Color lithograph on Velin Arches paper, 41 x 59 cm in light of a 52 x 70 cm passe-partout;
In the catalog of all works (so-called.
Publisher: Maeght Éditeur, Paris, in collaboration with Atelier Mourlot.
Reference: Catalogue Raisonné) by Fernand Mourlot, item no. 291.
Maeght Éditeur in 1957 was the publisher of the first edition of lithographs made by the famous Paris printing house Mourlot Frères (the best lithographers of the era) for Jacques Lassaigne's book Chagall. These were lithographs in 23 x 39 cm format.
The present lithograph is from the second edition in large format ( gallery format) for the exhibition needs of the Maeght Gallery with Chagall's permission.
Marc Chagall is one of the most prominent representatives of the avant-garde of the 20th century, associated with surrealism, although he created his own poetic style based on memories, metaphors and vivid colors, he is a figure who cannot be pigeonholed. He painted like a child who possessed the technique of an old master and the imagination of a surrealist.
With Chagall, gravity does not exist. If the figures in the painting are in love or happy - they simply float upwards. He was the one who introduced pure, even naive joy and romanticism into modern art, which was a rarity in the brutal 20th century. His style is a unique mix of memories from his native Vitebsk (now Belarus) and the modernity of Paris. In one painting, he was able to paint a village goat playing the violin next to the Eiffel Tower. Throughout his life, he claimed to carry his hometown under his eyelids. For Chagall, color was not just a hue - it was an emotion. He was famous for his deep blues ("bleu Chagall") and intense reds. He used to say, "When I paint, I think of nothing else but color." His greatest muse was his wife, Bella. She appears in hundreds of his paintings, even many years after her untimely death. Chagall believed that love is the only color that gives meaning to art.
The motif of the woman at the bouquet was repeated dozens of times in Chagall's work, but "Le Nu au Bouquet" (often catalogued under the number Mourlot 195) is one of his most sensual and cherished lithographs from the 1950s.
Chagall lived to be almost 98 years old and painted almost until his last day. He died in an elevator, returning to his studio in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. It can be said that he "flew away" to his world exactly like the characters in his paintings.
