The Four Seasons, 1974
Marc Chagall
10 South Dearborn Street
Born
into an Hasidic Jewish family in Vitebsk (in present-day Belarus), Marc Chagall
(1887-1985) studied art in St. Petersburg, Russia before moving to Paris, where
he lived from 1910 to 1914. During his time in Paris, Chagall absorbed the
influences of Symbolism, Fauvism and Cubism and combined them with his own
childhood memories of Jewish shtetl life and mysticism to create dreamy,
fantastic images that defied artistic conventions regarding space and
perspective. Chagall returned to Russia in 1914 and, as a supporter of the
October Revolution, in 1917 he was appointed Commissar for Fine Arts in
Vitebsk. He returned to Paris in 1923 and became a French citizen in 1937. As a
Jew and an artist whose work was ridiculed by the Nazis, Chagall found it
necessary to leave Vichy France and he found safe haven in the United States
between 1941-48.
Although best known as a painter, working in oils,
watercolors and gouaches, Chagall has also produced ceramics, stained glass
and, as seen in this work, mosaics. Regarding the title of this piece, Chagall
explained, “In my mind, the four seasons represent human life, both physical
and spiritual, at its different stages.” Using a model created by Chagall in
his studio in France, a skilled mosaicist was sent to Chicago to install the
128 separate panels, featuring 250 different colors, and then join them
together with additional glass and stone fragments. The finished piece is 14
feet high, 10 feet wide and 70 feet long. Imagery includes symbols associated
with his earlier works, including birds, fish, flowers, suns and lovers, all
references to memories of simple, village life, interspersed with sunbursts and
city skylines. Chagall’s signature “floating” figures and the absence of a
consistent ground line contribute to the otherworldliness of the scenes even as
they refer to quotidian activities associated with rural and urban life. As is
the case with “the Picasso,” viewers already familiar with the artists’ earlier
works are able to recognize each as typical of their style, even if the scale
and materials have changed.
Chagall arrived 2 weeks before the unveiling and realized
that he needed to make adjustments to the areas featuring the Chicago skyline,
as he had based them upon his memory of the city from 30 years before! The work
was presented as a gift to the city of Chicago on September 27, 1974 and the
protective glass canopy was added after renovations in the mid-1990s.
Another major work by Chagall, the America Windows from
1977, is housed at the Art Institute of Chicago and were made in commemoration
of the Bicentennial and as a reflection of Chagall’s gratitude for the safety
and religious tolerance that he found during his stay in the U.S. during the
1940s.
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