Marc Chagall´s birthday

Today marks the birthday of one of the art world's most beloved Marcs, Marc Chagall. The painter reached the hearts and imaginations of people worldwide with his expressive paintings that simultaneously harnessed the spirit of the avant-garde and the warmth of tradition. 

Chagall was born in the traditional neighborhood of Liozna, now part of the Russian Empire. As the oldest of nine children, Chagall grew up in a tight-knit Hasidic Jewish family where tradition played a heavy role. The mystical nature of Hasidic Judaism is evident in Chagall's imagery all throughout his life.

In 1908 Chagall moved to St. Petersburg to begin his artistic career. There he was inspired by the work of Paul Gauguin and the thrill of contemporary theater. He completed an apprenticeship and began to cultivate a naturalist style until he met his wife, Bella Rosenfeld.

Next Chagall moved to Paris where his days were spent studying the masters at the Louvre and exchanging ideas with budding artists like Guillaume Apollinaire and Fernand Léger. Chagall's familiar subject matter of his childhood neighborhood and childlike imagination was translated into the current modes of Fauvism, Cubism and Expressionism.

Marc Chagall (Mark Zakharovich Shagal)
(1887 - 1985)
Modern Russian/French. Influenced by Cubism, Fauvism & Surrealism.

1887 born on 7th July in Vitebsk Russia (present day Belarus)
1906-10 Studies in St Petersburg
1910 moves to Paris
1911 paints I and the Village
1915 paints The Birthday marries Bella Rosenfeld
1916 birth of Ida
1918 appointed commissar for the arts in Vitebsk
1920 moves to Moscow
1923 returns to Paris
1933 paintsSolitude
1939 moves to the south of France
1941 goes to USA
1944 death of Bella
1948 permanently moves to France
1950 moves to Vence
1952 marries Valentina Brodsky
1960-62Commission for the Hadassah University Medical Centre stained-glass windows The Twelve Tribes of Israel
1977 creates stained-glass windows The America Windows
1985 dies at Saint-Paul

FOR LEARN MORE:

• http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=1055
• http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/show-full/bio/?artist_name=Marc%20Chagall

All the world´s a stage (William Shakespeare, from As you Like It 2/7)

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.