uly, 7th, 2008, this is the first thing that catched my eyes when launching Firefox today. Google reserves today to honour the Jewish artist, Marc Chagall. You can see on Google homepage’s logo… (click on the image on the left to see a full snapshot). The logo features some of the best Chagall’s master pieces: I and the village, Birthday, a detail in The violin player and maybe another art work on stained – glass window… More about Marc Chagall on my blog: Marc Chagall – the dreamer, the Jew, the painter

say nothing of the sky, of the stars of my childhood. They are my stars, my sweet stars; they accompany me to school and wait for me on the street till I return. Poor dears, forgive me. I have left you alone on such a dizzy height! My town, sad and gray! As a boy, I used to watch you from our doorstep, childishly. To a child’s eyes you were clear. When the walls cut off my view, I climbed up on a little post. If then I still could not see you, I climbed up on the roof. Why not? My grandfather used to climb up there too. And I gazed at you as much as I pleased…

(My Life – Marc Chagall)

Promenade

Above the town

Birthday

ou would surely ask me why, after glimpsing at many schools and styles of visual art, from classical impressionistic paintings to modern mixed media pieces then settle my favourite to this now quite popular and old fashioned style. I must say that it is his naive realistic style that interests me. And a Jew’s most concentrated subjects of fantasy, nostalgia and religion that fuse toghether are also the common experiences that remain in me throughout the years.

It sounds like the vestiges of Existentialism which were spreading among intellectuals of the 60s’ South Vietnamese cities that maintain an effect on me, but till now, I’d found myself almost liberated from those heritages by re-discovering new forms of joie de vivre, while still maintaining spicies for un-certainties, times, and childhood. The rationale inside Chagall’s works is an old-longing doctrine which states that a painting, like a poem, ought to symbolize the experiences of life as well as the feelings they evoke. It is in his paintings that I’ve found all my memoires, event and emotional, merge together as a whole.

I and the village

Solitude

The acrobat

he Jewish artist’s first touch on mine mind is actually through his autobiography My Life. I remember me leading almost a nomadic life, wandering around with my thoughts and came into his world, a floating above reality where people and objects defy the earth’s gravity. Then through his paintings, his splendid style that led me into understanding his language of oil and canvas, and for the first time, persuading me on such a power, the power of imagination.

Lovers in the lilacs

The three candles

Equestrienne