Marc Chagall

Cramer, Livres illustrés, n° 29.

Ch. Sorlier, Marc Chagall et Ambroise Vollard, Galerie Matignon, 1981.

As soon as the engravings for the Fable were completed, Chagall considered a third work, the Bible. After having first produced large gouaches, the artist wanted to see Palestine and Israel, and also travelled across Egypt and Syria to draw inspiration from the light and soak up the atmosphere. He began to work on the first 65 etchings between 1931 and 1939, when Vollard’s death and the outbreak of war interrupted the project. Absent from France until 1948, it was only under Tériade’s impetus in 1952, that Chagall continued the last 40 etchings between 1952 and 1956. Tériade devoted an issue of his magazine Verve to these illustrations (vol. 8, n° 33-34, Paris, 1956).

"For me, painting the Bible, it’s like a bouquet of flowers. The Bible for me is poetry, all pure, a human tragedy. The Prophets inspire me, Jeremiah, Isaiah... it is a committed poetry, Baudelaire and Verlaine belong to the family of the Prophets. André Breton understood me, completely and accepted my world for what it is. I don’t proclaim the drama of life. I don’t dramatize, even when death is present in the painting. It’s tragic by nature, that’s just the way it is" (Marc Chagall, quoted by Ch. Sorlier, p. 18).