MARC CHAGALL (1887-1985)

'It's only my town, mine, which I have rediscovered.
I come back to it with emotion.
It was at this time that I painted my Witebsk series of 1914. I painted everything that met my eyes. I painted at my window, I never walked down the street without my box of paints' (Chagall, Marc Chagall, My Life, London, 1957, p. 118).

Le mendiant (Le nettoyage rituel) was painted in 1914, at the time when Marc Chagall had returned from Paris to his hometown, Vitebsk, in Russia. Having intended to visit Russia only briefly, the outbreak of war would prevent Chagall from returning to Paris until 1923. While living in Vitebsk, Chagall immersed himself in the enchanting familiarity of his surroundings, creating a number of works that depict the inhabitants and scenery of his native town; his family, street sweepers, beggars and Jewish rabbis, all became the artist's subjects.

Dressed in long, dark clothes, the beggar fills the length of the canvas of Le mendiant (Le nettoyage rituel), a prominent physical presence within the rustic interior setting. The earthy colours of the scene radiate a sense of warmth and intimacy, evoking Chagall's inherent empathy and ardent feeling for the man he has depicted. Chagall stated about one of the beggars he encountered, 'Sometimes a man posed for me who had a face so tragic and old, but at the same time angelic' (M. Chagall quoted in J. Wullschlager, Chagall Love and Exile, London, 2008, p. 187). Chagall called works such as Le mendiant (Le nettoyage rituel), 'documents' (F. Meyer, Marc Chagall, New York, 1963, p. 217), of his time in Vitebsk, due to the sense of naturalism that they convey. In contrast to many of the dreamlike, fantastical and experimental images that Chagall had created while in Paris, Le mendiant (Le nettoyage rituel) is rooted in a sense of reality and observation. Vitebsk was no longer a nostalgic memory, as it had been while the artist was in Paris, but had become a vivid reality, which Chagall has transposed into his painting.