Marc Chagalls Blue House - Essay Example

Marc Chagall's Blue House Modern artists working since the early part of the 1900s have dedicated themselves to depicting the range of human emotions within the colors and lines of their work. The modernists, such as Marc Chagall, focused on the emotions themselves with little or no reference to the symbols or issues of the times. They felt that the only way to portray the realism of the subject was to break the rules of art in order to explore images of pure emotion. Lyotard (1984) describes this process as an attempt "to make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen nor made visible" (78). This "something that can be conceived but not seen nor made visible" is often referred to as the sublime, a quality of transcendent greatness "with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation" (Wikipedia, 2006). The presence of this sublime element, then, inspires the imagination in a specific direction based on which elements remain visible or understandable. Its significance is in the way in which it brings attention to the uncertainty of meaning inherent in the work, such that no resolution makes itself apparent. To understand how this untouchable element can be communicated through visual art, Marc Chagall's oil painting "Blue House" (1920), currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Liege, Belgium, will be analyzed as an example. Most of the image's 26 1/8 x 38 1/4 inch space is dominated by a small blue house placed in the foreground of the painting. This house sits on a small high hill that looks over a small valley. The small blue house is actually built into the hill on which it stands, appearing to be only one storey tall if approached from the right side, but actually two stories tall as revealed when approaching it from the left. With the remnants of a brick chimney on the close side, reaching only as high as the floor of the second storey and the top of a brick chimney visible over the roof from the far side, there is a suggestion that the house is perhaps larger than it first appears or that perhaps it was used for more than a single family or purpose. This house is also in a state of dilapidation that would make it completely unsuitable to live in as the roof does not seem structurally sound with large gaping holes in places, the boards are falling off the doorframes and windows and the very walls themselves seem be about to come disconnected. Despite its apparent abandonment, a small path remains leading down into the valley which is divided nearly down the middle by a small, concrete-grey river. This river marks the division point in the content of the painting as it helps to distinguish between the two sides of the valley floor. On the side nearest the house, the valley seems to be relatively desolate, with large dry areas and wild, new, light green grassy areas. On the other side of the river, though, there are dark green cultivated fields standing before a great city standing on the hill at the other side of the valley. The city is full of large white and red-tinged buildings, some of them long and blocky and others tall with spires. Some have red roofs and others have blue roofs, but all seem crammed together and, as a group, they block out the horizon. This city appears to have a wall around its base, separating it from the fields before it and protecting it from the unassuming opposition. All of this is depicted under a grey and somewhat threatening sky, which contributes to the dead grey of the river and gives an impression that there is smoke emerging from the top of the blue house's back chimney. With its emphasis on the long view, the painting immediately seems to be a landscape. This is mostly thanks to the concentration of the house and faraway city and view of the valley between (His, 1936: 30). There is a sense of overpowering nature involved in that the city must be protected even from its own cultivated fields, that the house was supported by the hill from the beginning and that it is now undergoing the process of returning to nature. There is an emphasis on nature, as the valley dominates the entire center section of the image and the trees are beginning to crowd over the small house. Although a city is included in the image, this isn't a cityscape, either, as the city only exists on the borders. There aren't any people immediately apparent in the picture to distract the attention or suggest a different category. However, upon close look, there does seem to be an individual sitting just inside the front door on the top floor. This presence begins to change the viewer's conception of the subject. This presentation prompts the question of why - what is the subject supposed to be While an easy answer would seem to suggest the subject is nothing more or less than the blue house, this image evokes a sense of sadness and isolation as well as hope and promise. The house seems purposefully removed from the city, yet longing toward it suggesting a theme of separation. It enjoys a singular view and seemingly a bountiful land if given just a little care, but is breaking down, suggesting yet another theme, that of the old world dying out and being replaced by the new. While the house is falling down, the new grass on the hillsides suggest spring growth, perhaps suggesting the cycle of life, the new growing out of the old. To understand how the image manages to evoke so many reactions, it is helpful to examine the physical elements of how this is accomplished. At roughly two feet by three feet horizontally rectangular, the painting is not overly imposing, nor does it demand attention through the use of unique shape, attached accessories or unique materials as media used is oil on canvas. The content is arranged asymmetrically, with the house comprising slightly more than half of the canvas, yet still seeming somehow crowded off to the right side. The horizontal center line is roughly marked by the upper line of the natural middle area, but avoids splitting the frame by shifting up and then down in a gentle curve and a slight transition of color from shades of green to yellows to blues and back to yellows. This line is also interrupted on the right side, of course, by the blue house itself. While the background is busy, full of city and valley, it is not permitted to take over the image presented thanks to a combination of technical factors as line and color. While the lines of the house seem, on first impression, to indicate the house is falling in on itself, closer inspection reveals that it is simply crudely built of more natural materials than what would be expected in the city. These lines serve to force the eye to keep moving restlessly and rather aimlessly as they don't present a solid horizontal direction but instead curve and point in slightly different directions. Light-colored areas serve to create numerous diagonal lines creating a downward point with the nadir at the inner vertical line of the house, which continues to force the eye back to the house when it begins to stray to the rest of the painting. While the line of the river could be perceived as leading away from the house, the way that the hill partially obstructs the view of the river serves to make the river a point that terminates just at the house as well. Further diagonals in the landscape continue to point to the house as well. In this manner, the viewer's eye is kept moving in a somewhat cyclical pattern - moving about the house restlessly and struggling to move to the landscape for rest. While this rest is provided to a greater extent than in the house, the heavy use of energetic diagonals even in the background continues to force the eye to move. This energy is in direct contradiction to the restful impression one gets when the painting is described in terms of content, a static landscape with a house, or color. The artist uses a mostly muted color scheme in this painting with a lot of relatively neutral tones. The basic colors found in the painting are blue, green, yellow and red, all geared toward their cooler characteristics. The reds are only present in the city, suggesting a vitality there that cannot be attained by the individual sitting longingly in the blue house. Although they lack the intensity of the true red even at its deepest point, these reds help to balance the vivid blue of the house. The intensity of this blue is also balanced by the vivid blues seen in the city wall and building roofs and windows. This contrast between the intensity of the house and the muted hues of the city again suggest the separateness between the city and the house. While one stands out in clearly defined outlines and bright colors, the other is allowed to fade into the background. At the same time, though, there is an impression that all the true blue of the world has been drained into this one structure. This idea is particularly brought about by the muted color of the sky, which is an overall light gray with a few darker areas suggested. Thanks to cultural conceptions that blue is equated with sadness, this impression translates to the idea that this person in the house is carrying all the sadness of the world on his or her shoulders as they gaze out the far window of the house toward the city. The painting is filled with a cool, blue-tinged light that remains bright but shadowless, appropriate for the type of overcast day Chagall is depicting. The sky is full of clouds, but they are only thick enough to block out the blue of the upper sky through most of the painting and diffuse the light of the sun evenly and . The light that passes through them is sufficient to bring out reflections of the city on the river and there is even some hint of possible shadow on the hillside on the far side of the river. However, there are very few shadows included in the painting. There is a sense of a darkening sky just over the house itself, sending a sense of gloom over it that works in the same way an actual shadow might. This provides a logical explanation for the depth of the blue used in the depiction of the house, but a logical explanation is not necessarily required. What is more important is the way in which nature itself seems to be singling out the house. Despite the clouds, or perhaps because of them, there are also large segments of the painting that seem to glow with an unnatural-seeming glow. These are yellow-green fields visible on the foreground hillside, within the valley and in a strip of land that seems to point its way into the city aided by an actual triangle pointing from the left side of the painting at a diagonal into the city from the house's side of the river. These yellow-green spaces provide a sense of new life beginning to grow as compared to the darker green cultivated mature-growth fields marked in irregular squares of only a slightly lighter shade of green. The largest of these light yellow-green spaces is just in front of the house itself. This suggests that there is a sense of life within the house that is lacking in some aspect in the city. This idea is emphasized by the presence of a similarly yellow-green tree appearing in the top right corner of the painting, framing the house in this sort of new life growth. While the lack of shadows and active light might seem to present a dimensionless painting, Chagall manages to convey a tremendous sense of depth through scale and shading. The buildings of the city are of a much smaller actual size than the house in the foreground despite the conception that they are actually intended to represent huge complexes as evidenced by their many windows and crowded proximity to each other. A few small roofs are included within the city complex as well to provide a point of comparison, if the house were located in the city. The presence of these smaller roofs also precludes the assumption that the house is outside of town as a result of the owner's desire to live in a house rather than an apartment complex. This emphasizes the idea that the house is excluded from the city on purpose, there is a reason for its distance and that reason is presumably coming from the city itself, as evidenced in the direction of the house dweller's gaze and the slightly downcast appearance of the house itself. Contributing to the offhand assumption that the painting is dimensionless is the fact that it is oil on canvas, traditionally a very flat medium. The only reference point available to the author are images presented on the internet, as the painting itself is housed in Belgium. It is not a frequently discussed work of Chagall's and therefore little information is provided as to evidence of brushstrokes and what these might suggest as to the meaning of the overall work. While the house, with its rough wood and intricate brick chimneys, seems to be texturally accurate, the rest of the painting, despite its hills and valleys, seems flat as well. Only the river and the sky rival the apparent textural details of the house, giving the impression that these are the only real things in the world as compared to the city, in which popular opinion holds everything important occurs. Through this analysis of "Blue House", many of Chagall's personal attitudes and approaches to art have been exposed. A great deal of his work was influenced by his early life in a small town in Russia called Vitebsk. "The characters, creatures, and buildings to be found on the outskirts of Vitebsk, where most of its Jewish population lived, and that were to become Chagall's obsessive lifelong subject" were often taken out of their actual context at the confluence of two major rivers, just as is the landscape depicted in "Blue House" (Wilson, 2007). While much of his work is seen to include scenes from the village or to incorporate scenes of world history within his village, "Blue House" is an example of Chagall "carrying Vitebsk with him, as in a suitcase of the mind, wherever he goes" (Wilson, 2007). Despite his deep appreciation for his own Jewish heritage and traditions, these same traditions served to isolate him from the larger community. "Jewish children were banned from attending state schools but Chagall went to the local state secondary school after his mother had bribed the headmaster" (Welton, 2003: 6). In addition, he grew up in a very observant Hasidic household, which included an "ancient ban on image-making" that necessarily pitted his personal lifetime desires against the beliefs of his father (Walther & Metzger, 2000: 1). With the encouragement of his mother, he began studying art in Vitebsk but soon traveled to St. Petersburg for more formal art training. "This event marked the beginning of his many journeys far away from his small village. After traveling to St. Petersburg, Chagall spent extensive time in Paris studying innovative new techniques in painting" ("Issues", 2003). He was influenced early on by Larionov and somewhat later by Gauguin and the Fauves and studied for a short space of time under Leon Bakst, all of which gave him a strong foundation in the concept of symbolist art (Hamilton, 1993: 435). Socially, Chagall lived in momentous times that did have an effect on his art as well. While his personal life illustrated the paradoxical isolation and inclusion he felt as a child, the period in which he painted this image was characterized by a significant change in social environments. Referring to his works produced up to 1920, one exhibition article illustrates how the painting, in combination with others produced in his earlier years, "underscore[s] the artist's inspiration derived from the creative fusion of the provincial world of the Eastern European Jewish shtetl and the significant historical events of the time, including the outbreak of World War I and the 1917 Russian Revolution. Chagall's early works incorporate these influences, and manifest a uniqueness in the artist's ability to process and translate them into a language of visual metaphor that creates his singular expression" ("Marc Chagall", 2001). In his book on Chagall, author Benjamin Harshav (2004) discusses how Chagall's continuous struggle to bridge the gap between his Jewish heritage, his non-Jewish modernity and his French approach to art and culture mirrors the social questions addressed at the time by numerous individuals attempting to come to grips with the modern concept of multiculturalism. Chagall's first patron was Jewish Lawyer Max Vinaver who paid for him to go to Paris on 1910, which would have a profound impact on how his art developed (Mark Chagall 1887-1985, 2001). While in Paris, not only did Chagall learn many new techniques and become acquainted with new approaches to art, he also gained new supporters for his work. Two examples were Robert and Sonia Delauney. "A native Russian, Sonia made a point of including Chagall in many of her social gatherings. Robert Delauney's use of Cubist technique and his lyrical sense of color was a strong influence on Chagall's assimilation of Cubist ideas" (Marc Chagall 1887-1985, 2001). While the Jewish and artist community remained his patrons, he had a wide freedom of choice regarding subject matter and style of approach. However, the harsh feelings and increasingly tense political climate leading into the first World War coupled with Chagall's inherent poverty through his early years necessarily limited him somewhat. Many of the conflicts of his personal, social and artistic life have been traced through the image presented in "Blue House." His desire to have the same advantages as those living in the big city as he struggled against both his poverty and the prohibitions against Judaism is found in the yearning look of the small individual pictured in the doorway. However, his pride in himself, confidence in his abilities and strength of his upbringing can also be found in the natural growth observed around the house and in its individuality and specificity as compared to the buildings of the city in which people can be assumed to have been crowded together in mass anonymity. It is a painting of contrasts and contradictions that nevertheless manages to present a unified whole. It is static and unmoving while being full of energy and deeply affecting to an observant viewer. In its many complexities, the painting captures much of what Chagall's art is all about, demonstrating a nice blend between his earliest works and demonstrating his transition into lighter colors and greater contrasts. Works Cited Chagall, Marc. "Blue House." (1917-1920). Marc Chagall Gallery. (2004). November 14, 2007 Hamilton, George Heard. Painting and Sculpture in Europe, 1880-1940. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Harshav, Benjamin. Marc Chagall and His Times: A Documentary Narrative. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. His, Kuo. "An Essay on Landscape Painting." Trans. Shio Sakanishi. 1936. November 14, 2007 < http://science.jrank.org/pages/9904/Landscape-in-Arts-Scholarship-on-Landscape.html> "The Issues of Art and Craft in the Life of Marc Chagall." Trial by Fire: Contemporary Glass. (2003). November 14, 2007 Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. "Marc Chagall 1887-1985." The Worldwide Art Gallery. 2001. November 14, 2007 "Marc Chagall: Early Works from Russian Collections." Indepth Arts News. New York: Jewish Museum, 2001. November 14, 2007 Walther, Ingo F. & Metzger, Rainer. Marc Chagall 1887-1985: Painting as Poetry. Germany: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 2000. Welton, Jude. Marc Chagall (Artists in their Time). London: Franklin Watts, 2003. Wikipedia contributors. "Sublime (philosophy)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (2006). November 15, 2007 Read More