I and the Village

Step right up and gaze into a fever dream of rural life. Painted in 1911, this work is a nostalgic look back at the artist's hometown, but let's be clear, this is no ordinary landscape. It's more like a visual diary entry written after a very strange nap. At its heart, you have a man with a green face staring lovingly into the eyes of a goat (or is it a cow?). A faint line connects their eyes, signifying their mutual dependence. Because nothing says "we're connected" like a psychic beam between man and beast. Inside the goat’s head, a woman is milking a cow, because in this world, logic has left the building. This chaotic scene is a deliberate mash-up of memories and Russian-Jewish folklore. The composition is a freewheeling riff on Cubism, which was all the rage in Paris where this was painted. It’s got all the fragmented perspectives and geometric shapes, but with more emotion and fewer right angles. Houses and people are scattered about, some defiantly upside down, as if gravity were merely a suggestion. The artist wasn't using color to show reality; he was using it to express a mood, a memory, a feeling. So, no, the man isn't sick; his green face is a symbol of his connection to nature. It's a whimsical, slightly chaotic ode to a place left behind, a jumble of images overlapping and fading like a story you can't quite remember straight. This artwork can be found at Museum of Modern Art.