* But my knowledge of Marxism was limited to knowing that Marx was a Jew, and that he had a long white beard. I said to Lunatcharsky [the political c… - Marc Chagall

Only a child had its place on the cross, and that was enough for me [to paint his Crucifixions, earlier].. ..in the exact sense there was no cross but a blue child in the air. The cross interested me less.

In response I am sending you some pictures which I painted in Paris out of homesickness for Russia. They are not very typical of me; I have selected the most modest ones for the Russian exhibition.

Two or three o'clock in the morning. The sky is blue. Dawn is breaking. Down there, a little way off, they slaughtered cattle, cows bellowed, and I painted them. I used to sit up like that all night long. It's already a week since the studio was cleaned out. Frames, eggshells, empty two-sou soup tins lie about higgledy-piggledy.. .On the shelves, reproductions of El Greco and Cézanne lay next tot the remains of a herring I had cut in two, the head for the first day, the tail for the next, and Thank God, a few crusts of bread.