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Window to the garden
Marc Chagall • Painting, 1917, 46.5×61 cm
Description of the artwork «Window to the garden»
The family of Marc Chagall's future wife, Bella Rosenfeld, was engaged in the jewelry trade. Wealthy merchants, the Rosenfelds lived according to the habits of the people of their circle. Every summer they took the children to their dacha, for which they rented a house near Liozno, in the village of Zaols'e.
It was a wonderful time for the young Rosenfelds: their parents came only on Shabbat and there was more than enough time for walks and swimming in the river. In her book Burning Lights, Bella Chagall recalled: “First, they equip and send forward two or three half-waters with furniture, bedding and food. Our red-haired cow, tied with a rope, drags along behind. And hums, lifting her head to the sky. a coachman on a pile of mattresses. And only a few days later they bring us children on the train. The house, a log cabin, smells sweetly of tar. The walls and floor are shiny ... I run through the forests like a young animal. In the pine scent, between tall pines, under the blue dome of the sky. The sun throws beams of rays from the treetops onto the path. Bird's eyes sparkle. Black shadows creep on the ground and run away, as soon as I move ... "
It was to these picturesque places that Mark and Bella arrived immediately after the wedding, which they played on July 25, 1915. “Finally we are alone in the village. Pine forest, silence, over the trees - a month. A pig grunts in the barn, a horse wanders. Lilac sky. We had not only honey, but also milk month. An army herd grazed nearby, and in the morning we bought buckets of milk from the soldiers. The pie-fed wife made everyone drink me alone. So by the fall, my clothes could hardly fit together "- the artist himself recalled this time.
"At noon our room looked like a magnificent panel - even now exhibit it in the Parisian Salons" - wrote Chagall, and, of course, captured this beauty in several paintings. The first of them was "Bella at the table", solved in blue tones. Subsequently, this room with a large table and Viennese chairs, filled with light, appeared more than once in Chagall's paintings. In the same 1915, he painted the famous pair portrait in Zaolsk "Window in the country".
A year later, the Chagals again spend the summer outside the city, but already three of them: with them their daughter, Ida, who was born on May 18, 1916. Chagall paints pictures "Bella and Ida at the Window", "Strawberries. Bella and Ida at the Table".
If you think about the time frame, then little Ida in an elegant dress could hardly sit on a wooden highchair, being only a few months old. Perhaps Chagall thus embellishes what is happening and dreams that his daughter will grow up sooner. He later admits that the screaming baby drove him to a frenzy, and calls himself a "bad father."
Next year the Chagalls again leave the city. Recognizable interiors in shades of blue and landscapes with birch trees - in Chagall's paintings "Window to the Garden", "Dacha", "Interior with flowers", "Backyard of a summer house"- in the latter, clear signs of cubism are already visible. These are the last "dacha" works of the artist: when you are appointed as an authorized commissioner for arts of the Vitebsk province, there is no time to rest. In January 1919, Chagall opened the Vitebsk Art School, and a completely different life began ...
It was a wonderful time for the young Rosenfelds: their parents came only on Shabbat and there was more than enough time for walks and swimming in the river. In her book Burning Lights, Bella Chagall recalled: “First, they equip and send forward two or three half-waters with furniture, bedding and food. Our red-haired cow, tied with a rope, drags along behind. And hums, lifting her head to the sky. a coachman on a pile of mattresses. And only a few days later they bring us children on the train. The house, a log cabin, smells sweetly of tar. The walls and floor are shiny ... I run through the forests like a young animal. In the pine scent, between tall pines, under the blue dome of the sky. The sun throws beams of rays from the treetops onto the path. Bird's eyes sparkle. Black shadows creep on the ground and run away, as soon as I move ... "
It was to these picturesque places that Mark and Bella arrived immediately after the wedding, which they played on July 25, 1915. “Finally we are alone in the village. Pine forest, silence, over the trees - a month. A pig grunts in the barn, a horse wanders. Lilac sky. We had not only honey, but also milk month. An army herd grazed nearby, and in the morning we bought buckets of milk from the soldiers. The pie-fed wife made everyone drink me alone. So by the fall, my clothes could hardly fit together "- the artist himself recalled this time.
"At noon our room looked like a magnificent panel - even now exhibit it in the Parisian Salons" - wrote Chagall, and, of course, captured this beauty in several paintings. The first of them was "Bella at the table", solved in blue tones. Subsequently, this room with a large table and Viennese chairs, filled with light, appeared more than once in Chagall's paintings. In the same 1915, he painted the famous pair portrait in Zaolsk "Window in the country".
A year later, the Chagals again spend the summer outside the city, but already three of them: with them their daughter, Ida, who was born on May 18, 1916. Chagall paints pictures "Bella and Ida at the Window", "Strawberries. Bella and Ida at the Table".
If you think about the time frame, then little Ida in an elegant dress could hardly sit on a wooden highchair, being only a few months old. Perhaps Chagall thus embellishes what is happening and dreams that his daughter will grow up sooner. He later admits that the screaming baby drove him to a frenzy, and calls himself a "bad father."
Next year the Chagalls again leave the city. Recognizable interiors in shades of blue and landscapes with birch trees - in Chagall's paintings "Window to the Garden", "Dacha", "Interior with flowers", "Backyard of a summer house"- in the latter, clear signs of cubism are already visible. These are the last "dacha" works of the artist: when you are appointed as an authorized commissioner for arts of the Vitebsk province, there is no time to rest. In January 1919, Chagall opened the Vitebsk Art School, and a completely different life began ...
