In Intérieur avec bouquet au tournesol, Marc Chagall captures a moment of luminous stillness and organic abundance. This graphite drawing, created late in the artist’s life, reflects his continued fascination with domestic space as a site of quiet reverie and poetic symbolism.
The bouquet dominates the composition, rising in a spirited tangle of lines and textures from a generous vase. At its heart, a sunflower - the symbolic sun of the bouquet - draws the viewer’s attention with its open, radiant form, offering a visual anchor amid the energetic scrawl of leaves and blossoms. Chagall’s lively pencil work blurs the boundary between reality and memory, creating a floral arrangement that seems to hover between life and dream.
Surrounding the vase are faint indications of everyday objects - a dish, a table edge, the soft suggestion of a room - rendered with the same fluid spontaneity that characterizes the entire drawing. These gentle details do not seek realism but rather evoke atmosphere, a sense of place suffused with warmth and reflection.
Created in the twilight of Chagall’s career, Intérieur avec bouquet au tournesol feels deeply personal and introspective. It is not only a still life, but a meditation on time, beauty, and the enduring presence of joy in the ordinary. In Chagall’s hands, even a bouquet becomes a universe: tender, wild, and full of light.