The Oak and the Reed
1927/1930
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
etching
Classification
Portfolio
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1952.8.126
Art Historical Context
**The Oak and the Reed an etching by Marc Chagall between 1927 and1930, captures the artist's whimsical imagination in a delicate print from the National Gallery of Art's Rosenwald Collection. Chagall, the renowned Russian-French modernist (1887–1985), drew inspiration from Jean de La Fontaine's classic 17th-century fable of the same name. In the tale, a mighty oak mocks a slender reed for bending in the wind, only to be uprooted by a storm while the flexible reed survives— a timeless lesson in humility and adaptability. Chagall's interpretation infuses the moral with his signature dreamlike ...
About the Artist
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall, born Moishe Shagal on July 7, 1887, in Liozna near Vitebsk in the Russian Empire (now Belarus), grew up as the eldest of nine children in a devout Jewish family confined to the Pale of Settlement. His father worked as a herring merchant's porter, while his mother sold groceries from home, instilling in young Chagall a deep connection to Hasidic Judaism and Eastern European folklore a...