Marc Chagall ─ Longus

Cramer, Livres illustrés, n° 46.

Mourlot, II, n° 308-349.

Fr. Chapon, Le Peintre et le Livre, 1987, p. 219, p. 234-235.

Ch. Sorlier, Chagall. Le livre des livres, 1990, p. 86.

U. Gauss, Marc Chagall, The Lithographs, Hatje, 1998, p. 139.

In asking Chagall to illustrate Daphnis et Chloé, a Greek pastoral from the 2^nd - 3^rd century, Tériade not only chose one of the most illustrated novels of French publishing ─ since that of the Regent ─ but also a story set on his native island of Lesbos. The genesis of the work spanned ten years: Chagall, whose primary concern was to interiorize the text, traveled to Greece with his wife a first time in 1952 to produce the first gouaches, then again in 1954, to "correct" his impressions and to ensure that the works reproduced the emotional experience of these landscapes.

The lithographs were executed over four years from 1957. Chagall, who was working with Charles Sorlier at the Ateliers Mourlot, used 25 colors, and therefore as many lithographic stones, hence the slowness of the process, which was completed in 1961. The deep, vivid hues and their many variations transcribe the light bathing the landscapes he traveled through, and gave the images their poetic force. Corresponding to the episodes in the ancient work, they constitute an independent work, considered one of the pinnacles of Chagall’s illustration.

"The beauty of the nights, this quality of blue, which only belongs to the shores of the sea that inspires the Gods, find in the painter’s palette a powerful translation. A certain ingenuity on Chagall’s part suits the pastoral mores." (Chapon, p. 234).