Musical Images as a Reflection of the Artistic Universalism of Marc Chagall
89
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
L. G. Safiullina, G. I. Batyrshina
90
string instruments, the clear timbres of wind and percussions instruments
are “heard” (Circus Musicians, fig. 37).
37
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
37
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
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Musical Images as a Reflection of the Artistic Universalism of Marc Chagall
91
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