Chagall

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Marc Chagall was peculiarly Russian in his transformation of sordid reality into supreme beauty, his ``impassioned search for a new organization of the world,'' suggests Soviet art historian Kamensky. Although most Western critics maintain that Chagall became ``Chagall'' during his first stay in Paris (1910-1914), the author insists that the artist developed his symbolic vocabulary, his style fusing everyday and fantastic elements, in his native Russia and the newborn Soviet Union. We follow him through his childhood in the old town of Vitebsk, his formative years in Saint Petersburg (where he assimilated Russian symbolist and primitivist influences) and his return to his homeland amid the 1917 revolution, until his final departure in 1922. With its extraordinary wealth of first-rate reproductions of paintings and drawings, this volume is indispensable to understanding Chagall's development. (Dec.)

Library Journal

Kamensky is a leading Soviet Chagall scholar whose theme in this volume is the essentially Russian inspiration and optimistic personal vision of Chagall's art throughout his long career despite exile in France for more than 50 years. With his great popular acceptance and prolific artistic output, Chagall has been the subject of many monographs, but this one is unique in its focus on the 1907-22 period and its inclusion of certain translated documents: published statements by Chagall, early Soviet reviews of his work, and a 1973 interview. Kamensky's text has been translated into English from an earlier French translation, but it reads smoothly and could be enjoyed by students and interested laypersons. The reproductions are numerous and of good quality.-- Kathryn W. Finkelstein, M.Ln., Cincinnati