silvery tones, the present version of the scene appears to be bathed in the warm glow of an unseen sun, its light filtered through the thick bank of clouds. These subtle alterations point to the beginnings of a new, distinct direction within Chagall’s painting, inspired by his experiences of France, its landscape, and its unique quality of light, which would find their full expression in his paintings of 1924-25.