Marc Chagall (Vitebsk, 1887 – Saint-Paul, 1985) was a Belarusian painter and printmaker who worked primarily in Paris, known for his use of bright, vivid colors to create dynamic and whimsical pieces. Chagall traveled frequently throughout his career, often using his travels as inspiration for his paintings and prints. Today, Chagall’s famous paintings are more accessible through the prints the artist created of his paintings. Created in 1962, Marc Chagall’s La Baie des Anges (The Bay of Angels) is a lithograph featuring the French coastal landscape and the figure of a siren.
1. The Bay of Angels depicts the city of Nice.
The landscape at the bottom of the print captures the coastline of the southern French city of Nice. The dark, deep blue hues of the city and the beach contrast with the round, yellow-and-white sun on the right-hand side of the composition, ultimately drawing the viewer into the rich, bold blue color of the landscape.
2. The coastline is the Baie des Anges
The Baie of Anges is the name of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea that extends between Antibes and Nice. The Baie des Anges gets its name from a legend that says that angels guided Adam and Even to the bay after they were exiled from Eden. Given the name of the print, it is likely that the bay depicted at the bottom of the lithograph is the Baie des Anges.
3. It was designed for the French Tourist Commissariat.
The Bay of Angels was commissioned to be used as a poster to advertise Nice and the Côte d'Azur (also known as the French Riviera) to people outside of France. Located on the Mediterranean coastline in southern France, Nice was an important tourist destination, even attracting the most famous of artists during the twentieth century.
4. It is a quintessential example of Chagall's surrealist style.
The central figure of the composition, the siren with bright orange hair, appears to float above the city and the coast. She is absorbed by the brilliantly colorful bouquet of flowers, seeming to exist apart from the viewer and the city of Nice. Floating figures are a common motif in Chagall's works, and the separation between the siren and the landscape enhance the surreal and dreamlike nature of the composition.
5. The Bay of Angels is one of Chagall's many Nice-inspired works.
Chagall's love of Nice and the French coast was a defining part of his career, and he believed that Nice was where he was "born for the second time." The Mediterranean coast evoked a sense of freedom in the artist, and inspired many whimsical and dreamlike works. Most notably, Chagall would return to the subject of Nice for his 1967 series "Nice and the Côte d'Azur," which included 12 color lithographs produced in collaboration with the French printmaker Charles Sorlier.
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