Marc Chagall

Estate of the artist
Private Collection (acquired in the 1980s)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

The canvas is unlined and there is no evidence of retouching under ultra-violet light. This work is in very good original condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate, although slightly fresher in the original.
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Painted in 1970, Roses et mimosas depicts the most recurring subject of Chagall's career – a vase of flowers. Chagall painted this motif throughout his career, and in the present work two vases filled with bright, vivid roses and mimosas dominate an interior scene. The artist was first struck by the charm of flowers in Toulon in 1924; he later claimed that he had not known of flowers in Russia, and they came to represent France for him. In his dream-like paintings, he consistently drew from a vocabulary of personal symbolism: when painting a bouquet, it was like painting a landscape of his adopted country. Writing about the subject of flowers in Chagall's work, Franz Meyer commented: 'Many are simple still-lifes with a bunch of red roses and white lilacs; in others, pairs of lovers and air-borne fiddlers gambol through space. The atmosphere encompasses and pervades the flowers like a magically light airy fluid, vibrant with their vitality' (F. Meyer, Marc Chagall. Life and Work, New York, 1961, p. 369).

 

Particularly striking in the present work is the contrast between the heavy impasto and deeply saturated colours of the bouquets of flowers and the pearlescent tones of the thinly brushed background. While depicting elements of the traditional interior genre – a woman seated at a table in front of a window – in Roses et mimosas Chagall undermines a logical spatial relationship by rendering various objects on unrelated scales. This abandon to the joy of creation and the artistic freedom of interpretation reflect Chagall's confidence in his style and technique and his deeply individual and subjective approach to painting. With its fantastical, dream-like composition, the painting becomes an expression of the artist's internal feelings and souvenirs rather than and objective projection of the outside world.