I and the Village
is an oil on canvas painting by the Belarusian-French artist Marc Chagall created in 1911
The significance of the painting lies in its seamless integration of various elements of Eastern European folktales and culture, both Belarusian and Yiddish. Painted the year after he moved to Paris, expresses his memories of the place. He shows people and animals living side by side, their mutual dependence signified by the line connecting the eyes of peasant and cow. For the Hasidim, animals were humanity’s link to the universe, and the painting’s large circular forms suggest the orbiting sun, moon (in eclipse at the lower left), and earth.
A man with a green face and wearing a cap jovially encounters a goat, or is it a sheep? On the cheek of the animal is a picture of a goat being milked. In the background, a man walks down a traditional Russian street with a scythe over his shoulder, while an upside down woman plays the violin. In the foreground, the green-faced man’s hand holds an illuminated tree. Round his neck is a Christian cross. It appears that in this village peasants and animals live side by side. The man and the animal regard each other with trust in what seems to a mutually beneficial relationship.The illuminated tree of life the man holds is perhaps the reward for their relationship. Animals connect us with the universe.
Marc Chagall was born in 1887. He was the eldest of seven children. He grew up in the small town of Liozna, near Vitebsk. The settlement was home to a large community of Hassidic Jews. He went to a Jewish school. During this early education, he absorbed the images and mythology of Judaism that would feature so strongly in his work.
While at school he spent perhaps too much time copying pictures from books. He loved doing this so much and demonstrated such a talent that he decided to become an artist. His parents were not happy about this but Chagall was not to be moved.
In 1906 he went to a small local art school. After a few months, he moved on to the Zvantsea School of Drawing and Painting in St Petersburg. While there he worked with Leon Bakst, a devout Jew, who was a set designer for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. It is thought that Bakst suggested Chagall use the Jewish folk imagery which was to feature so strongly in his work.
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