Nocturne (Night Scene)

Marc Chagall • Painting, 1947, 89×72 cm
Comments
0
About the artwork
This artwork was added since it is referred to in the materials below
Art form: Painting
Technique: Oil
Materials: Canvas
Date of creation: 1947
Size: 89×72 cm
Artwork in selections: 39 selections
Audio guide

Description of the artwork «Nocturne (Night Scene)»

The beloved wife of Marc Chagall Bella died in 1944 literally in his arms, speedily and unexpectedly. The artist almost didn’t eat, sleep and even couldn’t think about painting again for some months after this terrible loss. His daughter Ida helped him to return to previous life. Thanks to her, he started painting again, and met Virginia Haggard, who briefly dulled the bitterness of his loss and gave birth to his son. But memories and sorrow about Bella stayed inside him all the time. Apparently he was in big yearning up to his own death.

In 1947, he returned from USA to Paris with his family. Memories about the happy time that he spent here with Bella, rushed to him with new forces. And that point, Сhagall painted Nocturne, the picture of memory, the picture of the farewell. Drawing his beloved in a white funeral shroud, he purpotedly admits to himself at last that she left him forever. He remembers their entire life’s important history and depicts the house on Pakrouskaya street in Vitebsk, in which they lived for the first time after the wedding, under the flying Bella. But the fate is inexorable, and the fiery horse takes his beloved further away from the grieving artist.

To Chagall, the theme of people flying above the ground always was one of the favourite. Soon after his wedding with Bella he painted some of his most significant works, united by this subject. On his famous picture Over the Town, the artist hovers in the sky, lovingly cuddling his beloved in his arms. In The Walk he firmly stands on his feet with a broad smile, holding Bella striving for the flight. In Chagall’s many canvases, flight symbolizes happiness and inspiring love. In Nocturne the flying away Bella becomes the symbol of happiness, the lost and inaccessible one. Chagall depicted his ghostly profile in the folds of her shroud, as if ready to disappear at any moment as irrevocably as did his beloved.
Comments
Other artworks by this artist
Three acrobats
Three acrobats
1926, 117×89 cm
White crucifixion
White crucifixion
1938, 155×140 cm
The Fall Of Icarus
The Fall Of Icarus
1975, 213×198 cm
The Bay Of Angels
The Bay Of Angels
1962, 60×46 cm
The cemetery gates
The cemetery gates
1917, 87×68.6 cm
Self-portrait with brushes
Self-portrait with brushes
1910, 57×48 cm
Artist: the moon
Artist: the moon
1917, 32×30 cm
Double portrait with a glass of wine
Double portrait with a glass of wine
1918, 233×136 cm
Sweeper
Sweeper
1913
The beginning music
The beginning music
1966, 1100 cm
Recommended artworks:
Ekaterina Vyacheslavovna Kvitchenko. Napa Valley, California
Napa Valley, California
2023, 90×60 cm
$505.00
Original
Margarita Kovalenko. Paris
  • Ad
Paris
01.01.2025, 30×21 cm
$20.00
Original
Ruslan Borisenko. Kazan Cathedral
  • Ad
Kazan Cathedral
2024, 42×30 cm
Alexei Filatov. "Venus-9."
  • Ad
"Venus-9."
2024, 70×100 cm
$296.00
Original
Natalia Priputnikova. Guitar
  • Ad
Guitar
2020, 60×45 cm
$223.00
Original
Olga Shatskaya. Maquis
  • Ad
Maquis
2024, 70×60 cm
$265.00
Original
Alexei Filatov. "On the chile."
  • Ad
"On the chile."
2024, 90×135 cm
$500.00
Original
Alexei Filatov. "Mars-3."
  • Ad
"Mars-3."
2024, 70×100 cm
$296.00
Original
Xenia Keith. The storm is starting
  • Ad
The storm is starting
2025, 70×90 cm