This is "I and the Village" by Marc Chagall, painted in Paris in 1911.
As I was researching this piece, and reviewing a lifetime's worth of art by Chagall, I noticed an underlying theme.
When he painted, he poured his love into each drop of paint, into every inch of his canvases.
Chagall's life was unlike his contemporaries, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, because of his nationality and religion.
The eldest of 9 children, his father was an orthodox jewish labourer working in a herring warehouse and his mother was a shopkeeper.
They lived in Vitebsk, a small town that's a part of present day Belarus.
His family's practice of Judaism prohibited any visual depiction of God's creations and so his house was devoid of art.
He later referred to his hometown as "a strange town, an unhappy town, a boring town." In the Russian empire at that time, Jewish children were not allowed to attend regular school, even their movement throughout the city was restricted.
So when Chagall told his mother he wanted to be a painter, she supported him, despite not understanding why he wanted to pursue such an impractical career.
He wanted to to leave the local Jewish school to pursue an education in art, which his mother had to bribe the headmaster to let him attend.
