Artist inspiration and artist influences. No biographies, dates or scholarly research here - this is a personal response to the work of Marc Chagall by Australian artist Fiona Morgan.

In a world filled with depressing soundbite-style news stories of crime & horror, isn't it a wonderful thing to have people who celebrate life?

Chagall's paintings tend to wander through happy reminiscing and imagining. I enjoy this in his work and admire the way he intertwined his symbols, all so fluid and childlike and dreamy.

And being a fan of colour, colour, colour (you may have noticed!), Chagall's masterful use of colour in his pictures make me smile. There's no fear there, nor is it overdone. For such a highly regarded fine artist that nearly everyone loves, I can't help but notice the free linework style he used and how this strongly reminds me of cartooning. Combining cartooning and 'fine art' painting? Thankyou, I'll have a large serve of that.

Most of all, his work speaks to me about emotion. Feelings conveyed by poetic impressions rather than careful explanations. It's so fitting, to me, that he also made stained glass windows! And transformed ceilings...

I think it's a wonderful thing to walk into a public building and be delighted and enchanted by the artwork adorning the ceiling. Unfortunately this does not happen often enough. But if you're in Paris, the opera house that's today best known by the name Opéra Garnier delivers.

These are photos I took while under the spell of enchantment. It was doubly potent because it was so completely unexpected to find the work of Chagall here. It was a random touristy visit that turned out to be a gem of an impromptu idea.

More Marc Chagall links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Chagall

http://www.chagallpaintings.org/mylife.html

http://www.chagallpaintings.org/biography.html

The Creative Cauldron series of posts explores and showcases the visual styles, techniques, attitudes, ideas, artists and paintings that have had the most impact on me. 

The rest of the series is accessible via the Creative Cauldron page. Have a meander if you please, and remember to check out my artworks on Flickr, and have an insider peek at life as an artist on Facebook.