Editing Marc Chagall (section)

==Legacy and influence==
Chagall biographer {{ill|Jackie Wullschlager|de|Jackie Wullschlager}} praises him as a "pioneer of modern art and one of its greatest figurative painters... [who] invented a visual language that recorded the thrill and terror of the twentieth century."<ref name=Wullschlager/> She adds:

{{quote|On his canvases we read the triumph of modernism, the breakthrough in art to an expression of inner life that ... is one of the last century's signal legacies. At the same time Chagall was personally swept up in the horrors of European history between 1914 and 1945: world wars, revolution, ethnic persecution, the murder and exile of millions. In an age when many major artists fled reality for abstraction, he distilled his experiences of suffering and tragedy into images at once immediate, simple, and symbolic to which everyone could respond.<ref name=Wullschlager/>{{rp|4}}}}

Art historians Ingo Walther and Rainer Metzger refer to Chagall as a "poet, dreamer, and exotic apparition." They add that throughout his long life the "role of outsider and artistic eccentric" came naturally to him, as he seemed to be a kind of intermediary between worlds: "as a Jew with a lordly disdain for the ancient ban on image-making; as a Russian who went beyond the realm of familiar self-sufficiency; or the son of poor parents, growing up in a large and needy family." Yet he went on to establish himself in the sophisticated world of "elegant artistic salons."<ref name=Walther>Walther, Ingo F., Metzger, Rainer. ''Marc Chagall, 1887–1985: Painting as Poetry'', Taschen (2000)</ref>{{rp|7}}

Through his imagination and strong memories Chagall was able to use typical motifs and subjects in most of his work: village scenes, peasant life, and intimate views of the small world of the Jewish village ([[shtetl]]). His tranquil figures and simple gestures helped produce a "monumental sense of dignity" by translating everyday Jewish rituals into a "timeless realm of iconic peacefulness".<ref name=Walther/>{{rp|8}} Leymarie writes that Chagall "transcended the limits of his century. He has unveiled possibilities unsuspected by an art that had lost touch with the Bible, and in doing so he has achieved a wholly new synthesis of Jewish culture long ignored by painting." He adds that although Chagall's art cannot be confined to religion, his "most moving and original contributions, what he called 'his message', are those drawn from religious or, more precisely, Biblical sources."<ref name=Leymarie/>{{rp|x}}

Walther and Metzger try to summarize Chagall's contribution to art:

{{quote|His life and art together added up to this image of a lonesome visionary, a citizen of the world with much of the child still in him, a stranger lost in wonder—an image which the artist did everything to cultivate. Profoundly religious and with a deep love of the homeland, his work is arguably the most urgent appeal for tolerance and respect of all that is different that modern times could make.<ref name=Walther/>{{rp|7}}}}

[[André Malraux]] praised him. He said: "[Chagall] is the greatest image-maker of this century. He has looked at our world with the light of freedom, and seen it with the colours of love."<ref>{{Cite web|title=Nonfiction Book Review: Chagall: A Retrospective by Jacob Baal-Teshuva, Editor Hugh Lauter Levin Associates $75 (0p) ISBN 978-0-88363-495-0|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-88363-495-0|access-date=20 January 2021|website=PublishersWeekly.com|date=September 1996|language=en}}</ref>

===Art market===
A 1928 Chagall oil painting, ''Les Amoureux'', measuring 117.3 x 90.5&nbsp;cm, depicting Bella Rosenfeld, the artist's first wife and adopted home Paris, sold for $28.5&nbsp;million (with fees) at Sotheby's New York, 14 November 2017, almost doubling Chagall's 27-year-old $14.85&nbsp;million auction record.<ref>{{Cite web|date=4 October 2017|title=Will This Rare Marc Chagall Painting Break a 27-Year-Old Auction Record?|url=https://news.artnet.com/market/marc-chagall-sothebys-impressionist-sale-1105865|access-date=20 January 2021|website=artnet News|language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=AFP|title=Chagall sets auction record at $28.5m in New York|url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/chagall-sets-auction-record-at-28-5m-in-new-york/|access-date=20 January 2021|website=www.timesofisrael.com|language=en-US}}</ref>

In October 2010, his painting ''[[Bestiary|Bestiaire]] et Musique'', depicting a bride and a fiddler floating in a night sky amid circus performers and animals, "was the star lot" at an auction in Hong Kong. When it sold for $4.1&nbsp;million, it became the most expensive contemporary Western painting ever sold in Asia.<ref>[http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/4-million-Chagall-painting-sets-new-Asian-record/articleshow/6689633.cms "$4&nbsp;million Chagall painting sets new Asian record"] ''[[The Economic Times]]'', 5 October 2010</ref>