Chagall's color-drenched dreamscape returns to Korea in blockbuster show
“I paint, perhaps, because it takes the place of the words I lack,” wrote Marc Chagall (1887-1985) in 1957, in a letter to French critic Jean Paulhan — a quiet revelation from one of the titans of modern art. The Russian-born French artist’s signature sense of childlike fantasy, rendered in a palette of ripe, saturated colors, has cast its spell across borders for a century. His romantic vista unfurls like a reverie half-remembered: a blotchy medley of embracing couples, blooming bouquets, donkeys, roosters, fiddlers, winged apparitions, fish, mermaids, nymphs, as well as recurring echoes of folklore and Jewish symbolism. Suspended in a gravity-free dreamscape, these motifs rarely appear in their natural hues. Instead, they coalesce in an organically surreal rhythm — artificial in tone, yet inexplicably harmonious. “When Matisse dies,” Picasso once said, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color really is.” Korea has been no exception in its enduring fascination with the modern master, as evidenced by the number of retrospectives and exhibitions h
May 27, 2025By Park Han-sol
