Marc Chagall, I and the Village, 1911

Born in Belarus (then part of the Russian Empire), Marc Chagall studied first at St. Petersburg, then in Paris. Many critics describe his art as full of home imagery striving for Paris. While in Paris, Chagall was inspired by Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and Surrealism. While his paintings stay true to his home, they are often painted in various different styles.

Chagall's earlier paintings represented the good and bad of human society such as birth, marriage and death. He used bouquets, lovers, crescent moons, chasidish Jewish life in shtetls and the emotional people of his small town in Belarus, as motifs. He is well renown for his stain glass windows at cathedrals such at Metz and Reims and the University Hospital in Jerusalem. Because of his Jewish influences, the Nazis targeted his artwork and put it in their exhibit as "Degenerate Art" where it had opposite effects of what the Nazis originally had in store.

Chagall had his own personal style: avant-garde Paris, and naive and poetic imagery.
At the time he went against mainstream modern notions and returned to the world of illustrating the bible like Fra Angelico. He strayed from the normal biblical imagery and headed more into patriarchs of the Old Yestament. For example he had many paintings of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Many critics tend to sort Chagall's work into three categories. 1) The founders of Judaism, 2) Nationhood achievement of Joshua, Samson, David, and Solomon and 3) The solitude and integrity of the Prophets. When depicting the bible, Chagall prefers grandiose figures and the festive, joyous, erotic, familial, and miraculous aspects of Judaism. He interprets every verse for himself instead of for the public and draws from his heart and memory.

He tends to stick with bold bright blotches of color. Chagall's characters, while telling the story of a patriarch, also deal with the emotions from the ghettos of his hometown. There is no idealization of the human form, just raw, sincere, lumpy humans with folded hands.

After a lifetime of two marriages, 98 years of life, and religious refuge, Chagall died in France 1985.