Chagall: A Biography

A splendid book. The portrayal of Chagall the man and of his family life are excellent, and the author has of course been helped by Chagall's own fascinating autobiographical writings. The interpretations of his paintings and etchings are very good - especially on the tension between and/or fusion of Russian and French, Jewish and Christian influences. The cultural and political background and how Chagall responded to them are very well described, particularly the artistic-cum-ideological struggle with Malevich on the one hand and socialist realism on the other during his years in the Soviet Union. We get vivid pictures of the Russian émigré communities in Berlin, Paris and New York. There is a good deal on what happened to other artists, especially Russian ones, during those terrible years. The allocation of pages is about right also and reflects the importance of his art at various stages of his life: 245 pages on the 22 years - his most creative ones - of his career in pre-war Russia, his first stay in Paris, and his time in war-time and then Soviet Russia; 100 pages on the 21 years of his second stay in France; 50 pages on his seven years in the United States; and about 60 pages on his last 37 years back in Europe during which his art tended to be rather formulaic, with little that was new or creative. Wullschlager dates this deterioration to the death of Chagall's wife and muse Bella in 1944, who, in particular, represented his link with his Russian past; and in this last section she concentrates heavily and interestingly on Chagall's private life, devotes relatively little space to his paintings and then tends to comment on how inferior (though "enduringly popular") many of them were. But he was ready to work in new media - ceramics, tapestries, lithographs and, above all, stained glass. Chagall was immensely prolific, and it is understandable, if frustrating, that only a relatively few of the very many paintings the author discusses can be illustrated in the book. Many of them are not even illustrated in the massive tome written by Franz Meyer about his father-in-law. With patience many of the missing ones - but certainly far from all - can be found on Google Images. There are 32 colour plates and 159 black and white illustrations (74 of Chagall's works and 85 photographs of people and places).

Jackie Wullschlager's biograpy is a magnificent achievement. Well researched and engagingly written, it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Hilary Spurling's great Matisse biography. Chagall, one of the great recyclers in art history, emerges as a shallow and unlikable figure. Born into a impoverished family in a small Jewish community, it seems that he never truely escaped his provincial background. Certainly he sought in his relationships women similar to his powerful and organizing mother. One of the attractions of Chagall's story is reading about his formative years, the associated figures in the Russian avant garde art movement, his time in Berlin, Paris and New York, as well as his dealings with Matisse and Picasso. The latter seem to have tolerated him rather than accepting him as an equal (which he certainly was not). Wullschlager is a fine writer and obviously knows her subject. Although she presents Chagall's life factually, I got the feeling that there was little sympathy for her subject's personality and nature. This book should appeal greatly to art enthusiasts as well as those interested in modern history. P.S. On a personal note, when I was attending a Jewish school in South Africa in the sixties, Chagall was revered and placed on the highest pedestal of artistic achievement. How his stocks have fallen over the years compared to many of his artistic compatriots.

This is an amazing story of not only a famous artist but also of a survivor. His achievement in art and his survivorship are feats for the time and place of his life. This author shows how the survivorship helped create the art. Born on the wrong side of the tracks in the wrong side of the wrong country, Chagall was fortunate to attend school. One would have expected more family pressure on him to pursue a more practical career. He went to St. Petersburg to further his artistic studies, but as a Jew it was not a friendly city. Without residence papers he spent time in jail. He moved to Paris without money, back to Vitebsk to marry Bella at the dawn of the Revolution, then to Moscow after her parents' house was taken by the mobs. In Moscow friends and critics died by starvation, purge or suicidal depression. Chagall, Bella and daughter Ida moved to Germany then to France and then to the US. Each move was fraught with danger and peril. The author shows Chagall as a product of his time, a Jew from the Pale who fled the revolution, a man of traditional ways. With elegantly written historical background, the book is like course in art appreciation. There are references to many known and some obscure painters and styles. Jackie Wullschlager describes the many color plates and black and whites as well as many paintings and drawings not included in the volume. . She gives the background on the art and the conditions under which it was created in a way the reader can understand. She gives a view of Chagall's feelings, values and interior life. The photos of the young Chagall and Bella have the look of modernity, a look not often seen in vintage photos. Wullschlager describes expressions, for instance, Bella shows weariness, and you look at the photo and while it might not be immediately apparent, upon inspection, you agree. I expect the Meyer biography of the 1960's and Bella's writings provide the intimate perspective needed a book like this. These source materials go only so far, up to when Vava began keeping a rein on the family's public face. This may be the reason that the last 40 or so years of Chagall's life are compressed into100 pages. This book is highly recommended for those with an interest in 20th century art.

A fine biography, the best from the generation which did not know Chagall personally. To what extent the weakness of relying on the perceptions and judgments of others is offset by the objectivity of having had no contact positive or negative with the subject is a matter for experts on Chagall and historiographers, not the lay reader. Most should find this as detailed and objective-seeming as the lay reader needs. Her interweaving of social, psychological and aesthetic observations are quite satisfying. To take up an issue raised by one of the previous reviewers, this is not meant to be a monograph with picture by picture analysis. One should look elsewhere for that. However, it may prove legitimately annoying, even to a reader with appropriate expectations, that so many pictures are discussed which either are omitted from the volume or appear distant from the text in which they are mentioned with no easy way to reference them while reading. For me that was a minor annoyance since I do have volumes of his pictures; others may find it more frustrating. As I have said, I think the lay reader will easily take it in stride in view of the quality of the book. I should add that some people may find disturbing even this discreet treatment of what life for an artist, actor, writer, in Russia and the later Soviet Union, could be like, for persons born of Jewish heritage, in the twentieth century, where discrimination, torture and murder were the order of the day, particularly in the era of the Russian Stalin and the German-Austrian Hitler. Yet without some such knowledge, the artistic responses of the survivors, like Chagall, can never be understood.