Marc Chagall As Poet

I have always been a great fan of the Russian-French artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985). His use of colour, dream-scape and imagination is engaging. He was instrumental as a pioneer of modernism--synthesizing Cubism, Symbolism and Fauvism (the latter to give rise to Surrealism).  I am always interested in the overlap of the literary with the artistic. Chagall would seem to have been greatly interested in poetry and literature. His self-identification as a poet in one of his works, The Poet Reclining, suggests an interest in the literary that complemented his visual art. But there is a kind of broken immobility in the figure in the painting which may suggest an internal conflict within Chagall about writing and art. He had strong friendships in Paris with Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars and other poets.     /ez
The Poet Reclining (Le Poète allongé, 1915)