Dead Souls
Chagall's collection of 96 etchings illustrating one of the most prominent writers of 19th century Russian literature Nikolai Gogol's Dead Souls was the first of three projects the artist executed for Vollard. It was only in 1948, Tériade published this series on which Chagall received the commission in 1923 and worked on it between 1923 and 1927.
In his prints, Chagall did not illustrate particular episodes, but rather created pictorial accompaniments to the story. Thus, the prints in the book are untitled. All the characters in Chagall's series are slightly larger than life, in accordance with their exaggerated descriptions in the novel. Interestingly, Gogol and Chagall shared a common bond: both were Russians nostalgic for their homeland and depicting it in their work, for neither author nor illustrator were in Russia at the time they were working on Dead Souls.
Dead Souls which is a social critique conveyed through the medium of absurd satire talks about serfs in Czarist Russia who were the landowner's property and could be sold, bought.
Chichikov, the main character of the story, offers to buy the "dead souls" from the landowners who were taxed according to the number of living serfs they owned, thereby relieving them of the surplus tax. Chichikov's aim is to present the dead souls as his own "property," in a scheme meant to inflate his social standing through wealth and power. Once he acquires enough dead souls, he will retire to a large farm and take a loan against them, acquiring the great wealth he desires. But things are not as simple as Chichikov had hoped, and he is finally left with no choice but to flee the town in disgrace.
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