Motifs of love and flowers permeate the entire œuvre of Marc Chagall. His return to France in 1948, where he settled in Vence, marked a significant period for the artist's work. Here, he had bouquets of freshly cut flowers delivered to his studio daily so that he could explore their form and colour in varying mediums.
First introduced into his work in the early 1920s, the image of the vase of flowers is used by Chagall as a symbol with which to express the profound and all-encompassing love the artist felt for his first wife, Bella. After her death in 1944, he continued to employ the motif as a means of expressing sentiments of adoration and passion.
Chagall professed that he did not deliberately create symbolic works of art, yet the autobiographical lexicon we are presented with in his artworks is obvious. Bouquets, referencing abundance, romantic live and the manifestation of life, became a mainstay in his work. The bouquet represents both his enduring love for Bella, as well as the happiness recaptured by his second marriage to Valentina “Vava” Brodsky, who he wed in 1952.
