One of Chagall's early and best-known paintings, I and the Village (1911), clearly show the themes of nature and home. The soft, dreamlike images in the painting show simple times and traditions. The place in the painting must be Vitebsk, the small Russian farming village where Chagall was born into a large Jewish family. Chagall's paintings often show images of his village. The painting brings together bright colors and Jewish and Russian elements to show the relationship between people and nature, life and death.The main part of the painting show a green man (probably Chagall himself) and an animal (a horse or a goat) looking at each other. A Themes in Chagall's Art. Home, nature, and love are some of the main subjects in artist Marc Chagall's work. These subjects show what was most important to Chagall. In addition, they are universal themes that made Chagall a popular artist whose work many people understand and enjioy. According to Marc Scheps (1987) in Marc Chagall: 100th Anniversary of His Birth, "Chagall more than any other artist in the twentieth century" was able to turn "the personal into the universal." connects the two images.