The Red Rooster and I And The Village  by Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985)  

Introduction

  1. What do you remember about the Grandma Moses painting It's Haying Time?  What do you remember about the Claude Monet seascape?  Did they seem real to you?  Do you think Grandma Moses and Monet painted things they really saw or remembered?       I.
  1. We have brought another kind of painting with us today.  Unlike Grandma Moses and Claude Monet, this artist Marc Chagall, did not sit down and try to paint things as they really were.  Instead, he thinks of an idea or feelings and paints a picture using familiar objects and bright colors to express his idea or feeling.  His pictures are dream-like or make-believe and we call t his type of art SURREALISM.  (Turn painting around)

Discussion Questions

  1. What are some of the ways this painting is different from the Grandma Moses painting or Monet's seascape?  What things look close?  Far away?  Is it as easy to tell the background, foreground and middle ground?
  1. Does this painting look like something that might happen in real life?  Let's look at the objects one at a time.  Name them.  What objects look real?  What objects look make-believe?
  2. What object do you think is the most important in the picture?  Why?
  1. What color is the rooster?  What other colors do you see in the rooster?  What are some other colors in the painting?
  1. If you could touch the rooster, would it feel warm or cold?  What about the floating man?  What makes you think so?
  1. What about shapes -- point out the different shapes in the picture?
  1. What sounds do you hear in the picture?
  1. What would you like to be doing in this picture?
  1. Do you know where the red rooster lives?

Biography

Marc Chagall was born in Russia and began studying art as a teenager.  He made a trip to Paris and became influenced by two major art movements -- ­Cubism and Fauvism.  Who can tell me what Cubism was? Fauvism means wild beast in French and those artists liked to use bright colors.  Chagall had many memories of his childhood in Russia .  Many of his paintings contained objects that he remembers from the folk tales, customs and stories he heard as a child.  I am going to read you a Russian folk tale that Chagall might have heard as a child.  Read Book “A Scythe A Rooster And A Cat by Janina Domanski”.  Can be found in 2nd grade print drawer or sometimes get returned to art closet. 

Does anyone have any ideas of what story Chagall was trying to tell us in this painting? (Historic significance - Chagall had to leave Russia because it was unsafe for him as a Jew.  He moved to France but when World War II started, it was again unsafe for a Jewish man to live there.  The man in power, Adolph Hitler, heated the Jewish people.  Hitler blamed them for all problems and set about to kill all of them.  Chagall had to flee to the United States .  When we know these things, we might look at the painting in a different way.  Chagall sees the rooster as a spiritual power who is rushing to warn the animal musician and the hiding human of pending disaster.  

Links:

http://cincinnatiartmuseum.org/greatart/provenance/1967-1426.shtml

Activity - 

Have the children glue on feathers to a pre-made (see below) rooster stencil and draw some other objects on the paper to create their own surrealistic painting.   Copies of a red rooster on white paper can be found in the closet or email Jennifer.James@Nielsen.com to get more copies sent through school mail.  If you wish to do your own red rooster, a rooster cookie cutter is in art closet.