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A review by wildc
My Life by Marc Chagall
5.0
My Life By Marc Chagall is an autobiography of the first part of the artist's life, written when Chagall was only 35 and illustrated with 50 sketches and prints also by the artist.
With the intimacy of a diary, Chagall reminisces about the period of his childhood in the Russian 'shtetl' of Vitebsk, his art studies in St Petersburg, his first contact with the art world in Paris ending with his return to Russia – including his period as Commissioner for the Arts in Vitebsk after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Chagall is a born story-teller and the apparent naïvety of his writing style is as deceptive as that of his painting. With consummate skill, he plunges into the heart of his narrative with the first lines, confiding the joys, political turmoil and human tragedies of his early life with humour and poignancy and, in the process, giving us first-hand insight into the motivations and thought processes behind his paintings.
"In the dark of the night, it seemed to me that there were not only smells, but a whole flock of blessings, breaking through the boards, flying into space."
Nostalgically fixing for eternity the people and places of his past using a literary style more akin to Magical Realism than factual reporting, he imbues both his characters and the objects and landscapes around them with a vivacious life proper of his whimsical, surrealist paintings.
"...Papa dozed over the table, the lamp rested and the chairs grew bored..."
If you like Chagall's art, you'll love this book; if you don't, reading his autobiography might just help you see Chagall's art with new eyes.
http://art.cherryjeffs.com/art--creativity-book-reviews.html
With the intimacy of a diary, Chagall reminisces about the period of his childhood in the Russian 'shtetl' of Vitebsk, his art studies in St Petersburg, his first contact with the art world in Paris ending with his return to Russia – including his period as Commissioner for the Arts in Vitebsk after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Chagall is a born story-teller and the apparent naïvety of his writing style is as deceptive as that of his painting. With consummate skill, he plunges into the heart of his narrative with the first lines, confiding the joys, political turmoil and human tragedies of his early life with humour and poignancy and, in the process, giving us first-hand insight into the motivations and thought processes behind his paintings.
"In the dark of the night, it seemed to me that there were not only smells, but a whole flock of blessings, breaking through the boards, flying into space."
Nostalgically fixing for eternity the people and places of his past using a literary style more akin to Magical Realism than factual reporting, he imbues both his characters and the objects and landscapes around them with a vivacious life proper of his whimsical, surrealist paintings.
"...Papa dozed over the table, the lamp rested and the chairs grew bored..."
If you like Chagall's art, you'll love this book; if you don't, reading his autobiography might just help you see Chagall's art with new eyes.
http://art.cherryjeffs.com/art--creativity-book-reviews.html