I am a little Jew of Vitebsk. All that I paint, all that I do, all that I am, is just the little Jew of Vitebsk. Marc Chagall More Quotes by Marc Chagall More Quotes From Marc Chagall You cannot explain me with "isms." They are very bad for an artist. What one must believe in is color. Marc Chagall color believe art The freer the soul, the more abstract painting becomes. Marc Chagall abstract-painting freedom soul Everything in art must spring from the movement of our whole life-stream, of our whole being - including the unconscious. Marc Chagall movement spring art In my youth, poverty enriched me, but now I can afford wealth. Marc Chagall poverty youth adversity Neither Imperial Russia, nor the Russia of the Soviets needs me. They don't understand me. I am a stranger to them. I'm certain Rembrandt loves me. Marc Chagall russia stranger needs On cannot be precise, and still be true. Marc Chagall being-true stills truth I am a child who is getting on. Marc Chagall children One fine day as my mother was putting the bread in the oven, I went up to her and taking her by her flour-smeared elbow I said to her, Mama I want to be a painter. Marc Chagall elbows mother want The habit of ignoring Nature is deeply implanted in our times. This attitude reminds me of people who never look you in the eye; I find them disturbing and always have to look away. Marc Chagall nature eye attitude One must always be careful not to let one's work be covered with moss. Marc Chagall moss careful be-careful No academy could have given me all I discovered by getting my teeth into the exhibitions, the shop windows, and the museums of Paris . Beginning with the market - where, for lack of money, I bought only a piece of a long cucumber - the workman in his blue overall, the most ardent followers of Cubism , everything showed a definite feeling for proportion, clarity, an accurate sense of form, of a more painterly kind of painting, even in the canvases of second-rate artists. Marc Chagall paris artist blue The most authentic Russian Impressionism leaves one perplexed if one compares it with Monet and Pissarro. Here, in the Louvre, before the canvases of Manet, Millet and others, I understood why my alliance with Russia and Russian art did not take root. Marc Chagall russia roots art But perhaps my art is the art of a lunatic, I thought, mere glittering quicksilver, a blue soul breaking in upon my pictures. Marc Chagall soul blue art Color is everything. When color is right, form is right. Marc Chagall form color I work in whatever medium likes me at the moment. Marc Chagall likes moments imagination I am out to introduce a psychic shock into my painting, one that is always motivated by pictorial reasoning: that is to say, a fourth dimension. Marc Chagall psychics painting dimensions Art is foremost a state of mind, and only secondarily a problem of form. Marc Chagall problem mind art But my knowledge of Marxism was limited to knowing that Marx was a Jew, and that he had a long white beard. I said to Lunatcharsky (the political communist commissar for Education, 1918, fh) 'Whatever you do, don't ask me why I painted in blue or green, and why you can see a calf inside the cow's belly, etc. On the other hand you're welcome: if Marx is so wise, let him come back to life and explain it himself'. I showed him my canvases. Marc Chagall wise white hands What counts is art. painting, a kind of painting that is quite different from what everyone makes it out to be. But what kind? Will God or someone else give me the strength to breathe the breath of prayer and mourning into my paintings, the breath of prayer for redemption and resurrection? Marc Chagall prayer giving art My mother's love for me was so great Marc Chagall mothers-love justify mother
