I AND THE VILLAGE / Marc Chagall
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works, if from the head, almost nothing” – these words reflect Marc Chagall’s attitude to his work, which distinguishes itself by phantasy images, vivid colours, unusual combinations of objects and the way of their depicting.
The “I and the Village” is a delightful piece of art, one of the most famous ones of Chagall, which is expressing nostalgic feelings of the artist.
This artwork, like many others of the painter, is based on emotional associations rather than on realistic representation of the scene. Chagall neglects all gravitation rules or perspective and places the objects (houses, people) upside down und concentrates more on shapes and colours. The colours he used are also rather unnatural and very intense (green, red, yellow, and blue). “I and the Village” is one of the first experiments of Chagall in Cubism. He works with geometric shapes, but whereas the Cubists were more concerned in a surface design rather than in emotions, Chagall expresses many personal feelings.
Like in many of his works, especially in those of the “Paris period” 1910-1914 (“Paris through the Window”, “The Poet, or Half past Three”, “Homage to Apollinaire”), Chagall used in “I and the Village” a combination of blue, white and red, like on tricolour flags of both France and Russia. Both countries played a significant role in the artist’s life, and probably it found a reflection in his works.
Chagall was born in a village near the city of Vitebsk in Belarus, which belonged to Russian Empire at that time, and moved to Paris in 1910 for four years to learn more about the art and to immerse into the creative atmosphere of the art movements arising in France. The artist was missing his home country, that’s why we see lots of typically Russian features in many of his works; in “I and the Village” it’s a Christian church and a peaked cap of the man. The houses look rather simple and have some Slavic style, and the bright colours resemble traditional folk design. In this painting, Chagall incorporated the memories from his childhood.
„I and the Village“ was created in 1911, one year after Chagall moved to Paris, with oil on canvas. He used geometric lines and combination of intense colours, mostly making crisp outlining and shading the hues within the shapes.
The central figures, which attract the attention at first sight, are a head of a goat (some viewers say it might be a cow, but in Chagall’s way of depicting it’s often difficult to give a precise definition) and a man’s face (although it has an unnatural green colour). The emphasis falls into their smiles and eyes expressing joyful looks. There is a hardly visible stroke-line connecting their eyes, symbolising the visual contact. The eye of the human being (probably it was meant to be the artist himself) are white, giving the feeling that he’s blind, what makes an impression that all that he sees exists only in his imagination, and he’s dreaming. There is a milkmaid layered atop of the head of the goat, and this is perhaps what the animal is dreaming of. The man is holding a fantastic tree (presumably a tree of life), which is blooming and flourishing, making the whole picture even more joyful. It seems like a man has a ring on his finger, but probably it’s just a plant’s stem with a bug, although it resembles an engagement ring; Chagall met his future wife a year earlier in Vitebsk, before moving to France, and intended to come back and marry her, what happened indeed later.
Other interesting figures are a man and a woman (depicted upside-down), which might be a couple. He is a peasant walking with a scythe, she looks like playing some instrument or maybe just showing the man a way home or inviting him. All looks cheerful and serenely. Some houses are upside-down as well, what in addition brings disorder in the entire scene, however this disorder is not disturbing but giving the picture some witty and playful mood. This composition emphasises the dreamlike feature of the work, when the objects are not real but exist only in imagination. A cross on the church and a cross on the man’s neck might show belonging this man to the village and to its lifestyle. The circles in the middle of the painting, which are overlapping each other, might symbolise the sun and the moon.
Bright, hot colours, used by the artist, recall the features of Fauvism. On the other hand, presenting recognisable subject matters (the goat, the man’s face and the houses) in an illogical situation (like depicting them upside down or in unrealistic colours) allows us to assign the “I and the Village” to Surrealism or Fantasy Art. Many of Chagall’s works are notable for a playful style and fantastic motives. Love runs through his paintings, filling them with joy of life, happy memories, nostalgia and delightful dreaming.
Many Surrealists’ works also have happy quality (especially those from Paul Klee, Joan Miro or some from Max Ernst), but surreal or fantasy scenes are, in general, difficult to understand; many of them confuse people, stirring up mixed feelings, sometimes disturbing or melancholic, but also amusing ones. Anything what is out of our understanding or habitual presentation might arouse confusion but at the same time curiosity. The painters themselves said that there was no need to try to analyse their works because they might be just expressions of the artist imagination, which was obsessing him, or some experiments in depicting fantasies or dreams.
Surrealist images have penetrated in our lives and surround us in many places, as a part of design, which has become very popular; in buildings, parks, and theatres but some of the most beautiful works are delightful stained-glass windows in Fraumuenster church in Zurich, decorated by Chagall. Light coming through the colourful images makes them even more enchanting and admirable, filling them with love and life.