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An Orgy Becomes a Brawl: Chagall's Illustrations for Gogol's Dead Souls

14 April 2014 | By Josephine Roulet

Marc Chagall, Homage to Gogol, 1917

I was aware that Marc Chagall's work included book illustrations, but I had never paid them much attention until I discovered his etchings for 'Dead Souls', part of Professor Rayfield's new translation of Nikolai Gogol's novel. If you, like me, are fascinated by Chagall’s complex identity (caught at the crossroads between his Jewish origins, his native land and his Parisian life) you will find his etchings for Dead Souls are an excellent opportunity to attempt to understand the artist’s torn identity, as well as being, in my opinion, utterly and universally amusing.

‘Chichikov Arrives in Town’, Marc Chagall, c. 1923

By the time Chagall was commissioned to illustrate a book after he moved to Paris in 1922, he had already made his admiration for Nikolai Gogol well-known. In 1917, he had produced a magnificent composition called 'Homage to Gogol', and three years later designed the sets and costumes for 'The Government Inspector' to be shown at the Moscow State Yiddish Theatre. The fact that Chagall chose to work on Dead Souls next is therefore hardly surprising. Interestingly, as Chagall did later, Gogol worked on Dead Souls while away from Russia (in Rome). 

Gogol was Ukrainian-born; his mother was a descendant of Polish landowners and he wrote both in Ukrainian and Russian. It is difficult to say whether Chagall found common ground with Gogol's multiple identities and viewpoints, or whether it was nostalgia for his homeland that led him to Dead Souls. In any case, his etchings show how closely he read and understood the text. 


‘Sobakievich’, Marc Chagall, c. 1923

‘Laughter through tears’ is quite possibly what Chagall had in mind when working on Dead Souls, if we are to believe the account of his close friend, the poet Ivan Goll, describing the artist at work: “Marc sits there like a cobbler hammering away on his copperplates, an upright craftsman of God. His wife, who ministers to his art as a nurse minister to a sick man’s fever, reads the chapter aloud to him. They keep on laughing. Ida, their seven-year old, jumps down from the piano and wants to hear the story as well, and now the fantastic situations are re-created to the accompaniment of laughter by a strange family, with all the humour and tragedy of Russia.” [my emphasis] 


‘Sobakievich and his armchair’, Marc Chagall, c. 1923

Those who have read the novel will remember a journey that takes us across 19th century provincial Russia. On the road, the main protagonist, Chichikov, encounters different landowners. Gogol’s colourful descriptions of these characters are satirical, often unflattering and certainly larger than life. This was his attempt to highlight the flaws of Russian society in the 1820s. Gogol’s modern novel is at the meeting point between symbolism and caricature. It is exactly this meeting of genres that I saw again in Chagall’s etchings. No matter that the characters are depicted in meticulous detail, they are still far too grotesque to be realistic portraits - such is the genius of the “hidden comic”. 

An Orgy Becomes a Brawl’, Marc Chagall, c. 1923'

While Chagall’s etchings display a great sympathy toward the text, his unique style remains very much in evidence. Oversized elements; inconsistency of perspectives; and ‘floating’ characters, to name a few, are ever-present features of his dream-like world. Besides, the provincial settings in Dead Souls were the perfect environment for Chagall to explore his animal motifs, as he did continued to do throughout his career when depicting both peasant and Parisian life. Note how a gigantic cockerel has been added to the scene of Chichikov’s arrival. The cockerel is a recurrent motif in Chagall’s work, but also recalls the imagery of Russian folktales. Here, I think it could not be more in harmony with the troika (horse-drawn coach), the tea merchant and the two muzhiki (Russian peasants) that populate the scene. In using this motif, Chagall signs up both his own and Gogol’s work to a long Russian tradition. 


'Chichikov and Sobakievich After Dinner', Marc Chagall, c. 1923

The illustrations have been published together with the vignettes in Donald Rayfield's edition. It is the most complete to date, containing 96 plates printed on high quality A4 paper. The translation is flawless and highly accurate, which is a pleasant change from the awkward translations of the novel I have come across previously.  The illustrations are such a great companion to the text that whether you are a Russian literature enthusiast or a Chagall admirer, you will be utterly absorbed. 

Purchase this edition of Gogol's 'Dead Souls' on Amazon here.