Online-Bibliothek

Marc Chagall gehört unbestritten zu den herausragenden Meistern der modernen Kunst. Mit magisch-poetischer Schöpferkraft gestaltete er eine ganz eigene Welt voller Zauber und Phantasie und beschwor in intensiven, leuchtenden Farben Erinnerungen an seine Kindheit und Jugend in Witebsk im heutigen Weißrussland. Einflüsse byzantinischer und russischer Ikonenmalerei finden sich ebenso in seinem Oeuvre wie Elemente der avantgardistischen Malerei. Auf den mythen- und symbolreichen Gemälden schweben Paare glücklich durch die Lüfte, für die das Newtonsche Gravitationsgesetz nicht zu gelten scheint ...

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.