"Love Is In The Air"

6 x 6"

oil on panel
sold

The artist Marc Chagall called 'love' the primary color of his paintings.  They are rich with Russian culture.  You hear the music.  You feel the love.

Chagall's Birthday depicts the artist floating and swooping over his wife, Bella, to kiss her on her birthday.  Or his birthday - different accounts claim one or the other.  The couple met in their hometown of Vitebsk, Belarus in 1909 - he was twenty-two and she was fourteen.  Chagall was the son of a working-class Hasidic Jewish family - Bella was born to one of the town's richest Jewish families.  Despite her family's misgivings about the union, Marc and Bella married in 1915, had a daughter, moved to rural France, fled from the Nazi regime to Lisbon and then to the United States and remained happily married until Bella's death in 1944.

In her memoirs, Bella recounts how she worked at finding Marc's birth date and visited him on that day, carrying flowers as he began the paint.  "Spurts of red, white, black.  Suddenly you tear me from the earth, you yourself take off from one foot.  You rise, you stretch your limbs, you float up to the ceiling.  Your head turns about and you make mine turn.  You brush my ear and murmur."

How sweet is that?

From the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, a woman leans in to admire Chagall's Birthday.

"Chagall"

6 x 8"

oil on panel
sold

I'm coming back to life and painting again.  Yay.

Continuing with my new series ArtistZ - a woman standing in the blue light of one of Marc Chagall's 'America Windows' in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Chagall makes me happy, calm.  The paintings can be complex, with movement and scenery and music playing.  My favorite painting of Chagall's is 'Lovers In a Red Sky'.

"A Visit to the Rabbi"

6 x 10"

oil on panel
sold

A quiet visit with Marc Chagall's 'The Praying Jew', which hangs in the New Modern Wing in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Please click here for a larger view.

"So In Love"

9 x 12"
oil on masonite
sold

I had read this comment, about Marc Chagall's painting 'Birthday' - and it kinda stuck with me. It's one person's interpretation and I fell for it hook, line and sinker. Well that painting came to mind this morning and I ended up getting lost in it for the day. I needed to paint something sweet. And again, thank you all for your warm wishes. It means a lot to me.

The quote I'm speaking of :
"When I see this picture I can imagine a couple that have been separated for long time because of his death. Now on her birthday he comes to give her flowers and pick her up and take her away to heaven, so they can be together again.

They used to live together in this house, but when he passed away, her life never was the same, because she missed a lot. She was sad living as a widow, she always wore black clothes, and was alone. For her birthday she wants to die to be with her husband again. And he came as a ghost.

The painter probably, with this dark colors, wants to express the sadness about missing somebody beloved, like a husband. And the red carpet gives the loving touch, because this color is known worldwide as a color of love."

Please click here for a larger view.