Marc Chagall

Private Collection, Europe

Canvas is not lined. Surface is richly textured and bright. Under UV light: some original pigment fluoresces, but no inpainting is apparent. Overall the work is in excellent condition.
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Les Mariés au Coq Rouge is a poetic meditation that features several of Chagall's most famous motifs, including the coq, the lovers and Vitebsk. This arrangement suggests a retrospective, as the artist reviews his life with his signature imagery. Chagall said "I paint cows, dairies, roosters and the architecture of the Russian provinces as a source of forms because all these subjects are part of the country I come from, and these things have without doubt left in my visual memory a more profound impression than all the others that I may have received. Every painter is from somewhere, and even if later he responds to other surroundings, a certain essence, a certain aroma of his native land will always remain in his work" (quoted in Charles Sorlier, ed., Chagall by Chagall, New York, 1979, p. 78).

Commissioned to design a number of stained-glass windows, Chagall began to conceive of paintings such as the present work in terms of broad areas of color.  As in the Russian stained-glass windows which inspired him, reality is filtered through Chagall's visionary lens.  As Chagall commented shortly after his arrival in Paris, "in our life there is a single colour, as on an artist's palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the colour of love".

Fig 1. Marc and Bella in Holland, courtesy of Ida Chagall, Paris