Not Just Heaven, But Hell.

Marc Chagall embraced cubism, but he was never a cubist. He painted abstractly, but avoided being labeled an abstract artist. And though he is considered a forefather of surrealism, he was never a surrealist himself. Rather, Chagall--the Russian-born painter who lived and died in France--was one of the most individual artists of the 20th century. After dabbling in various artistic schools, he created his own movement with its own vocabulary and palette: allegorical, rich-hued and poetic. And he was its only member. The public has always loved his style. Chagall's cheerful pictures of floating brides and animals have been popular among museum-goers since his first retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art. Art critics have long dismissed him as a sentimentalist whose creativity dried up by the time he was 40. A show may change their view. "Chagall: Known and Unknown" at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris divides the artist's life into five periods: the Russian years, Jewish theater, the Bible, gallery of fables and the French years. While it features many of his iconic works--including the giddy recollection of his own wedding, "Double Portrait With a Glass of Wine"--the exhibit also contains previously unseen paintings, drawings and collages from private collections. These works, many from the 1930s onward, help track Chagall's evolution as an artist and a man, and reveal a darkness and a passion few knew he possessed. Born to Jewish peasants in Vitsybsk, Russia, in 1887, Chagall was the eldest of nine children. In 1906 Chagall won a scholarship to study with the celebrated painter Leon Bakst in St. Petersburg. Chagall produced some of his most terrifying works after World War II--most notably "The War" (1964-66), which depicts refugees fleeing as a village burns.