It looks like Mr. Haftmann had known the inner threads into secuences of time that produced the creations almos independently of the individuality of the painters.

I saw this book in a book store, and I must say it is very very mediocre. The quality of printing was quite bad, the colours were nowhere near as good and this book doesn't highlight the incerdible talent of the Russian-born artist. There are such art book of quality nowadays! (It's as if this book had been printed in the 60's!) I would compare this book to a soup with no spices and salt. If you're looking for a book on Chagall that really shows how great and lunimous his colours and paintings were, don't buy this book: try to find "Chagall" by Jacob Baal-Teshuva (Taschen) or "Chagall: The art of dreams" by Daniel Marchesseau. Those would be the smartest buys you could do!

Painting illustrates inner and outer worlds in the colored dreams, experiences, memories and unconscious of MARC CHAGALL. I like the painter's mix of the fantastic with the real and use of colors, especially blue and green. Something that impresses me every time about his work is how a history of art is all there: Bonnard-type isolated color and light, with Redon-type dreaminess in "Bella in Mourillon"; Byzantine iconographic-type hand of God in the blessing ray across the angel of destiny in "The big circle"; Cezanne-type modulating in "Fruits and flowers"; Corot-, Monet- and Renoir-type hazily gleamed, richly varied colors in "Peasant life"; Cubist patchwork in "Dedicated to my fiance"; Fauves-type explosive coloring, with Gauguin-type awkwardly drawn figures and crudely contoured objects and with Jawlensky- or Kandinsky-type mystic Russian folklore in "Still life with lamp"; El Greco- and Tintoretto-type color build-up in "King David"; Matisse-type decorative outlining and flat colors in "Little parlor"; Neo-Imressionist-type moving color in "Homage to Apollinaire"; Orphist-type loudly bright colors in "The drunkard"; Picasso-type fear, mercy and protest over Guernica in "The falling angel"; Rembrandt-type solidly formal built-up face from shadowy darks to glowing lights in "Anch'io sono pittore" self-portrait; and later Titian-type green-gold in the radiating "Midsummer night's dream" light. It is always difficult for me to pick favorites from the artist's output, but I am always drawn to his "Message of Odysseus" wall mosaic: it is so unbeatably clever and effective to surround the sleeping hero with episodes from his life, or from his dreams, on shimmeringly colored stone and glass cubes. Author Werner Haftmann backs a helpfully well-written text with perfect illustrations: I like both his book and Jacob Baal-Teshuva's MARC CHAGALL.