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Musical Images as a Reflection of the Artistic Universalism of Marc Chagall 

 

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Olga Klepatskaya distinguishes 

musicality as a feature of  painter’s 

aesthetic vision, analysing the circus 

images of  Marc Chagall in the 

context of  the Russian avant-guard: 

“Its [musicality] appears in 

compositional solutions, in the 

playful whimsicality of  colours, in 

the depiction of  music-making or 

dance.”

35

 

In Chagall’s circus works, which 

reconstruct the world, as “a festival, 

dream, flight of  imagination, where 

there is no place for melancholy and 

greyness,”

36

 musical fragments receive 

more effective orchestration and 

brighter dynamics. The collective 

performance is dominant; alongside 

 

                                                 

35

 Klepatskaya 2008, p. 167. 

36

 Ibid. 

Fig. 34.  In the Motion (Martial Music),

1916. Cardboard, gouache. Moscow, 

State Tretyakov Gallery 

Fig. 35. A Red Horse, 1938-1944. 

Oil on canvas. Paris, Centre of  

George Pompidu  

Fig. 36. A Circus Horse, 1964, 49 x 61 cm. 

Private collection 

Fig. 37. The Circus Musicians, 1965. 

Lithography. Private collection 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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L. G. Safiullina, G. I. Batyrshina 

 

90

string instruments, the clear timbres of  wind and percussions instruments 

are “heard” (Circus Musicians,  fig. 37).

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 The choreographed and acrobatic 

movements of  the performers and the participation of  the clowns in music-

making (Circus Horse,  fig. 36) suggest certain conclusions about the 

characteristic genres (dance, march, fanfare), the tempo (fluid) and the 

character of  pieces (merry, sparkling, humorous).  

The picture Clowns in the Night  (fig. 

38), with its mystical colouring, is the 

exception. However, the grief  of  the play-

actors is ambivalent and could pass into 

abandoned hilarity at any moment. In this 

sense, unavoidable parallels with 

Schoenberg’s melodrama Pierrot Lunaire, 

cultic in the 20

th

 century, imbue the picture 

with polysemy. Dense darkness, from which 

the faces of  playing and singing comedians 

emerge, makes the performed music illusive, 

irreal, balancing the dynamics up to a 

soundless state. This is the music of  calm 

and silence, the music of  dream, wich will 

dissolve into the night without trace along with the clowns.  

The peculiarity of  music images in Chagall’s circus works contrasts 

vivdly with his proper “musical” pictures which reflect the processes of  

music creation and performance (Concert, fig. 39; Music, fig. 40). 

Flowing, rounded lines corresponding to legato strokes; slow, calm 

tempos and rhythms conveying the timeless character of  the work being 

played (in opposition to the in-the-moment, dynamic alternation of  routines 

in circus performances) symbolizes the unfading beauty and heavenly 

harmony of  classical compositions (as distinct from the particularly material 

pleasures of  circus performance). The presence of  a great number of  

musicians playing string, wind and percussion instruments, their unification 

into a group, the introduction of  a musical director (composer, demiurge, 

creating his own musical world as according to his own laws), the presence 

of  music stands (in the Concert) suggests a symphonic orchestra with a truly 

inexhaustible expressiveness. The universalism of  Chagall’s thinking 

manifests itself  in the people, animals and birds adding their voice to 

general sound, combined in one musical ensemble (a goat with a violin and 

an unknown animal with wings and a bird’s beak can be distinguished 

                                                 

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 As evidenced by Olga Klepatskaya, the Lithography Circus Musicians was dedicated to 

the composer Rodion Shchedrin in whose collection it is still kept (Klepatskaya 2008, p. 

167). 

Fig. 38. Clowns in the Night, 1957. 

Oil on canvas, 95/95 cm. Private 

collection 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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Musical Images as a Reflection of the Artistic Universalism of Marc Chagall 

 

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among the players of  the Concert, along with a man-cello). Old and modern 

instruments - bell, lyre and saxophone - are also combined. 

 

 

 

 

Chagall was also known as a talented painter 

of  musical scenes. Throughout his life, he 

undertook challenging theatrical projects in which a 

direct role was given to music. In 1920, on 

becoming the art director of  the State Jewish 

Chamber Theatre in Moscow, Chagall painted 

several panels. Besides the panel Music described 

above depicting a green violinist, musical images 

and symbols are plentiful in the main wall panel 

Introduction to the Jewish National Theatre  (fig. 41). 

Natalya Apchinskaya

38

 suggests that the green cow 

crashing down from on high, located on the left 

side of  the panel, symbolizes the musical character 

of  the performance, as cow’s horns in Yiddish 

denote fingering. The horns bump into the 

fingerboard of  a broken violin which the actor 

Solomon Mikhoels holds out to the mysterious animal, expressing readiness 

to learn new theatrical aesthetics from Chagall. There are four klezmer 

musicians in the delineated central section - a drummer, a violinist, a 

clarinettist and a cembalist who is also the musical director. The right hand 

side of  the composition shows other participants of  the performance - 

                                                 

38

 Apchinskaya 2004. 

Fig. 39. A Concert, 1957. Oil on canvas, 140/239.5 cm. Private collection 

Fig. 40.  Music, 1962-1963.

Oil on canvas. Private 

collection 

www.cclbsebes.ro/muzeul-municipal-ioan-raica.html   /   www.cimec.ro

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