Chagall, << shah GAHL, >> Marc (1887-1985), was a Russian-born artist. He combined elements of dreams, fantasy, and religion to create paintings with a joyous quality rare in art of the 1900’s.
Chagall was born on July 7, 1887, and raised in a deeply religious family in the Russian-Jewish village of Vitebsk (now Vitsyebsk, Belarus). In 1910, he moved to Paris. There he began to paint in a style that incorporated religious symbols and childhood memories into the colors and structures of French art of the time. The geometric division of Chagall’s paintings suggests Cubism. He portrayed objects without concern for realistic scale. Figures including animals, lovers, and musicians often float in the air, sometimes upside down. These fantasy aspects relate Chagall’s art to the dreamlike style of Surrealism (see Cubism; Surrealism).
After 1922, Chagall became interested in the graphic arts and became a leading lithographer. In 1945, he designed the sets and costumes for a production of the ballet The Firebird. During the 1960’s, Chagall completed a ceiling painting for the Paris Opera and murals for the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. In 1964, he designed stained glass windows for the Hadassah-Hebrew Medical Center in Jerusalem. He died on March 28, 1985.
