Grand bouquet sur une table c. 1978

This is a painting by Marc Chagall, and it’s full of these expressive marks, especially around the bouquet, which is full of these ruby red and lush green hues. I can just imagine Chagall in the studio, maybe with a vase of flowers actually in front of him, but then again, maybe not! He’s swishing these strokes, one after another, and they pile up into a mountain of pure feeling. The paint feels fairly thin, so I can imagine it drying quickly and Chagall applying another layer, always on the move. There’s this one little stroke of bright yellow near the center that sings out to me like a tiny bird. What do you think he was feeling when he put it there? Probably something joyful. It's a little bit like Matisse, except that where Matisse has a flattening effect, Chagall keeps the painting spatially ambiguous. It makes me think about how every artist converses with other artists, living or dead, and that’s how painting evolves.