Marc Chagall: Daphnis and Chloe - Softcover

The Russian Jew, Marc Chagall, like many other twentieth-century artists, composers, and writers, found inspiration in a bucolic love-story from ancient Greece called "Daphnis and Chloe". Touching yet humorous, naive and yet at the same time highly sophisticated, "Daphnis and Chloe" is the story of a shepard boy and girl who fall desperately in love and find themselves facing enormous obstacles to their happiness. Goethe said of the story: "One would do well to read it every year, to be instructed by it again and again, and to receive anew the impression of its great beauty." Chagall's lus lithographs - reproduced here in full color - encapuslate the lyricism and sensual frankness of this tale. In creating his prints the artist was inspired by first-hand impressions of Greece and by memories of folktales from his homeland. Chagall's vibrant splashes of color, fluid line work, and simple yet eloquent faces and figures capture both the liveliness and poignancy of a timeless pastoral text.

An ancient Greek love story written by the poet Longus, Daphnis and Chloe is set on the island of Lesbos, where two foundlings are raised with care and find great joy in nature and their simple lives as shepherds. Absolute innocents, young Daphnis and Chloe fall in love, but they don't know what love is. As they puzzle over their curious predicament, their beauty attracts would-be seducers and scheming suitors, and their happiness is threatened on all fronts. As their guardians confer and nymphs and gods get involved, Longus weaves a pastoral romance radiant with the beauty of nature and the nature of innocence. This indelible, sweetly humorous, and sensuous pastoral tale has inspired Western writers, composers, and artists for centuries, and no story is more aptly suited to the mythic and erotic sensibility of Marc Chagall, who illustrated Longus' timeless masterpiece with 42 exquisite lithographs. Dreamily atmospheric, sinuously graceful, jewel-like in hue, infused with magic, these are works of buoyant beauty gorgeously reproduced in this little gem of a book. Donna Seaman
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