If I weren't a Jew (in the sense in which I use the word) then I wouldn't be an artist, or at least not the one I am now. - Marc Chagall

Now at least 'artists have the upper hand' in the town (Vitebsk). They get totally engrossed in their disputes about art (between constructivists and suprematists), I am utterly exhausted and 'dream' of 'abroad'.. .After all, there is no more suitable place for artists to be (for me, at least) than at the easel, and I dream of being able to devote myself exclusively to my pictures. Of course, little by little one paints something, but it's not the real thing. (Chagall was director of the Art School of Vitebsk, including many conflicts)

After completing my work [his murals for the Jewish Theater in Moscow) I thought, as has been agreed, that it would be shown in public as a series of my latest things. The management will agree with me that I can find no inner peace as a painter until the 'masses' see my work etc. It turned out that the things [the murals] had been put into a 'cage', as it were, where they can be seen at the very best by (if you will forgive me for saying so) Jews at close quarters. I like the Jews a lot (there's enough 'proof' of that) but I like the Russians as well and some other nationalities, and I am used to painting serious things for many 'nationalities'.

Listen what happened to me when I was in the fifth form (ca. 1904), in the drawing lesson. An old-timer in the front row, the one who pinched me the most often, suddenly showed me a sketch on tissue paper, copied from the magazine "Niva": The Smoker. In this pandemonium! Leave me alone. I don't remember very well but this drawing, done not by me but by that fathead, immediately threw me into a rage. It roused a hyena in me. I ran to the library, grabbed that big volume of "Niva" and began to copy the portrait of the composer Rubinstein, fascinated by his crow's-feet and his wrinkles, or by a Greek woman and other illustrations; maybe I improvised some too, I hung them all up in my bedroom..