Marc Chagall Research Paper

Marc Chagall was an artist who was not defined by his present surroundings, but one who drew directly from his rich cultural past. Chagall was an artist of Belarusian Jewish descent who spent his formative years in a small Hassidic community where he was directly inspired by the rural scenes so essential to his artistic identity. Chagall is hard to categorize into one style or movement, he borrows many visual elements of Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Surrealism. He has his own personal, dreamlike vision of reality and used his personal experiences in Belarus, Russia, and France to make sense of his Jewish identity and what that meant as an artist in the modern era. Coming into his own as an artist, he used his own childhood experiences from Belarus and Jewish folklore to extend his pride as a Jewish artist. Chagall’s dreamlike, whimsical art can be seen as “an attempt to reconcile old Jewish traditions with styles of modernist art” as he fused his idyllic memories from a small village community with his experiences in urban cities such as Paris and New York (Wolf). Chagall’s adult life was plagued with personal …show more content…
Over the course of his artistic career, Chagall was involved with seven theater productions, the majority of which came after WWII. His introduction to theater began in Moscow at the Moscow State Jewish Theater, but truly developed when he immigrated to New York during the Nazi invasion of Paris (Barron). Chagall was directly involved in the set and costume design for the Ballet Theatre of New York’s Aleko, the New York City Ballet’s Firebird, the National Opera in Paris’ Daphnis and Chloe and the Metropolitan Opera's 1967 version of Mozart's The Magic Flute. Chagall’s work with the theater is extraordinary because it gives a chance for his paintings come to life and be given a voice, other than his own, through the directors and actors on