The Green River, La Fontette school, Saint-Paul-de-Vence

The Green River is unique among Chagall’s mosaics. Unveiled on March 29, 1986, it is his only posthumous work¹. Information on the context of its creation is scarce. The genesis of the project and existing studies on Chagall's mosaics are spotty². Marius Issert, the mayor of Saint-Paul-de-Vence at the time, had the idea of decorating the courtyard of the La Fontette elementary school, designed by architect Michel Mosser³, and obtained Valentina Chagall’s permission to turn one of the artist’s works into a mosaic⁴. Mosaicist Heidi Melano carried out the work⁵. André Verdet, a poet from Saint-Paul-de-Vence, is said to have played the role of intermediary.

If the project took shape after Chagall’s death, it can be assumed that it was begun during his lifetime. Careful examination of a preparatory gouache reveals the presence of a lightly drawn grid, a technique traditionally used by artists to enlarge an image.
The mosaic is much closer to the eponymous original lithograph, which was printed by Fernand Mourlot’s studio in 1974 for insertion in André Pieyre de Mandiargues’ monograph on Chagall. It is at the beginning of the book on a double-page spread folded in the middle⁶. The mosaic faithfully reproduces the composition and colors, which are nearly identical. Recent observations suggest that the gouache is probably not a sketch for the print, but a much later work intended to become monumental⁷.

The mosaic is composed of four wide horizontal stripes of blue, green, red and yellow on a bright background, making it visible from afar⁸. It features several elements including a bird, a horse and a disembodied head, motifs found throughout Chagall’s work, which he changed and moved around “like pawns on a chessboard.⁹”. However, the layout looks more like music paper with notes, recalling Chagall's deep love of music.

In the middle of the composition, there is a tree whose central position goes back to the ancient Middle Eastern Tree of Life motif, which persisted in Ravenna’s Byzantine mosaics and Jewish folk art. In 1974, Chagall also worked on the preparatory sketches for the Tree of Life stained glass window in Sarrebourg¹⁰. The tree, then, is the composition’s pivot. The contrast with the fluid character of the whole accentuates its presence, for the subject is the river. Here, Chagall reduces a recurring theme from different periods—the Seine in Paris and the Dvina in Vitebsk—to wide bands sweeping everything along in their path. But on the right the unchanging houses of Vitebsk, his hometown, can be recognized—the artist’s roots, his eternal anchor.

The artist’s intentions may never be known. But the mosaic may be read as a metaphor for time passing on the wall of a building that by essence looks towards the future, a Chagallian world in a landscape that had become familiar to the artist, bathed in the light of southern France.