Death of Dorcon 1961

This is Marc Chagall’s “Death of Dorcon”, and it looks like it was made with crayon or pastel—the colors have that soft, smudgy quality. I can just imagine Chagall rubbing the pigment into the paper, building up these dreamy, ethereal layers. Look at those figures floating in the sky, all in shades of green and pink, like a vision or a memory. What was Chagall thinking as he made this? I bet he was really feeling it, letting his imagination run wild. I see some shared sensibilities with other painters like Odilon Redon whose dream-like imagery comes to mind. That stroke of blue, cutting across the bottom, feels like a wave, or maybe a curtain, separating us from the scene. And those animals down there—cows, sheep, maybe a horse—they're like witnesses to the drama unfolding above. Chagall’s work reminds us that artists are always in conversation, riffing off each other’s ideas and pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. It's a way of saying that in painting, everything is open to interpretation, and that's where the magic happens.