A true manifesto of Chagall's aesthetic conceptions

Chagall, Marc, Russian-French painter (1887-1985). Autograph manuscript and autograph letter signed.

N. p. o. d., circa 1927.

8vo. Manuscript: 16 pages on 4 bifolia. Letter: 1 page. In French.

 22.000,00

To Jacques Guenne, editor of "L'Art vivant". A moving autobiography in which Chagall recalls his childhood in the Tsarist Empire and his early years of artistic training: "My father, with blue eyes and hands covered with calluses, worked, prayed and kept silent all his life. I too was silent. I did not know what I was going to do... I had delicate hands and I sought a daintier occupation, and the most important thing, which would not make me turn away from the sky and the stars [...] In my province I have never heard the words art, the artist. But one day a comrade came to see me and, seeing my drawings, exclaimed: 'But you are a true artist'. What's an artist?, I asked". He also recalls his arrival in Paris in 1910 and his reaction to the works of the major artists of the second half of the 19th century: "At the Louvre I was afraid of Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, and soon my studio was full of paintings". He describes the evolution of his style, of his aesthetic ideas: "Everything around me, from the impressionists to the cubists, seemed too realistic [...] What tempted me the most was the invisible or so-called illogical side of form and spirit, without which the external truth was not complete for me, without resorting to the fantastic" (transl.).

Some stains, tiny marginal tears, a few small holes in the first leaft, but overall in fine condition.

Art.-Nr.: BN#52870 Schlagwörter: ,