Book Review: "My Life" by Marc Chagall

Marc Chagall, artist and innovator, writes his life story in a naturally artistic way. Including images of vast history and modernism, it has often been considered one of his most endearing pieces of art and to this day, many people still read, review and study the book in hoping to find some more understandings between Marc Chagall and the wondrous artworks he created. When I read this, I already knew who Marc Chagall was but I had no idea that this book was going to be so intense and incredible in its attempt to link man and art by this historical setting that is completely dismembered by war and has been put together in a story that is so harmonious that you could never think he was not a writer by trade initially.

Let's take a look at some of the quotations that I thought were especially great in his own autobiographical depiction of some troubling times:

"My grandfather's house was full of the sounds and smells of art. It was only from the hides, hung up to dry like linen. In the dark of the night it seemed to me that there were not only smells, but a whole flock of blessings, breaking through the boards, flying into space. The cows were slaughtered cruelly. I excused it all. The skins dried piously, offering tender prayers, praying the heavenly ceiling to forgive the sins of their slaughterers. My grandmother always fed me with meat that was specially roasted, grilled and baked. What was it? I didn't know exactly. Maybe the stomach, neck, ribs, liver or lungs. I didn't know. For those days I was particularly stupid and, it seems to me, happy. Grandfather, I still remember you."

There are a lot of strange artistic relations from the everyday lifestyle to things that are more historical and autobiographical in the author's past and some of these things are often aligned with things we do not do today. It is a brilliant representation of the pieces and anecdotes that create a human being into what they become in the future.

"I looked into our vast, gloomy drawing room through the half-open door. There was nobody there. The looking glass, cold and solitary, swinging free, shone strangely. I rarely looked at myself in it. I was afraid someone might catch me in the act of admiring myself. Long nose with alas, wide nostrils, shaped cheekbones, a rough profile. At times I would stand lost in this contemplation. What is the meaning of my youth? I am growing in vain. Useless, short-lived beauty that congeals in the glass. As soon as I reach thirteen, my care-free childhood will come to an end and all the sins will fall on my head. Shall I sin? I burst into loud laughter and splash the mirror with my white teeth."

Again, this one may be a slightly less familial-based anecdote, it still lets us into the mind of the man involved. He is wondering about his own youth, an existential analysis whilst, cliché-like but also in depth, staring into the mirror.

Throughout the book, we get analysis on a ton of different subjects that no matter how small, seem to be connected to the character’s own analysis of themselves. The way in which this can manifest include through education, through family, through the mirrors and deaths of others, through oil lamps and of course, artworks. When we experience the present of the book’s purpose, like we did with the mirror, we get a massive philosophical debate between how this links in with the artwork through drawings that litter and populate the book throughout. It is a brilliant and purposeful way of which storytelling takes place and honestly, I do not think I have read a better autobiography of an artist for a very long time. It is one of those books that not only gets you thinking about the art and its interconnecting real-life subjects, but it also makes you think about yourself. You are drawn in by your very own existential arguments and how they too, are connected to the artist and what he draws. Even though you are all such individuals with such different histories.