Marc Chagall

At the center of this painting, the faces of a goat and a man meet, their pupils connected by a faint and uneven white line. The contours of their noses, cheeks, and chins form the basis of a set of interlocking diagonals, concentric circles, planes of color, and fragmented forms. This central pair is joined by floating figures and vignettes that are interspersed, dreamlike, throughout the composition: at left, a woman milks a cow; above, a floating face appears in a church entrance; a row of houses features two that are upside down.

Chagall painted I and the Village one year after moving from [what is now Belarus] to Paris, where he joined a vibrant community of international artists known as La Ruche (The Beehive), so called for their proximity and productive exchange, which took place in the neighborhood of Montparnasse. Inspired in part by the recent development of Cubism, I and the Village displays Chagall’s distinct vocabulary of abstraction, characterized by fantastic colors and folkloric imagery drawn from memories of the artist’s Belarus home, a peasant town on the outskirts of Vitebsk. The title of this work, supplied by the poet Blaise Cendrars, Chagall’s close friend, evokes the relationship of the artist to his home and puns on the interpenetrating eyes of its central figures.

Imagine you are inside this painting. What do you see, hear, or smell?

Marc Chagall made this painting after he moved away from his childhood home. He grew up in the Russian Empire (now Belarus). To depict his beloved home, Chagall combined scenes from his memories of the village.

This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.

Acquired by Nell Walden (1887-1975), Berlin, 1916 [1]; returned to Marc Chagall, Paris, 1926 [2]; purchased from the artist by René Gaffé, Brussels, February 22, 1926 [3]; acquired by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, June 13, 1945.

[1] Karoline Hille, Marc Chagall und das deutsche Publikum, Cologne: Böhlau, 2005, p. 55, p. 271, no. 15. Included in Chagall's solo exhibition at Herwarth Walden's Galerie Der Sturm, Berlin, [May/June] 1914. Herwarth Walden, Expressionismus: Die Kunstwende, Berlin: Der Sturm, 1918, p. 21.
[2] See letter Nell Walden, Schinznach to James Johnson Sweeney, New York, November 14, 1946, Collection files, Department of Painting and Sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
[3] Reproduced in René Gaffé, "Réflexions d'un collectionneur," Cahiers de Belgique, vol. 2, no. 2 (February 1929), p. 60. Included in the exhibition Art In Our Time: 10th Anniversary Exhibiton, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 10-September 30, 1939, no. 184. On extended loan from Gaffé to The Museum of Modern Art, New York during the war.

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