Nudes

Nudes or Two Nudes with Goat (1951), one of the first sculptures made by Chagall, shows the artist’s eagerness to master this newly explored technique. Using the shape of the limestone block in a vertical composition, close to a totem, the sculptor depicts two female nudes that form a single shape with a goat and a bird, two animals that recur throughout his works. As in Two Nudes or Adam and Eve or Column Sculpture [Deux nus ou Adam et Ève ou Sculpture-colonne] (1953), the story is deployed and expanded on every side. In places, the artist chose to leave the marks of the tools visible on the stone, contrasting with deep incisions and sinuous lines for a graphic result. The fine chiseling of shapes and the subtle play of shadow and light recall certain Assyrian low relief sculptures depicting historical scenes, like those of Niniveh.
Chagall’s approach to depicting schematic, stylized bodies with primitivistic notes and the very low relief echo Gauguin’s sculpted and engraved wood. These works include La Maison du Jouir (1901-02) and Hina and Fatou (1892), which depict the Polynesian divinities of the moon and Earth. The engraving and incisions in limestone also recall this technique. The two female figures present similarities with those painted by Gauguin¹. A reproduction of Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? (1897-98), present in the artist’s studio in the 1950s harks back to the dialogue amongst the works and Chagall’s strong attraction to Gauguin’s Polynesian works². In 1956, he painted Homage to Gauguin [Hommage à Gauguin] (1956), using the composition from The Dream (1897) and populating it with elements from his own style, to show his admiration for the artist.
These two female nudes also show how the artist thought about doubles. In his body of work, the numerous double profiles and double figures cohabitate together on a medium, sometimes even appearing to be a two-headed being, such as in Large Figures [Grands personnages] (1962). Chagall enjoys depicting duality—the complementarity of two elements—which brings him close to the yin/yang philosophy to signify the holy union of two entities (such as Adam and Eve). Nevertheless, this iconography and the depiction of two female nudes, which may portray two archaic divinities, remain rare in his work, imbuing this sculpture with a hint of mystery.