Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

L. G. Safiullina, G. I. Batyrshina 

 

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acrobats and actors with musical instruments. Chagall’s innovative creativity 

is manifested in the way his geometrical plans produce their own rhythm, 

which accompanies the movement of  figures and explodes, breaking the 

contours, creating the illusion of  a ragged, syncopated rhythm.

39

 Taken as a 

whole, the panel presents the theatre as a world, and the world as theatre, 

penetrated by light and simultaneously conveying the chaotic nature of  

existence.  

 

 

 

 

 

Musical images come to life in two 

panels created much later - in 1966 - for 

the lobby of  the Metropolitan in New 

York, the city which sheltered Chagall 

during the Second World War. Forming 

a diptych, The Sources of  Music  (fig. 42) 

and Triumph of  Music (fig. 43) contrast in 

colour: the first canvas is made in blue-

green colours against an ochreous 

background, while the second presents 

the idea of  triumph in a passionately 

pulsating red palette. The panels present 

scenes from well-known musical dramas 

The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky, The Magic 

Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and 

Carmen by Georges Bizet. In the centre 

of  each work, surrounded by abundant 

depictions of  violin, cello, mandolin, aulos (double flute) and shofar, appear 

mythological and Biblical figures with musical instruments: a bifacial, 

                                                 

39

 http://sites.utoronto.ca/tsq/12/ichin12.shtml, accessed 20 May 2014. 

Fig. 41. Introduction to the Jewish National Theatre, 1920. Canvas, tempera, gouache, 

284/787 cm. Moscow, State Tretyakov Gallery

Fig. 42. The Sources of Music, 1966. Panel, 

9/11 m. New York, the Metropolitan 

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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crowned David-Solomon

40

 with a harp in Sources and the winged goddess 

Nike in Triumph, announcing the victory of  music with trumpet 

exclamations. While creating the panel, Chagall worked with the outstanding 

Russian ballet-dancer Maia Plisetskaya. Through free improvisation to Felix 

Mendelsohn’s violin concerto, performed by Yehudi Menuhin, she 

demonstrated for Chagall the main poses and motions of  classical dance, 

which the painter immediately recorded in his sketches.

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The panels presented to the 

Metropolitan were a variation on the 

theme of  one of  Chagall’s most 

magnificent works - his painting of  the 

dome ceiling in the Paris Grand Opera 

(fig. 44) - which refreshed the pompous 

baroque interiors of  the famous theatre 

with rich colours and the vivid breath of  

modernity. In the mural, Chagall shows 

his vision of  the main developmental 

stages of  theatrical music, paying tribute 

to outstanding musical playwrights of  

the 18

th

-20

th

 centuries through 

referencing their best works. At formal 

opening of  the dome in 1964, Chagall 

said: 

“I wanted to depict, as if  in a mirror, the 

 

 

 

 

 

works of  artists and composers, like a 

bouquet of  dreams; hanging high above their heads, they are aligned with 

                                                 

40

 A bifacial image of David-Solomon with a harp in Sources corresponds to the picture of 

half-man-half-animal in the Triumph with a lute-like instrument on its shoulder.  

41 

In her memoirs, Plisetskaya describes her first impression of the panel Triumph of Music, 

seen in 1968: “A flying sunny angel with pipe, cornflower blue Ivan-Tsarevich making 

music, the green cello, birds of paradise, a double-headed creature with the mandolin near 

the horse’s chin, glazed violin with bow on the blue sparkling tree. In the middle is a 

matronly buxom dancer with foxy unfastened hair, diligently holding her legs in first 

position. She is strained, her face is screwed up, as if she is going to fall ... A mottled covey 

of ballet dancers is in the left top corner. With tight thighs, wasp waists, in different poses: 

some jump, some stand motionless, some stand on fingers, some hold the hands in sweet 

coronal, some have prepared for tours with hapless partners ... One, me exactly, curved the 

thigh, lurching, stretched as a string, putting a hand on the shoulder, legs are in the second 

position. I showed something similar to Chagall in Mendelssohn concert. Mark 

Zakharovich caught that moment ... I have few similarities with dancers on the panel. 

However, when you look for a long time, steadily, attentively, you see something that is 

mine, caught by the hand of the great painter” (Plisetskaya 1997, p. 318-319).  

Fig. 43. Triumph of  Music, 1966. Panel,

9/11 m. New York, the Metropolitan 

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

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L. G. Safiullina, G. I. Batyrshina 

 

94

the multi-coloured rush of  public far below. I wanted to sing like bird, 

without the theory, without method.”

42

  

 

 

Fig. 44. Dome painting. Paris, Grand Opera 

 

The dome is divided into 5 sectors, each of  which recalls the pages of  

famous operas and ballets - French, Austro-German, Russian and Italian. In 

Chagall’s interpretation, the whole history of  dramatic musical art is 

presented as a landscape with a multitude of  equal peaks. In the author’s 

opinion, tendencies from the baroque period, classicism, romanticism, 

realism and impressionism are all reflected in this “colourful mirror of  silk 

and sparkle of  jewels,” but without strains and conflicts typical of  the 

change in artistic epochs. The painter’s peacemaking approach is truly 

amazing, as it mainly appealed to compositions, which made a way in the art 

in the thick of  polemic; they were met by public ambiguously or had 

complex scenic fate.

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 In Chagall’s childishly clear, sheer vision, musical 

performances are free from stratification, from the ordinary, the debatable, 

from contest, or from their authors’ vain chase for success; they are 

                                                 

42

 Chagall 2009. 

43

 This comment refers to a number of troubled works: Bizet’s Carmen, the first staging of 

which on 3 March 1875 in the Theatre Opera-Comic ended with total failure; the repeated 

scenic failures of the opera Fidelio by Beethoven, which the composer named his most 

difficult and favourite child; to Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky, rejected twice by the 

Theatrical Committee and taken off the repertoire for several years after its first night; to 

Orpheus by Gluck which, after its first night in Paris in 1774, caused a famous war between 

pichinists and gluckists; and to the tragedy Pelleas and Melisande by Debussy, which marked 

the beginning of a new era in musical art - impressionism. 

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

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