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Marc Chagall as a book illustrator
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Marc Chagall’s works in book graphics are also known. Just now, the Moscow publishing house AST in the series “Collection Book” gave the reader a unique opportunity to look at the brilliant creator Marc Chagall from a different angle. This book is a reedition of “Dead Souls” by Nikolay Vasilyevich Gogol illustrated by the great artist. The book has a cir‑ culation of 2000 copies. Prehistory, as explained in the annotation, is as follows: “At the beginning of the 20th century, the patron of art and collector Ambroise Vollard had an idea of pub‑ lishing highly artistic books, illustrat‑ ed by painters, not book illustrators. This is how “Livre d’artiste” trend ap‑ peared, which means in French “book of the artist”. The result of this approach is Nikolay Gogol’s poem “The Adven‑ tures of Chichikov, or Dead Souls” with 96 etchings by Marc Chagall, which was published in 1948 as a limited edition. Printed on handmade paper with wa‑ termarks in the amount of 368 copies, these books were personally signed by
The creative work of our famous countryman Marc Chagall (1887–1985) is primarily known as the work of a brilliant painter. Although he was engaged in both graphics and scenography. The legendary creator also wrote poems, articles and essays in Yiddish. In 1964, Marc Chagall painted a plafond in the audience hall of one of the buildings of the Paris Opera — Opera Garnier. The artist worked on this project for about a year. the great painter and were intended for a narrow circle of selected persons. To‑ day, almost 70 years after the publica‑ tion of this unique book, you have the opportunity to personally see the vivid‑ ly depicted commentary. Gogol’s satiri‑
cal story, which is close to the painter, finds its expression in black and white etchings, unexpected for the artist’s typical oil and bright colors: “I think I would have missed something if I hadn’t done engraving and lithogra
Marc Chagall. Entrance of Chichikov to the city N. Etching, 1927.
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беларусь. belarus 2020
