Marc Chagall - Master of livre d’artiste: Selected Prints
12 October 2012 – 2 December 2012
Hermitage Theatre Foyer (225)

On 12 October 2012 at the State Hermitage Museum an exhibition was opened entitled Marc Chagall: livre d'artiste (the artist's book). This book was a special type of publication, produced at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The illustrative and compositional elements were executed using the same techniques employed in the original engraving (etching, lithography, xylography etc.). This creative work grants a great deal of freedom to leading artists rather than the professional engravers and illustrators. The print run for the publication is strictly limited.

The State Hermitage Museum collection of Chagall’s books numbers eleven publications, which were acquired by the museum in the 1980s (nine of these were given by the author himself). They were displayed in entirety in 1987. The current exhibition is small, comprising prints of five books  – from large projects in the 1920s, executed in black and white engravings in metal, to work from the 1960s (coloured lithography and xylography). Without pretending to completeness, the livre d'artiste exhibition gives a representation of the main features of Chagall's creativity – both as an illustrator (interpreter), and as a master of the print.

The first major works by the artist in livre d'artiste are associated with the name of the famous Parisian art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard. In 1923-25 Vollard commissioned Chagall to execute 96 metal engravings to illustrate Dead Souls. The engravings were to be published in 1927, but Vollard for unknown reasons delayed the publications. The book, including the engravings for the first publication was released in 1948 by a different publisher – Tériade (real name Stratis Eleftheriades). The publication included a list of illustrations: 11 etchings, reproducing all the engravings at a smaller size, and 11 headpieces with initials (evidence about the creation of these additional images is essentially lacking and needs clarification).

Work on Dead Souls does much to define Chagall’s relationship to the text – from literal representation to free interpretation. The uniqueness of this book is how seamlessly it combines these principles and continues them. Chagall not only embodies Gogol’s descriptions and artistic techniques, but continues and develops them. Gogol’s world turns around Chagall's, and the writer’s language becomes his.

Following Dead Souls Vollard commissioned the artist to illustrate La Fontaine’s Fables. Originally the book was supposed to be in colour: in 1926-1927 Chagall made gouache sketches which professional engravers were to reproduce in colour using etching. This task proved impossible, and in the end the artist (with the assistance of professionals, whose role is not fully clear) engraved one hundred pictures which were printed in a single colour. In 1932, copies were printed and as happened with the Dead Souls engravings, were placed in Vollard’s storage. The edition, supplemented by two engraved covers, was published only in 1952, thanks to Tériade.

The relationship to the text is fundamentally different. Chagall does not expand the narrative, but rather compresses it, sacrificing detail. Often, the image is transformed into an emblem and head-piece that matches the name rather than a development of the plot. Moralising is disregarded. Chagall’s illustrates the Fables not as moralistic tales but as amusing stories.

The main thing that distinguishes the style of the prints is the subtly designed black and white effects, ranging from powerful contrast to the soft flicker. The whimsical play of light and shadow, nuanced colours create the impression of light and air, but at the same time and the atmosphere of a fairy tale. La Fontaine’s main characters are animals and have not been anthropomorphised, but have been psychoanalysed to endow them with expressive poses and even engage in mimicry.

In the post-war books Chagall’s association with painting is even more obvious - and more direct. So, the colour lithography for Daphnis and Chloe and Circus, released by Tériade is made up of masterful sketches in gouache and watercolour. This hard work was done in collaboration with professional lithographers, whose main task was to expand the image onto the required number of plates (18), according to the number of colours needed to replicate the colours of the original picture.

Long's novel Daphnis and Chloe was released in 1961 with 42 colour lithographs by Chagall. Chagall interpreted the events in the novel with varying degrees of freedom: some close to the text, others are freer. Many episodes are supplemented with details commenting on what is taking place or extending its meaning (a two-faced figure, naked lovers floating, references to the biblical story). Landscape is no less important than the action. Impressions of the real landscape (multiple sheets of sketches featuring recognisable landmarks made in Greece) and Long’s idyllic descriptions are translated into the image of nature as a whole, uniting land, sky, plants and animals. This is not the background, but an active environment, organically including action and the characters.

The Circus, published in 1967, includes 23 colour and 15 black and white lithographs, alternating with each other. The text, written at the request of Te'riade by Chagall himself, consists of prose and poetic fragments, and is not a story about a circus, but is a lyrical monologue. The complex drama is based on a triple relationship of text, colour and black and white pages. The image of the circus is associated with memories from Vitebsk; the image of the sublime and the tragic; an image with a complex metaphorical meaning. However, this is an obvious metaphor for Chagall’s art itself. The sad clown smiling at the audience is the alter ego of the artist.

Colour and black and white illustrations of the book differ not only visually, but also, to a large extent, thematically. The first are rich, flamboyant and spectacular. The theme for most of them is artists as seen by Chagall as a spectator (with almost no text). Black and white lithographs are compositionally more complex, confused, require gradual examination. Techniques using fine, rich nuances (brush, pencil, scratching, textured paper) suggests a close perception. In these sheets, the emphasis is on the personal, associative experience (in this sense they correspond to the text, although it does not illustrate it).

For the last book exhibited Poems, Chagall again takes on the role of writer and artist. Published in 1968, by Genevan publisher Gerald Cramer, it includes 31 poems translated from Yiddish or Russian into French. One of them dates from 1909, and the rest were written between 1930 and 1965. Twenty-four coloured illustrations were created using wood engraving (almost unique for Chagall) executed in collaboration with Jacques Frelaut, an employee of the Lacouriére workshop.

Chagall’s poetry is a lyrical reflection and memories of home town or departed family: father, mother and brother. Chagall’s prints as if he is showing the images that stand behind the poem, or are related to them in the artist’s imagination. Sometimes the image is associated with the text quite literally, sometimes it is purely associatively. Often this is a compressed (or expanded) formula for the whole poem or a few lines. Thus, the human figure, flying over the city in a huge boot is a witty paraphrase quatrain, in which an angel tells Chagall the he has a "long, long journey" and "exalt" his "name above the houses" (Like a Savage). In these vivid visual images, the textual information (angel in a flash  – in the same poem, or “rabbi’s flying head” – in another) are not shown, there is no need for repetition. The prints do not so much illustrate as they do complete the poems – just as in Circus, the text complements the image.

Chagall’s books are different. It is impossible to derive a general formula for them, we can only identify some of the features that characterise the artist’s role in the history of the livre d’artiste. Unlike many other artists Chagall did not design books, nor did he try to visually link the text and the image (sometimes head-pieces or end-pieces occur but they do not play an essential role), nor does he experiment with fonts or handwriting. The text is important for him not as an image but as a system of verbal images. The main thing for Chagall, in his own words was the feeling of kinship, the harmony of words and images. The relationship between illustrations and the text differ (from the literal to the free play of associations), but their internal relationship remains the same – this is special and exclusive to Chagall, and often paradoxical. Freedom of imagination is rooted in the experience of the text, and literalness turns into his own very personal interpretation. The graphic style used in the variety of techniques and methods are associated with the nature of the literary work. These features suggest Chagall as a true master of the livre d'artiste.

The exhibition curator is Mikhail Vitalyevich Balan, a scientific researcher for the State Hermitage Museum’s Department of Western European Fine Art.