Access a slow-looking exercise of this work.

Transcript
Narrator: "Paris Through the Window" by Marc Chagall is an oil-on-canvas painting from 1913 that is about 4 1/2 feet square. 

Two stylized figures — one a double-faced human head and pair of shoulders and the other a human-faced cat — face each other in profile along the bottom of the composition. The human figure sits in the bottom right corner; it faces the cat to its left and is unnaturally blue in color.  Both figures appear in the foreground, close to the viewer, and sit in front of a busy scene. 

Behind them, a city skyline stretches across the composition’s center line, filling its middle ground. Here, multistory buildings are simply outlined in thin plum-colored lines with tiny daubs and strokes of paint that indicate windows, roofs, and other architectural features. A thin tower stretches all the way up the right side of the composition. It tapers as it rises, and its top is not visible—it seems to extend beyond the canvas. An arched opening at its base suggests that it is Paris’s iconic Eiffel Tower, which is confirmed by the work’s title. The tower’s imposing scale perhaps expresses the artist’s reverence for it as a symbol of the city’s modernity. 

In this middle ground, a wide ivory stripe near the composition’s bottom right stretches diagonally to the upper left. The stripe runs behind the blue-faced figure, crosses behind the cat, passes through the cityscape, and cuts across the sky above. It roughly divides the square composition into lower-left and upper-right triangular segments as its light color severs through the otherwise muted beige background. The stripe seems to illuminate everything in its path like the beam of a spotlight, and subjects outside of its path remain muted as if sitting in shadow.  

To the left of the cat figure, a multicolor window frame extends upward from the foreground to fill the composition. Its eight panes are arranged in two columns, and the frame is red at its base, transitioning upward to yellow, green, and then blue.  

The work’s title suggests this is an interior scene, and through this window lies the Parisian skyline. Under the window appears the backrest of a chair, and tiny daubs of white, red, yellow, blue, and deep green paint suggest that bunched flowers are placed on the seat, which itself is below the bottom of the canvas and not visible. At the base of the window, a ledge runs to the right edge of the composition. Here, the cat sits. 

On closer inspection, the unusual figures are joined by other dreamlike elements throughout the painting. For instance, the figure with the blue face holds in its mouth a small purple flower. Under, a blue hand is lifted at the figure’s chest. In its palm rests an ochre heart.  

Out in the city, at the base of the Eiffel Tower, two small dark figures appear to stand horizontally, as if rotated against gravity. One is dressed in a suit and holds a cane. The other wears a dress, and both don hats. Near the top right of the Eiffel Tower, another person appears to float in the sky. This figure’s arms are outstretched and hold onto the corners of a triangular shaped parachute above its head.  

Behind this figure stretches another bright beam. It begins in the painting’s top-right corner and widens until it fades behind the tower. The beam is blue at its top and transitions to white and then to red, like the colors of the French flag.  

Through the bottom windowpanes, situated in the dark, shadowy area of the skyline, are a string of train cars. Strangely, they are upside-down, and smoke puffs downward out of the smokestack of one car.

at Guggenheim.org/audio

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