THE COVER

摘要

HIS MOTIFS ARE FAMILIAR ENOUGH TO BE HIS SIGNA-ture: flying cows, fiddlers on a roof, levitated lovers, praying rabbis, crucified Christs, primitive villages with streets that run to infinity, tropical foliage and flowers, quarter moons, memories wearing folkloric costume. His characters suffer pain and they suffer ecstasy. They float, they fall, they rise again. His canvases are holy commotions, surreal, enchanting, whimsical, profound, and threaded with joy. Such is the work of Marc Chagall (1887-1985). Born in a small village in Belarus', the eldest of nine siblings, he died nearly a century later in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in the French Maritime Alps; he had been a citizen of his adopted country for almost exactly half his years.