Celebrations, Ceremonies & Rituals!

Artist: Marc Chagall!
Title: The Birthday!
Date: 1915!
Media: Oil on cardboard!
Size: 31 3/4 x 39 1/4 (80.6 x 99.7 cm)!
Location: Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA

!

How can artist be a storyteller through their artworks? throughout history artist are known to tell stories through their artworks, their stories that could talk about various celebrations, ceremonies, rituals, world events, war stories and love stories. Many reflected back on their childhood the many times and experiences they have encounter, through this many of the artist take use of their message to take us on a journey more of a person flash back or maybe a made up story, myths or a legend but all of them make us visualise what they have captured and interpreted in their own way to tell a story.!

!

Page 1

Artist such as Marc Chagall he is known to be poetic and figurative within his styles of work which made him one of the most popular modern artists known and is internationally recognised. Born in 1887 found inspiration for much of his work in within his birth place
Vitebsk, Belarus Chagall was a Russian-born Jew through himself whose deep faith displayed itself repetitively throughout the body of his works, additionally to the old testament themes, Russian village life was the most common favourite used in his works which in that incorporated in his works reflected on how he told a story within his culture.
His steady faith in the power of figurative art, was one that he maintained despite encountering ideas from Fauvism and Cubism although many of artistic peers focused and pursued in aspiring experiments that led to abstraction. Chagall studied art in St
Petersburg on a scholarship and among that encountered his most influential teachers the
Jewish artists and magazine illustrator Leon Bakst majority of his works such as “In front of fathers house (1908)” and “The Violinist (1910)” show similar settings of Marc Chagall homeland from who he was and where he was from.!

!

Chagall took his homeland with him to Paris and created works that highlighted his
Russian identity found his paintings and his background mainly influenced his artworks.
The following artworks include “Mothing Russia (1912)” and “I and My Village (1911)” most influence source to many of Marc Chagall artworks is his life experiences, therefore it made it more meaningful that Chagall relives the experiences of his childhood and presents life experiences that are so important to him that his imagination shaped and reshaped them without getting rid of his memories. Within the start of World War I Chagall was in Russia and due to the war was unable to return back to Paris his works of this time reflected an interesting division of his personal life and the work at large while the world was engaged. The love for his wife seem like they had the ability to float above the world's reality during the time of World War I and portray a time of great love. This reality reflected on Chagall's painting The “Birthday” which shows him and his wife seemingly raised by the love between them, able to float above the world's reality and experience and just focus on their love.!

!

Exploring this artwork further it has mainly been influences such as his pass experiences the artwork “The Birthday” also known as “Anniversary” features much of the taste of
Russian culture through the 20th century. Through this very specific piece of artworks he is able to show us the experiences through celebrating with loved ones, having a good time and to how to show love, Chagall interpreted this artwork “The Birthday” of his beloved
Page 2

wife’s Bella’s whom he met in 1908 birthday something that occurs every year it’s her birthday in this moment of emotion and passion that is portrayed as the husband himself
Marc Chagall kissing her and carrying her away. The artist himself describes such tradition that he gave his wife a