“Despite all the troubles of our world, in my heart I have never given up on the love in which I was brought up or on man’s hope in love. In life, just as on the artist’s palette, there is but one single colour that gives meaning to life and art – the colour of love.”
Brimming with evocative symbols of romance, joy and nostalgia, Fiancée avec bouquet (Lot 1031) invites the viewer into an imaginative dreamscape featuring Marc Chagall’s most celebrated themes. Painted in 1977, the striking palette and playful figural arrangement found in the present work exudes an atmosphere of joy synonymous with the artist’s later works. At over a metre tall, the present work offers the viewer an immersive experience into the artist’s world. It was painted whilst Chagall was living in France and was working more frequently on large scale canvases. As seen in this multifarious composition, Chagall’s aesthetic vocabulary was so well developed by this t.mes and he was able to incorporate a vast variety of subjects on a single canvas.
Incorporating bright tones of red, yellow, green and the artist’s iconic blue hues, the present work conveys Chagall’s mastery of colour. Permeated with a vibrant and fiery red hue throughout, Fiancée avec bouquet showcases a rich interplay of blues and reds, illuminated by a yellow crescent moon, revealing the artist’s ability to convey a striking image with less than a handful of primary colors. Chagall was heavily influenced by the Mediterranean light of southern France and the bold palette of Fiancée avec bouquet is emblematic of the region’s influence upon him. It also serves to heighten the sensual nature of the composition.
The figure of the titular fiancée recalls both Chagall’s first wife Bella Rosenfeld, who died in 1944 but continued to inspire him throughout his life, as well as Chagall’s second wife Valentina ‘Vava’ Brodsky, with whom the artist was living at the t.mes and who brought a newfound optimism into the artist’s life after the loss of Bella.
Teeming with emblems connoting love, joy and memory under the light of a crescent moon, Chagall employs his distinctly oneiric imagery to create a romantic and dreamlike world. Fiancée avec bouquet combines the artist’s most archetypal motifs including the effusive bouquet of flowers, the figure of the bride, the flying man and the musicians that hark back to the works of his early years, the acrobats that dominate his later circus scenes and the animals that feature throughout his oeuvre. Portrayed from an aerial perspective, all of this is set against the backdrop of the artist’s hometown of Vitebsk, which comprised of churches, synagogues, and wooden structures. These symbols can be found in the artist’s most celebrated works. It is the prominence of his beloved muses, the iconic Vitebsk backdrop, the prototypical dreamscape and the artist’s innovative palette that marks Fiancée avec bouquet as a paragon of Chagall’s mature work.
「儘管我們的世界處處有險阻，但我在心中從未放棄過愛，我在愛的包圍下成長，我也沒有放棄過人類對愛的希望。生活好比藝術家的調色板，但只有一種顔色給生活和藝術賦予意義，那就是愛的顔色。」
《捧花新娘》（拍品編號1031）充滿了浪漫、喜悅和懷舊的象徵，令人沉醉不已，呈現了馬克·作於1977年，鮮明的用色和趣味十足的人物令《捧花新娘》與夏加爾後期的作品一樣，充滿歡欣喜悅。本作高度超過一米，彷彿要讓觀者置身其中。夏加爾創作此畫時正在法國居住，並且比以往更常使用大型畫布。從此作豐富的面貌中可以看出，夏加爾的美學語彙已經臻於完善，能夠巧妙地將各種各樣的主題融合在單個畫面中。
本作結合了夏加爾最經典的藍色調和艷麗的紅、黃、綠三色，展示了爐火純青的用色造詣。絢麗大膽的色彩反映了夏加爾深受南法地中海陽光的薰陶，同時也為觀眾帶來更強烈的感官衝擊。
本作結合了夏加爾最經典的藍色調和艷麗的紅、黃、綠三色，展示了爐火純青的用色造詣。絢麗大膽的色彩反映了夏加爾深受南法地中海陽光的薰陶，同時也為觀眾帶來更強烈的感官衝擊。
標題中的「新娘」令人聯想到夏加爾的兩任妻子。第一任妻子貝拉·羅森菲爾德在1944年離世，離世後仍繼續在他的生命中佔據著靈感女神的地位；第二任妻子華倫蒂娜·布羅德斯基（亦稱「華華」）在夏加爾創作《捧花新娘》時與他同住，為他失去貝拉後的人生注入積極樂觀的態度。
畫面上斜掛一彎新月，底下到處可見象徵浪漫、喜悅和懷舊之情的事物。夏加爾以夢境般的意象，創造出一個如夢似幻的浪漫世界。本作包含了不少夏加爾筆下的經典元素，例如令人想起早期作品的新娘、熱烈綻放的花束、飛翔的男人和樂手，還有後期馬戲團系列中經常出現的雜技演員，以及由始至終貫穿其作品的動物。作品從空中視角出發，一覽村莊的景觀，其中一排排的屋頂讓人聯想到夏加爾的故鄉維捷布斯克——那裏由基督教堂、猶太教堂和其他木建築組成。其中夏加爾出生的那棟紅房子，後來成爲了他不少畫作的主題。這些元素以夏加爾的家鄉維捷布斯克為出場背景，它們各具象徵意義，常見於夏加爾的著名作品中。