Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall often portrayed himself in his works, always in a non-realistic way. For him, depicting the state of mind was paramount.
This self-portrait is a symphony of strong colors and geometric shapes, prompting reflection at a historical moment where the importance of the individual seems to have faded in comparison to the importance of the collective as a whole.
A masterpiece where the painter perfectly intertwines Cubism and Fauvism.

The painting shows Jesus crucified at the center and emphasizes his Jewish identity with various symbols:
The Tallit covering him (traditional shawl), the headscarf, and three figures, like angels floating from Sheol, observing this sad spectacle, speaking with a Haham (rabbi). A notable element is the Jewish lamp (the temple menorah) with seven branches, signifying the presence of the Lord, which Chagall has placed at Christ's feet. To the left and right, devastated towns, burned synagogues, and refugees fleeing by boat.
In the 1930s, this work was not without controversy, as it drew a parallel between the torment of Jesus and that of the Jewish people, at a time when the persecution of Jews was increasing, just three years before the Shoah (שואה), or the Nazi Holocaust, which began at the end of summer in 1941.

The main character is a trapeze artist, immersed in a fantastic world of music and circus. Painted in his later years, it shows a great sense of movement and rhythm, while the blue background makes the acrobat in bright red, jump towards the viewer's eyes.
This spectacle of crowds was one of the artist's favorite pictorial themes, who said:

"For me, the circus is a magical show that appears and disappears, like the world."

Chagall, already in Paris after an extended trip to Russia, gave birth to this great composition. In the background of the image, the city of Vitebsk represents nostalgia and melancholy about the past and rural settings for this impressive artist.
In the middle of the painting, a strong figure, the violinist, constructed with Cubist strokes, dominates the canvas, while also representing his Jewish origins.

This is one of the artist's more formal and thoughtful religious paintings, certainly departing from the academic canon, but strict in the Judeo-Christian symbolic canon. It depicts the biblical story from Genesis and parts of the Gospels, where God completes the creation of man.
The sky is portrayed with yellow light and red, the sun, around which the Jewish people have revolved from ancient times to the crucifixion of Christ. The lower part shows Adam in the arms of the angel, amidst creation.

This is the most well-known work of Chagall. The composition merges elements with the greatest emotional charge that the artist experienced during his childhood, in the rural setting on the outskirts of Vitebsk, at 11 Pakroŭskaja Street, in Belarus. It features the labor of the land, peasants, livestock, houses, an Orthodox church, and at the bottom, a small tree symbolizing the origin and diversity of life. Although it contains many elements of Cubism, it cannot be purely classified as such due to the rural theme and the use of symbolism.

In the artist's opinion:
"For the Cubists, a painting was a surface covered with forms in a certain order. For me, a painting is a surface covered with representations of things, where logic and illustration have no importance."