After Marc Chagall

After MARC CHAGALL (Belarus, 1887 - France, 1985).
"The Thousand and One Nights."
Engraving, copy 304/333.
With dry-stamped and hand-justified signature.
Publisher S.P.A.D.E.M.
Measurements: 37 x 26 cm; 53 x 43 cm (frame).

The lithographs of "The Thousand and One Nights" by Marc Chagall are a deeply poetic and dreamy series in which the artist interprets the oriental universe of Arabian tales with his characteristic style: floating figures, lovers suspended in the air, fantastic animals, musicians, horses and night scenes full of intense color and magical atmospheres. Deep blues, fiery reds and luminous greens predominate, creating almost musical and highly emotional images, closer to dream and fantasy than to literal narration, so that Chagall transforms the tales of The Thousand and One Nights into lyrical, romantic and spiritual visions charged with symbolism and movement.

Marc Chagall was trained in St. Petersburg, where he studied between 1907 and 1910 under the tutelage of Nikolai Roerich. After this period he moved to Paris, where he reached full artistic maturity. He returned to Russia in 1914 and actively participated in the cultural renewal of the country, but his disputes with Malevich and the revolutionary demands of linking political commitment and artistic work would lead him to leave for Germany in 1924. His Jewish condition would later force him to emigrate to France and the United States, finally settling in France at the end of World War II. In 1981 he received the Wolf Foundation Prize for the Arts in Jerusalem, and in 1997 a museum bearing his name was founded in Vitebsk. In all of Chagall's works during all stages of his life, it was his colors that attracted and engaged the viewer's attention. During his early years, his range was limited by his emphasis on form and his pictures never gave the impression of painted drawings.