Introduction
Marc Zakharovich Chagall ( shə-GAHL; born Moishe Zakharovich Shagal; 6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 – 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic format, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century" (though Chagall saw his work as "not the dream of one people but of all humanity"). According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922. He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism". Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk." "When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is".
Wikidata
Q93284
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Introduction
Chagall was a prolific artist who was famous for his use of color and folkloric imagery. He preferred to be known as a Belorussian artist; however, following his exile from the Soviet Union in 1923 he was known as a major figure of the French École de Paris. Artist, b. in Russia, lived in France.
Nationalities
Belorussian, undetermined, Russian, French
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Sculptor, Painter, Designer, Illustrator, Glass designer, Ceramicist, Genre artist
Names
Marc Chagall, Mark Shagal, Mark Zakharovich Shagal, Moses Shagal, Mark Sacharovich Schagal Chagall, Marḳ Shagal, M. Shagal, Syagal, Marŭkkŭ Syagal, Mark Shahal, Moshe Segal, Марк Шагал, מארק שאגאל, מ. שאגאל, מרק שגל
ULAN
500115354
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Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License