The first painting here is The Red Circus.  I include here several of Chagall’s paintings with violinists, but I like starting with  The Red Circus.  Chagall clearly liked the color, and it reminds me that in many ways he thought of life as a circus.  

Chagall painted violinists many times, and it is understood that these musicians are symbols of the artist’s Jewish roots and reminded him and the world of his childhood in Vitebsk, Russia.  In his childhood in Vitebsk, violinists were usually traveling musicians.  In one of my favorite pictures the fiddler is pictured on a curving dirt road that links the foreground and background. Chagall associates the nomadic musician with his homeland.