Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Historic Art and Design

First Advisor

Matthew Nichols

Second Advisor

Morgan Falconer

Abstract

Marc Chagall and the Jewish Experience: A Personal Modernism in the Parisian Avant-Garde examines the interplay between Marc Chagall’s Jewish heritage and his engagement with the Parisian avant-garde of the early twentieth century. Chagall’s upbringing in the Russian Empire deeply informed his visual language, which persisted even as he explored the techniques and innovations of modernist movements. This thesis analyzes Chagall’s early works alongside close readings of key paintings such as I and the Village, 1911, Homage to Apollinaire, 1911–12, Self-Portrait with Seven Fingers, 1912–13, and Green Violinist, 1923–24, considering symbols, colors, compositions, and recurring motifs drawn from religion, tradition, and memory. It explores how Chagall navigated a dual identity—torn between the past and present, East and West—and how this tension shaped his nonconformity to any singular modernist movement. Exposure to peers such as Blaise Cendrars, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Robert and Sonia Delaunay, as well as his encounters with Cubism, Fauvism, and Orphism, further influenced his evolving style. Ultimately, Chagall’s consistent inclusion of Jewish motifs and folkloric expression, combined with modernist experimentation, produced a dreamlike, highly personal symbolic vocabulary that resisted categorization. This unique synthesis defined the singular artistic identity for which Chagall is celebrated today.

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