.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Scène paysanne combines some of the most celebrated themes in Chagall's oeuvre. The vertical painting depicts a man and a woman with a child, standing in an enchanted pastoral landscape. The parents exchange loving expressions, leaning towards one another, while the baby gestures eagerly towards his mother's breasts. This trio—a kind of modern 'holy family'—is greeted by a cast of whimsical farm animals, including a red cow and a blue rooster. Overall, this peasant scene espouses a benevolent mood, conveying Chagall's own nostalgia for the Russian village in which he was raised and his happy memories of his first wife, Bella, with their daughter, Ida.
This tender family portrait and pastoral landscape is also a nocturnal scene. The sky in Scène paysanne is populated by celestial bodies, including a crescent moon, a muted sun and a smattering of stars, visible against an ink black sky. The darkness appealed deeply to Chagall, and he set paintings at night throughout his career. It was then, after all, that he slept and dreamed of Bella—and when a whole host of fragmented memories and hallucinatory images appeared to the artist. These visions, which he recorded in his memoir, My Life, directly inspired his surreal dreamscapes. As one art historian observed of his paintings, "Chagall rearranged fundamental elements of everyday life to transform reality into cosmic dream" (J. Wullschläger, Chagall, New York, 2008, p. 140).
Though cast in shadow, this painting is punctuated by vivid jewel tones: emerald green, bold red, bright blue and royal purple. These colors are signatures of Chagall's palette but do not adhere to nature. For example, the same red pigment of the cow also illuminates the hair and face of the female protagonist, while the evergreen tree in the background is echoed is her extended hand. Chagall continued to be inspired by the chromatic exploration of the Fauvists, with whom he came into contact for the first time in Paris in 1910. In this much later stage of his career, Chagall conducted his own experiments with media, combining oil paint with thinner gouache and rich black ink.
Painted in 1974, this painting boasts an extensive exhibition history. Most notably, the work was featured in a 1977-1978 monographic exhibition of sixty-two works at Musée du Louvre in Paris. Chagall was the first living artist to show his work at the Louvre in the twentieth century. The paintings in the exhibition were widely praised as the confident, innovative work of a true master; as one critic observed in The New York Times that year, "Chagall has been producing his most important and original work since the 20's" (P. Schneider, "Chagall at 90 is a Growing Artist" in The New York Times, 26 November 1977).
This tender family portrait and pastoral landscape is also a nocturnal scene. The sky in Scène paysanne is populated by celestial bodies, including a crescent moon, a muted sun and a smattering of stars, visible against an ink black sky. The darkness appealed deeply to Chagall, and he set paintings at night throughout his career. It was then, after all, that he slept and dreamed of Bella—and when a whole host of fragmented memories and hallucinatory images appeared to the artist. These visions, which he recorded in his memoir, My Life, directly inspired his surreal dreamscapes. As one art historian observed of his paintings, "Chagall rearranged fundamental elements of everyday life to transform reality into cosmic dream" (J. Wullschläger, Chagall, New York, 2008, p. 140).
Though cast in shadow, this painting is punctuated by vivid jewel tones: emerald green, bold red, bright blue and royal purple. These colors are signatures of Chagall's palette but do not adhere to nature. For example, the same red pigment of the cow also illuminates the hair and face of the female protagonist, while the evergreen tree in the background is echoed is her extended hand. Chagall continued to be inspired by the chromatic exploration of the Fauvists, with whom he came into contact for the first time in Paris in 1910. In this much later stage of his career, Chagall conducted his own experiments with media, combining oil paint with thinner gouache and rich black ink.
Painted in 1974, this painting boasts an extensive exhibition history. Most notably, the work was featured in a 1977-1978 monographic exhibition of sixty-two works at Musée du Louvre in Paris. Chagall was the first living artist to show his work at the Louvre in the twentieth century. The paintings in the exhibition were widely praised as the confident, innovative work of a true master; as one critic observed in The New York Times that year, "Chagall has been producing his most important and original work since the 20's" (P. Schneider, "Chagall at 90 is a Growing Artist" in The New York Times, 26 November 1977).