Le Mariage russe

At the creation of this depiction of a rural Russian wedding painted in 1909, Marc Chagall was only 22 years old. The small wedding party moves leisurely along the dusty village street. A violinist in a soldier's uniform leads the procession, the rabbi walks beside him. Only the bride shines in glistening white, everything else bears witness to the poor life in the countryside. From the opposite side of the street, an old man watches the solemn procession, a heavy yoke with two buckets hanging from it weighing over his shoulders. Chagall, who came from an Orthodox Jewish family, began to capture the sparse life of the rural milieu in the Russian province in 1907. The somewhat naïve style reflects the artist's preoccupation with folk traditions, especially those of his Jewish origins. Chagall, who was always drawn to the big city - first to St. Petersburg, then to Paris - captures here, full of nostalgia, a memory of his old homeland. Source