"The Gates of The Cemetary" by Marc Chagall

"The Gates of The Cemetery"
by Marc Chagall, painted in 1917, oil on canvas

 

      "With World War I raging through Europe, Chagall stayed on in Russia after his marriage to Bella, instead of taking his bride back to Paris. He was called up for military service right after the wedding, but ended up in a rear echelon job in Petrograd where he continued to paint in off-duty hours. In 1917, the year Russia was torn by revolution, Chagall returned to Vitebsk as Minister of Art for the town, and founded a school. During this period he painted a number of landscapes that demonstrated his technical virtuosity in this genre. It is not surprising that in such troubled times Chagall should have been deeply concerned again with death, and that among the landscapes are paintings of cemeteries. In this picture of the cemetery gates, the angular geometry of his Paris work is back in full force, only now, instead of being used arbitrarily as abstract design, it bears resemblance to rays of light -dancing in atmosphere, bounding off reflecting surfaces, and casting long shadows. The Hebrew characters on the gate remind us that while Chagall was a teen-age art student in Petrograd, he had also worked briefly in a sign painter's shop." Abrams

       Marc Zakharovich Chagall 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. Read more...