Editing Marc Chagall (section)

===France (1910–1914)===
[[File:Marc Chagall, 1911-12, The Drunkard (Le saoul), 1912, oil on canvas. 85 x 115 cm. Private collection.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Marc Chagall, 1911–12, ''The Drunkard'' (''Le saoul''), 1912, oil on canvas. 85 × 115&nbsp;cm. Private collection]]
[[File:Image-Chagall Fiddler.jpg|thumb|Marc Chagall, 1912, ''The Fiddler'', an inspiration for the musical ''[[Fiddler on the Roof]]''<ref>Several of Chagall's paintings inspired the musical; contrary to popular belief, the "title of the musical does not refer to any specific painting". {{Cite news|last=Wecker|first=Menachem|date=2014-10-24|title=Marc Chagall: The French painter who inspired the title ''Fiddler on the Roof''|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/marc-chagall-the-french-painter-who-inspired-the-title-fiddler-on-the-roof/2014/10/23/0230b382-5480-11e4-ba4b-f6333e2c0453_story.html|access-date=2023-01-08}}</ref>]] In 1910, Chagall relocated to Paris to develop his artistic style. Art historian and curator James Sweeney notes that when Chagall first arrived in Paris, Cubism was the dominant art form, and French art was still dominated by the "materialistic outlook of the 19th century". But Chagall arrived from Russia with "a ripe color gift, a fresh, unashamed response to sentiment, a feeling for simple poetry and a sense of humor", he adds. These notions were alien to Paris at that time, and as a result, his first recognition came not from other painters but from poets such as [[Blaise Cendrars]] and [[Guillaume Apollinaire]].<ref name=Sweeney>Sweeney, James J. ''Marc Chagall'', The Museum of Modern Art (1946, 1969)</ref>{{rp|7}} Art historian [[Jean Leymarie (art historian)|Jean Leymarie]] observes that Chagall began thinking of art as "emerging from the internal being outward, from the seen object to the psychic outpouring", which was the reverse of the Cubist way of creating.<ref name=Leymarie>Leymarie, Jean. ''The Jerusalem Windows'', George Braziller (1967)</ref>

He therefore developed friendships with [[Guillaume Apollinaire]] and other [[avant-garde]] artists including [[Robert Delaunay]] and [[Fernand Léger]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marc-Chagall|title=Marc Chagall {{!}} Russian-French artist|work=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=22 August 2017|language=en}}</ref> Baal-Teshuva writes that "Chagall's dream of Paris, the city of light and above all, of freedom, had come true."<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|33}} His first days were a hardship for the 23-year-old Chagall, who was lonely in the big city and unable to speak French. Some days he "felt like fleeing back to Russia, as he daydreamed while he painted, about the riches of [[Slavic folklore]], his [[Hasidic]] experiences, his family, and especially Bella".

In Paris, he enrolled at [[Académie de La Palette]], an [[avant-garde]] school of art where the painters [[Jean Metzinger]], [[André Dunoyer de Segonzac]] and [[Henri Le Fauconnier]] taught, and also found work at another academy. He would spend his free hours visiting galleries and salons, especially the [[Louvre]]; artists he came to admire included [[Rembrandt]], the [[Le Nain]] brothers, [[Jean Siméon Chardin|Chardin]], [[Vincent van Gogh|van Gogh]], [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir|Renoir]], [[Camille Pissarro|Pissarro]], [[Henri Matisse|Matisse]], [[Paul Gauguin|Gauguin]], [[Gustave Courbet|Courbet]], [[Jean-François Millet|Millet]], [[Édouard Manet|Manet]], [[Claude Monet|Monet]], [[Eugène Delacroix|Delacroix]], and others. It was in Paris that he learned the technique of [[gouache]], which he used to paint Belarusian scenes. He also visited [[Montmartre]] and the [[Latin Quarter]] "and was happy just breathing Parisian air".<ref name=Teshuva/> Baal-Teshuva describes this new phase in Chagall's artistic development:

{{quote|Chagall was exhilarated, intoxicated, as he strolled through the streets and along the banks of the Seine. Everything about the French capital excited him: the shops, the smell of fresh bread in the morning, the markets with their fresh fruit and vegetables, the wide boulevards, the cafés and restaurants, and above all the Eiffel Tower.

Another completely new world that opened up for him was the kaleidoscope of colors and forms in the works of French artists. Chagall enthusiastically reviewed their many different tendencies, having to rethink his position as an artist and decide what creative avenue he wanted to pursue.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|33}}}}

[[File:Marc Chagall, 1912, Le Marchand de bestiaux (The Drover, The Cattle Dealer), oil on canvas, 97.1 x 202.5 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|Marc Chagall, 1912, ''Le Marchand de bestiaux'' (''The Drover, The Cattle Dealer''), oil on canvas, 97.1 x 202.5&nbsp;cm, [[Kunstmuseum Basel]]]]
During his time in Paris, Chagall was constantly reminded of his home in [[Vitebsk]], as Paris was also home to many painters, writers, poets, composers, dancers, and other émigrés from the Russian Empire. However, "night after night he painted until dawn", only then going to bed for a few hours, and resisted the many temptations of the big city at night.<ref name=Teshuva/>{{rp|44}} "My homeland exists only in my soul", he once said.<ref name=Leymarie/>{{rp|viii}} He continued painting Jewish motifs and subjects from his memories of Vitebsk, although he included Parisian scenes — the Eiffel Tower in particular, along with portraits. Many of his works were updated versions of paintings he had made in Russia, transposed into [[Fauvism|Fauvist]] or [[Cubism|Cubist]] keys.<ref name=Lewis/>

[[File:Marc Chagall, 1912, still-life (Nature morte), oil on canvas, private collection.jpg|thumb|Marc Chagall, 1912, ''Still-life (Nature morte)'', oil on canvas, private collection]]

Chagall developed a whole repertoire of quirky motifs: ghostly figures floating in the sky, ... the gigantic fiddler dancing on miniature dollhouses, the livestock and transparent wombs and, within them, tiny offspring sleeping upside down.<ref name=Lewis/> The majority of his scenes of life in Vitebsk were painted while living in Paris, and "in a sense they were dreams", notes Lewis. Their "undertone of yearning and loss", with a detached and abstract appearance, caused Apollinaire to be "struck by this quality", calling them "surnaturel!" His "animal/human hybrids and airborne phantoms" would later become a formative influence on [[Surrealism]].<ref name=Lewis/> Chagall, however, did not want his work to be associated with any school or movement and considered his own personal language of symbols to be meaningful to himself. But Sweeney notes that others often still associate his work with "illogical and fantastic painting", especially when he uses "curious representational juxtapositions".<ref name=Sweeney/>{{rp|10}}

Sweeney writes that "This is Chagall's contribution to contemporary art: the reawakening of a poetry of representation, avoiding factual illustration on the one hand, and non-figurative abstractions on the other". [[André Breton]] said that "with him alone, the metaphor made its triumphant return to modern painting".<ref name=Sweeney/>{{rp|7}}