“I and the Village” was created by Marc Chagall in 1911. Chagall was a Russian-born artist, but he spent most of his life in Paris. Marc Chagall was born in Belarus in 1887 and he left Russia for Paris in 1907. “After returning to Vitebsk for a visit in 1914, the outbreak of WWI trapped Chagall in Russia. He returned to France in 1923 but was forced to flee the country and Nazi persecution during WWII. Finding asylum in the U.S.” Because his parents were devout Hasidic Jews, Chagall was influenced by Jewish culture deeply. Marc Chagall uses “color of love” to create those famous pieces “based on emotional association rather than traditional pictorial fundamentals.”

“I and the Village evokes Chagall’s memories of his native Hasidic community outside Vitebsk.” This work not only arouses Chagall’s nostalgia about his childhood memory, but also reflects the harmony between peasants and animals. In the picture, we can see that the cow and the peasant look at each other, the connection between them may suggest their dependent relationship. A woman gets milk from the cow, meanwhile peasants feed animals like cows. The man’s face is green, which represents nature and lives. And he holds a little tree that blooms flowers, symbolize the tree of life. It is magical when I recognize there is a circle make up by their face and the background. Human and animals live together in one universe, although they contain in different planes. There has some colorful houses and an Orthodox church in the back may look like buildings in Russia. In my opinion, the man with hoe is on his way to home, Chagall uses that to express his nostalgia, “in Paris he used a disjunctive geometric structure to carry him back home.”

In this artwork, I see different geometric shapes and interesting images. Chagall puts those images in different spatial position, which incarnates cubism. As a stream of modernism, “Cubism was mainly an art of urban avant-garde society.” “I and the Village” also reflects Chagall’s own rural experience, which coincides to the modernism’s concept that emphasizes the importance of individual experience. And this work shows Marc Chagall’s surrealism as well. Since the peasant and cow (or goat) combined in a strange way, two houses and a female violinist stand in an upside down direction, I feel that we can only see these images in our dreams. These dreamlike imagery also shows Chagall’s creativity that goes against gravity and order. Through I and the Village, Chagall gives expression to cubism and surrealism vividly, expresses his unconscious thoughts and dreams. He is admired as one of the pioneers of Surrealism by art historians in 20th century.

The juxtaposition of animal and human, the contrast of green and red catch my eyes when I saw this piece of art. Therefore, both brilliant colors and position of interesting imagery drew me to pick this artwork. Due to various cultural and religious elements, we can see Chagall’s rich experience and imagination. I have question that what’s meaning of man’s cap and cow’s necklace.

Work Cited
“Marc Chagall.” Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 06 May 2016.

“Marc Chagall. I and the Village. 1911 | MoMA.” The Museum of Modern Art. Web. 06 May 2016.