A Springtime Fantasy of Eternal Blooms:
Marc Chagall’s Fleurs de printemps
Executed in 1930 during Marc Chagall’s transformative second period in France, Fleurs de printemps (La Cruche aux fleurs de printemps) combines the artist’s most iconic motifs – the bouquet of flowers, the violin and the flying figures – and reveals his increasingly refined and unique pictorial vision of the mystical and the dreamlike. This was a key moment in Chagall’s early artistic career, and the present work beautifully blends the visual and the literary, marking the beginning of the increasingly mystical compositions of the 1930s.
Almost a decade after his first Parisian period, Chagall returned to France in 1923 and was to remain there until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1941. Perfectly capturing the springtime atmosphere alluded to in the work’s title, the wonderfully vibrant bouquet of flowers in the centre of the composition symbolizes the love and joy he experienced with his first wife and eternal muse Bella Rosenfeld, and their daughter Ida. The intimate yet elaborate interior setting further reflects the deep contentment he experienced during this time. Yet the new country of residence itself was also bringing significant impact to his art, as James Johnson Sweeney explains:
“It was in Toulon in 1924, Chagall recalls, that the charm of French flowers first struck him. He claims he had not known bouquets of flowers in Russia – or at least they were not so common as in France… He said that when he painted a bouquet it was as if he was painting a landscape. It represented France to him. But the discovery was also a logical one in the light of the change taking place in his vision and pictorial interest. Flowers, especially mixed bouquets of tiny blossoms, offer a variety of delicate color combinations and a fund of texture contrasts which were beginning to hold Chagall's attention more and more.”
Chagall’s return to France coincided with the birth of Surrealism in the 1920s, and the poetic, dream-like imagery so ubiquitous to this movement is a defining feature of Chagall’s artistic style. In Fleurs de printemps, this surreal quality is enhanced by the two winged figures at the window, adorning the work with a religious aura. The figure in the red dress is an extension of one of the central figures Chagall used in his iconography, the violinist.
Grew up in Belarus Vitesbk, Chagall’s upbringing was rich in Slavic folklore and Jewish tradition that has close ties with music. A reminder of his childhood in Vitebsk, where the music of the violin accompanied the basic events of life – birth, marriage, and death – the violinist carries an almost totemic power in Chagall’s work and would remain central to his oeuvre over the following decades. The imagery of the violinist provided emotional refuge for the artist, who often expressed nostalgic emotions in his paintings while living in a foreign land and culture.
In Fleurs de printemps, the beguiling imagery of Chagall’s dreamscape is framed by a window. Chagall first began using this motif as early as 1913 in his iconic painting Paris par la fenêtre. The window would remain deeply important to the artist, often, as in the present work, symbolizing the shift between dream and reality. It was this transformation that Chagall always sought, as he once commented:
“Painting seemed to me like a window through which I could have taken flight towards another world.”
Devoted to religious and biblical subjects, Chagall had depicted imagery from the New Testament on occasion, especially in his imagery of the crucifixion, which he used as a symbol of suffering for the Jewish people. Fleurs de printemps celebrates life and the birth of spring; similar allegorical imagery is found in annunciation scenes, such as the Merod Altarpiece where a small, angelic figure pours through the light of the window towards the Virgin Mary, as well as in the biblical-themed Northern Italian frescos where angelic figures are visualized.
Right: North Italian Painter (Verona?), Two Angels, circa 1330, fresco, 59.4 x 80 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Fleurs de printemps was previously in the collection of Lee Ault, who was the publisher of Art in America. As an art collector he ran the gallery Lee Ault & Company on Madison Avenue, New York, in the 1970s. Since 1970 this work has remained in a private collection, until its first appearance at auction in 2019. The present work is comparable to works in the collections of Centre Pompidou, Paris and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and more important museums. Early works of such quality are extremely rare to find in the market.
春日芳華的狂想曲：
馬克 · 夏加爾的《瓶承春華》
《瓶承春華》創於 1930年，其時夏加爾正經歷第二段留法的重要轉折時期，畫面融合了藝術家畢生最具代表性的繪畫元素——盛放的瓶花、小提琴、飛翔的天使——並展現了其日益精煉、夢幻詩意的創作視野。此時正值夏加爾早期藝術事業的關鍵時刻，從本作中可見，藝術家將現實與幻象完美融合，標誌著其三〇年代日益神秘曼妙的創作風格之開端。
距離第一旅居巴黎的近十年後，夏加爾終於在1923年再次移居法國，並一直停留至1941年第二次世界大戰爆發前夕。《瓶承春華》完美地捕捉了作品標題所喻示的春日氣息，放諸精緻的室內佈局的中心，是一束繽紛綻放的花束，象徵著他與第一任妻子暨永恆繆斯貝拉之間的愛情，以及與女兒共享的親密家庭生活，體現了藝術家於此段時期在生活上的喜悅與富足感。不僅如此，浸淫在法國浪漫花都的文化氛圍裏，也為夏加爾的藝術帶來了重大影響，正如詹姆斯·約翰遜·斯威尼所解釋：
「夏加爾回憶說，1924 年在土倫是他第一次感受到法國花卉的魅力。他聲稱自己在俄羅斯長大與生活時，對花束一無所知——或者至少它們不像在法國那麼常見……他說，當他畫一束花束時，就好像在畫一幅風景畫一樣。對他來說，它代表著法國。鑑於此時他的視野和興趣產生了變化，這種説法也是合乎邏輯的。鮮花，尤其是由各式各樣的小花所組成的花束，呈現出各種精緻的色彩組合和豐富紋理，開始越來越吸引著夏加爾的注意力。」
夏加爾第二次回到法國，其時正值超現實主義在二〇年代的誕生與迅速發展，而夏加爾筆下如夢似幻的豐富意像，正與超現實主義的觀念與特徵有著微妙呼應，如畫中窗邊展翅飛翔的天使，將現實與幻想的邊界模糊化，並賦予作品一種神聖的意涵。而身穿紅色連身裙、正在飛翔的人物，是夏加爾在肖像畫中經常出現的角色之一的延申——小提琴家。小提琴家在夏加爾的作品中富有重要的象徵式意義，並在其畢生創作中成為核心的主題之一。夏加爾在白俄羅斯維特什堡長大，他自幼深受斯拉夫民俗音樂和猶太傳統文化所薰陶；在該傳統文化中，生老病死的各項生命軌跡，也由小提琴的樂聲所伴隨。而小提琴家的鮮明形象，即喚起了其美好的童年回憶，為離鄉別井的藝術家提供心靈慰藉。
在《瓶承春華》中，夏加爾筆下一幕迷人的春花夢境中，由一扇窗戶巧妙地分劃出室内與室外的界綫。夏加爾在畫中繪畫窗戶，最早可追溯至1913年的作品《窗外的巴黎》。不論是前作或本作，窗戶的存在亦象徵著夢境與現實之間的轉替，而如其本人曾說：
「繪畫對我而言，就像一扇窗戶，透過它我可飛向另一個世界。」
聖經是夏加爾的靈感來源之一，他偶爾描繪新約中的意象，尤其是耶穌受難的一幕，用以象徵戰爭期間猶太人的受難。《瓶承春華》一作熱情地慶祝著生命的光華和春天的誕生，而類似的寓言意象，亦見於15世紀名作《天使報喜三聯畫（梅羅德祭壇畫）》（中段）中：一個小小的天使下凡，從窗戶的光線朝著聖母瑪利亞飛去，與本作的天使形象相似。
右：意大利北部畫家（維羅納？）《兩個天使》， 約 1330 年，壁畫，59.4 x 80 cm。紐約大都會 藝術博物館。
《瓶承春華》原由《美國藝術》出版商李‧奧特收藏；他在七〇年代經營位於紐約麥迪遜大道的 Lee Ault & Company畫廊，而本作即由1970年神隱私人收藏，直至2019年首現拍場。媲美本作質量的早期作品在市場上極為罕見。