Marc Chagall - The Heron

The work is from a series of illustrations Chagall created in 1923 for an edition of Jean de La Fontaine's fables. A poet and writer who lived between 1621 and 1635, La Fontaine wrote two series of tales inspired by the fables of Phaedrus and Aesop, in which short stories featuring animals serve as metaphors for human vices and virtues. This panel illustrates the fable of the heron, which concludes with the motto "He who desires too much gets nothing."

Marc Chagall was undoubtedly the most suitable artist for illustrating a book of fairy tales. His entire artistic output expresses a surreal dimension with a magical, dreamlike quality. In this work, the laws of nature are transcended through a conception of space that breaks all rules of perspective. Formally, Chagall uses a strongly expressionist language, with the subject summarized in a few bold strokes of great personality. The dense hatching that characterizes the rest of the illustration is extraordinary, creating an oblique, almost whirlwind rhythm. With the same hatching, the artist arranges the shadows and indicates the reflections of light on the surface of the water.

Mark Zakharovič Shagal was born in Vitebsk, Belarus, in 1887. A naturalized French artist, he took the name Marc Chagall and died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1985. By the 1910s, he was a well-known artist in St. Petersburg and moved to Paris, where he frequented Delaunay, Apollinaire, and Léger. In 1917, he took part in the Russian Revolution and became art commissioner for the Vitebsk region. In 1923, he returned to Paris permanently and became a French citizen in 1937. During World War II, Chagall, of Jewish origin, was forced to emigrate to the United States. In 1949, he returned to Europe, settling in Provence.

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