Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall I and the Village 1911 oil on canvas
Symbolism in Marc Chagall’s Paintings Cow : wonderful life : milk, meat, leather, horn, power Tree: another fertility life symbol Bosom ( often naked ): eroticism and fertility of life ( Chagall loved and respected women) Herring ( often also painted as flying fish ) : commermorates Chagall’s father working in a fish factory Pendulum clock : time, and modest life Candlestick : two candles symbolize the Shabbat or the menorah ( candle stick with seven candles ) or the Hanukkah- candle stick, and therefore the life of pious Jews Windows : Chagall’s love of Freedom, and Paris through the window Houses of Vitebsk ( often in paintings of his time in Paris ) feelings for his homeland Scenes of the Circus : Harmony of man and animal which induces Creativity in Man Crucifixion of Jesus: an unusual subject for a Jewish painter, and likely a response to the rise of anti – Semitism in Germany in the late 1930’s Horses: Freedom The Eiffel Tower: Up in the sky, freedom