I would like to resume a discussion set forth by Liam about the role of peasants in the works of various Russian Avant-Garde artists. An interesting departure from previous portrayals of the Russian peasantry arises in the development of unique visual arts symbolism. Previously, we have encountered a few archetypes in relation to the portrayal of peasants in high visual art. A common 18th- and 19th-century trope was the romanticization of peasant life, as seen in works such as Venetsianov’s “Reapers” (1820s). We also do have a number of works like Repin’s “Barge Haulers on the Volga” (1873) that emphasize the grueling and obsolete labor endured by the lower classes, drawing attention to human suffering and corruption. Both styles emphasize the humanity of the peasants and strive for realistic proportions and expressions, allowing other elements and principles of design (i.e. lighting and composition) to distinguish their finer purpose. A divergent tradition of flat, stylized humans surfaced in folk art around the same time; such works generally have less to say about the conditions of labor or humanity of laborers.

This style and its analogies in neighboring societies seems to be the inspiration for Chagall. In “I and the Village” (1911), similarly stylized images of a man with a scythe, an upside-down dancing woman on a rooftop, and a woman milking a goat appear. Given that the composition similarly incorporates images such as a cross necklace, cathedral, and the tree (certainly a sacred symbol, especially if construed to be the tree of knowledge of good and evil from the fruit) into the composition, it would seem as if the peasants adopt a similar symbolic status. It is important to account for the fact that this status is not akin to reverence as in icons or ascended existence  as in symbolist art. I find the juxtaposition of the man with the scythe and the dancing woman striking. It seems to stand for the duality of labor and spirit in Chagall’s village life, or perhaps the succession of images from the woman milking the goat to the dancing woman form a daily chronology. In either case, the man with a scythe is not a laborer — he is labor. “Sukkot” (1916) also incorporates peasants, although their participation in the Jewish holiday amid farm labor is pretty neutral,  a piece of the experience rather than the experience in-of-itself. Much later on, “The Farmyard” (1954-1962) features a peasant woman. What is most notable about this example is how the woman is detailed in the same palette as the background, whereas the animals incorporate brighter colors and striking textures. These decisions speak to the peasant as perhaps an anchoring figure: an immediate source of context and a piece of the experience, but not a central message.