Sixty Works by Modern Masters - Flipbook - Page 101
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Russian/French, 1887 - 1985
Amants et Oiseaux, 1961
Watercolour, gouache, pastel, charcoal and India ink on Japan paper
23 x 19¼ inches / 60.6 x 48.6 cm
Signed lower left: Marc Chagall
Chagall's poetic symbolism is
eloquently expressed in this rare
example of watercolour, gouache
and other media applied to handmade Japanese Washi paper.
Completed two years before he
received a commission to decorate
Paris’s Palais Garnier, Amants et
Oiseaux displays the heavy outlines
and bold motifs that would later
characterise his celebrated ceiling.
In typical manner, Chagall makes use
of explicit symbolism in this work.
The dominating image of a dove in
flight seems particularly important,
traditionally standing for peace and
recalling Picasso’s use of the same
motif for the International Peace
Congress in Paris in 1949. In the
1960s, when Amants et Oiseaux was
completed, the symbol of the dove
gained added significance due to the
outbreak of war in Vietnam and the
subsequent anti-war movement.
Chagall’s additional depictions
of a menorah and loving couple,
alongside a gesture of escape
through an open window, combine
to evoke a utopian world of peace,
freedom and enlightenment.
100
Provenance
Galerie Paul Petridès, Paris
Wally Findlay Gallery, New York
Anon. sale, Christie’s, New York, 14 November 1984, lot 273
Private collection, Columbus, Ohio
E&R Cyzer, London
Private Collection, London
Literature
Exhibition catalogue, E&R Cyzer, Modern Masters, London 2006, illustrated
in colour p. 49
This painting is accompanied by a certificate
of authentication kindly issued by the Comité
Marc Chagall
"Work isn't to make
money; you work to
justify life."