‘La Cuillerée’, is a striking early work by Marc Chagall, created just two years after he had moved from St Petersburg to Paris. For Chagall, Paris promised social and religious...
‘La Cuillerée’, is a striking early work by Marc Chagall, created just two years after he had moved from St Petersburg to Paris. For Chagall, Paris promised social and religious freedom, with the artist describing the city as ‘lumière liberté’ (light of liberty). While Chagall was enrolled at the Académie de la Palette, he rarely attended classes, with his new artistic influences instead coming from the walls of the Louvre and Salons d’Automne and des Indépendants.
In ‘La Cuillerée’ or ‘The Spoonful’, the figure is full of warmth, as if Chagall is fondly reminiscing over a childhood memory. Away from his homeland of soviet Belarus, Chagall often turned to his past, with the influence of Russian folklore clear in his visual language and compositions. It is thought that ‘La Cuillerée’ is related to a larger gouache of the same title and subject, depicting his mother and father.
In a personal touch, on the reverse of the drawing Chagall has written the following musing in his native Russian tongue:
"... I have already written the letter and now that I look through it, I think it is stupid. It weighs on me ... to say something else and without a doubt ... and I want to... .. only what can be... so ... direct towards ... trample her... … ( just once again what to do in front of a friend, I want to cry and rejoice ... unlike like you) it is sad. I was with a stupid friend. He is a fool, boring as a soldier and rude. But that's not the point. I wander the streets, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly."