Paysage à l’Isba 1968

Marc Chagall painted Paysage à l’Isba with oils to create a world that feels both dreamlike and deeply rooted. The colours are intense, almost otherworldly, but the strokes? They're so present, so human. You can almost feel Chagall’s hand moving across the canvas, layering the paint, building up the textures. Look at the way the isba, that traditional Russian house, leans and tilts. The paint is thick here, loaded with reds and browns that give the house a palpable weight, as if it's pressing against the sky. But it’s also floating, tethered to the ground by only the most tenuous of brushstrokes. The whole thing feels like a memory, solid yet elusive. Chagall reminds me of Klee; these guys were both wizards of the canvas. They create worlds that are both familiar and utterly strange, inviting us to lose ourselves in the act of seeing. It’s not about knowing what we see, but feeling it, viscerally, like a half-remembered dream.