I and the Village is a 1911 painting by the Russian-French artist Marc Chagall. It is currently exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The work contains many soft, dreamlike images overlapping each other in a continuous space: in the foreground, a cap-wearing green-faced man stares at a goat or sheep with the image of a smaller goat being milked on its cheek. In the foreground is a glowing tree held in the man's dark hand. The background features a collection of houses next to an Orthodox church, and an upside-down female violinist in front of a black-clothed man holding a scythe.... Note that the green-faced man wears a necklace with St. Andrew's cross, indicating that the man is a Christian. As the title suggests, I and the Village is influenced by memories of the artist's place of birth and his relationship to it. The significance of the painting lies in its seamless integration of various elements of Eastern European folktales and culture, both Russian and Yiddish. Its clearly defined semiotic elements and daringly whimsical style were at the time considered groundbreaking.
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