In his early paintings, Marc Chagall (1887–1985) responds to the movements of his time, such as Fauvism, Cubism, Suprematism, and Surrealism. Full of poetry and pertinacity, he thus celebrates his personal experience in narrative and theatrical ways.

This publication is devoted to the origins of Chagall’s formal vocabulary, color schemes, and symbolism, and traces marked influences and stations in the life of the pioneering avant-garde artist based on his early, abstract, and figurative works of art. Their narrative elements, folklore motifs, and slight echoes of nostalgia ignite the viewer’s emotions and imagination while at the same time referring to Chagall’s sojourn in Paris prior to World War I, his journey to Berlin and exhibition there at the Galerie Herwarth Walden in 1914, as well as to the years around the time of the Russian Revolution, which he spent in his homeland of Russia.