Why is marc chagall famous

Active in the twentieth century, Marc Zakharovich Chagall — was a Russian-French artist who worked in a variety of media but is most renowned for his paintings. His artworks are usually lively and imaginative and often combine Cubism and Fauvism with his folkish style.

Know more about the art of Marc Chagall by studying his 10 most famous paintings. Marc Chagall met Bella Rosenfeld , the daughter of a wealthy Russian jeweler, in At the time Marc was a penniless apprentice. They fell in love immediately and married in the summer of In , Chagall relocated to Paris and his first stay of four years in the French capital is considered by art historians as the best phase of his artistic career.

Created during this time, Homage to Apollinaire is perhaps the most enigmatic of his works. It shows a man and a woman to be joined at the hip surrounded by geometric shapes, names of several poets and numbers. Chagall uses the fiddler to create an image of the internal battle of an average individual, which is accentuated through his choice of colors and other elements. Friends who came to his door had to wait while he put on his clothes; he painted in the nude to avoid staining his only outfit.

Reconnoitering the then-prevalent trends of Cubism and Fauvism, he absorbed aspects of each into his own work. Returning to Vitebsk in with the intention of staying only briefly, Chagall was trapped by the outbreak of World War I.

In his 18 Above the Town one of his many paintings of flying lovers , he and Bella soar blissfully above Vitebsk. In Chagall embraced the Bolshevik Revolution. He liked that the new regime gave Jews full citizenship and no longer required them to carry passports to leave their designated region.

And he was pleased to be appointed commissar for art in Vitebsk, where he started an art school and brought in avant-garde teachers.

Giving up his job as commissar in , Chagall moved to Moscow, where he painted decorative panels for the State Jewish Chamber Theater. But ultimately unhappy with Soviet life, he left for Berlin in and settled in Paris a year and a half later along with Bella and their 6-year-old daughter, Ida.

In Paris, a new door opened for Chagall when he met the influential art dealer Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned him to illustrate an edition of the poetic classic the Fables of La Fontaine.

But that blew over, and Chagall went on to do a series of resonant illustrations of the Bible for Vollard. Increasingly alarmed by Nazi persecution of the Jews, Chagall made a strong political statement on canvas in with his White Crucifixion. Then 51 and in his artistic prime, he por- trayed the crucified Christ, his loins covered with a prayer shawl, as a symbol of the suffering of all Jews.

In the painting, a synagogue and houses are in flames, a fleeing Jew clutches a Torah to his breast, and emigrants try to escape in a rudimentary boat. The six years Chagall spent in America were not his happiest. He never got used to the pace of New York life, never learned English.

His palette during these years often darkened to a tragic tone, with depictions of a burning Vitebsk and fleeing rabbis. Cows, barns, chickens, horses, women working and dancing fiddlers fill his works, capturing the spirit of peasant life. With three strikes next to his name due to his status as a Jew, artist and emigree, Chagall was stripped of his identity.

His artistic style went against the Socialist Realism that formed Soviet art, and he was often mocked for his preference for French lifestyle. Additionally, despite the mammoth task, Chagall refused to be paid for his work. He was now, finally, granted full citizenship rights in his own country — something which, as a Jew under the Tsarist regime, he had been denied. He was even appointed Commissar for Art in Vitebsk, although ideological differences soon led to his resignation.

The Russian was officially invited to join the movement, but declined. From onwards, however, he also began to depict the Crucifixion on a regular basis. The date is no coincidence. Nazi deportations of and atrocities against Jews were becoming ever more prevalent. Nazi barbarism was clearly the main source of inspiration, but Chagall was also drawing on his experience of anti-Jewish pogroms during his youth in Russia.

France under Vichy rule was a dangerous place for Jews to live, so Chagall and Bella now his wife accepted an invitation of sanctuary in the United States.