Lot 48 : MARC CHAGALL
Auction Location: United States of America - 2006
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Title:
MARC CHAGALL
Description:
1887-1985
LE VISAGE BLEU
LE VISAGE BLEU
measurements
51 by 38 in.
alternate measurements
130 by 97 cm
Painted in 1967.
Signed Marc Chagall (lower right); signed and titled Marc Chagall Le Visage bleu on the reverse
Oil on canvas
PROVENANCE
Galerie Maeght, Paris
Sunday Art, Tokyo
Acquired from the above by the present owner on December 26, 1977
EXHIBITED
Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Fondation Maeght, Hommage à Marc Chagall, 1967, no. 87
Paris, Grand Palais, Hommage à Marc Chagall, 1967-70, no. 180, illustrated p. 191
LITERATURE
André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Chagall, Paris, 1974, no. 106, illustrated p. 150
Werner Haftmann, Marc Chagall, Paris, 1975, no. 42, illustrated p. 149
NOTE
"This very lyrical picture gives a cautious intimation of Chagall's new coloristic enterprise. It is developed from a purely abstract disposition of colors. Without thinking of any particular objective theme, the painter has prepared an attractively colored and harmoniously arranged ground, which serves as the playground for various poetic inventions. With a certain artistic arrangement, he has divided the picture fairly accurately into two vertical halves. At the left he has set up a color zone of dreamy spiritual blue, and by modulating the tone values has given the effect of spatial movement without disturbing the surface. The clearly marked triangular form of deep blue defines the solid frontal plane, behind which is a flat, diffused graduation of planes caused by the distance effect of the light values. At the right, the surface is white and bright , with a variety of faint movements from the freely disposed color planes of earthen yellow, light pink, and bright green, which create a country-like, summery tone.
This well-organized and quite abstractly structured colored ground is, so to speak, the bed of the picture, where many a play of associations may occur. On the left a face takes shape, looking across into bucolic atmosphere of the multicolored zone, the hand already a part of the bright area. Behind the dark blue triangle is a woman's face and some little Russian painter is at work, standing before his easel and looking across into the bright zone. It is the homely sphere of the painter's own dreams-his familiar surroundings, which he always likes to characterize by the image of his wife's face, his memories, his work- from which he looks at the world around him. What he sees there - or what he chooses to see at this time - is a tender dream of simple country life. This was a constantly recurring dream, which particularly haunted him in Greece. Above the shyly exploring hand rises a wonderful bouquet of country flowers. To the right stands a peasant woman carrying her child. At the top right, a young country lad plays his flute, and a girl teases a small yellow cow. There is an atmosphere of folklore and fable in these little scenes" (Werner Haftmann, Marc Chagall, Paris, 1975, p. 148).
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