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Lot Essay
“It is a magic word, circus, a timeless dancing game where tears and smiles, the play of arms and legs take the form of a great art.”
Marc Chagall, Le Cirque, 1967
A joyous, revelling scene, Marc Chagall’s Couple au cirque depicts the artist’s pertinent theme of the circus, employed as the allencompassing allegory for life as he witnessed it. Chagall delights the viewer with his wondrous dream-like vision depicted in bright, jewel-like colours of ultramarine, ruby, amethyst and emerald, featuring the pair of lovers being served a bouquet amidst a sea of acrobats, musicians, animals, clowns and performers with the full crowd engaged in cheer behind them. It is an expression of both Chagall’s eternal belief in the ultimate significance of love and his revelry in the cycles, seasons, trials and successes of life that align with the very spirit and essence of the artistic calling.
The origins of the circus theme go back to Chagall’s early life as a young man in the Belarusian town of Vitebsk. Chagall never forgot a particular moment when he observed a father and his young children perform on the street, hoping to earn a few pennies for bread, their efforts at acrobatic stunts clumsy yet clearly strenuous. The passing public deemed this performance more pathetic than applaudable, and Chagall sadly watched as they afterwards walked away, unappreciated and empty-handed. At that moment, and at certain other times during his career, Chagall must have pondered that this notion of performance, of an attempt to inspire and entrance, was aligned in a poetic way with the challenges of life of one who may pursue the career of an artist.
Of course, if the artist were talented, dedicated and fortunate enough as Chagall was, there might be an altogether more favourable outcome, more akin to the scene depicted in Couple au cirque. This moment of abundant delight and applause aligns with Chagall’s own great success in art, life and love during a harmonious and abundant time in his late career. It is a celebration not only of his success, having overcome the many challenges he faced throughout his life, but a metaphorical appreciation of the richness of lived experience in all its variety. Chagall here summons the experience of circus performance– clowns, acrobats musicians, the ringside stands brimming with spectators, the total spectacle of the circus, in all its colourful complexity–as a vivid metaphor for the life he had decided to lead. The vision and dream of the circus became the very heart of Chagall’s personal mythology.
Paris in the early 20th century, was a circus-goer’s paradise. Having first arrived in June 1911, Chagall soon discovered the famed Cirque Médrano on the edge of Montmartre and the Cirque d’Hiver in the 11ème arrondissement. Chagall painted a notably modernist picture of a female acrobat before returning to his homeland in mid-1914. He thereby joined a long and distinguished line of painters working in France who featured the circus in their work, from Antoine Watteau–a favourite of Chagall–to Honoré Daumier, Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and among his immediate contemporaries, Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault, Kees Van Dongen and Fernand Léger.
The circus subjects that Chagall developed in 1926-1930 would continue to bear fruit for the next half century of this artist’s amazingly long life, finding their pinnacle in masterpieces such as Le grand cirque from 1956 and aligning closely with compositions such as La Vie, commissioned for the Fondation Maeght in 1967. It is clear to see that whilst La Vie is not ostensibly a circus scene, it shares with Couple au cirque the same abundance of energy, the joyous circular arena metaphorically aligned with the cycles and seasons of life, celebrating the young couple, the lovers, underneath a radiant beacon, interchangeably the sun, moon and star. As such, it is clear to see that Chagall’s experience of life and its metaphor in the circus, as he conceived of it, were inextricably intertwined.
The theme of the lovers is arguably the most celebrated and best represented themes within Chagall’s oeuvre. Exuding romance and desire informed by his own life, the lovers represent both the youthful passion for his first wife and great love Bella, as well as the enduring and faithful love of his second wife, Valentina “Vava” Brodsky, to whom Chagall was married at the time of painting Couple au cirque, and who would remain his devoted companion until his passing. For Chagall, love and beauty were powerful elements, forces that could only bring greater harmony to a world that appeared in need of it during his lifetime. Explaining his dedication to this cause, he said, ‘I thought that only love and uncalculating devotion towards others will lead to the greatest harmony in life and in art of which humanity has been dreaming so long. And this must, of course, be included in each utterance, in each brushstroke, and in each colour’ (Chagall, quoted in Chagall: A Retrospective, ed. J. Baal-Teshuva, Westport, 1995, p. 208).
Ambroise Vollard, Chagall’s dealer and the publisher of his prints during the 1920s and 1930s, was a great aficionado of the circus and in 1927, he proposed to Chagall a new project to create a suite of gouaches in celebration of it. Vollard offered him free use of his season box at the Cirque d’Hiver, which the artist happily took advantage of,and from its inspiration, painted his circus series in two sets, nineteen gouaches in all, which became known as the Cirque Vollard (Meyer, nos. 481-501).
The theme of the lovers is arguably the most celebrated and best represented themes within Chagall’s oeuvre. Exuding romance and desire informed by his own life, the lovers represent both the youthful passion for his first wife and great love Bella, as well as the enduring and faithful love of his second wife, Valentina “Vava” Brodsky, to whom Chagall was married at the time of painting Couple au cirque, and who would remain his devoted companion until his passing. For Chagall, love and beauty were powerful elements, forces that could only bring greater harmony to a world that appeared in need of it during his lifetime. Explaining his dedication to this cause, he said, ‘I thought that only love and uncalculating devotion towards others will lead to the greatest harmony in life and in art of which humanity has been dreaming so long. And this must, of course, be included in each utterance, in each brushstroke, and in each colour’ (Chagall, quoted in Chagall: A Retrospective, ed. J. Baal-Teshuva, Westport, 1995, p. 208).
Marc Chagall, Le Cirque, 1967
A joyous, revelling scene, Marc Chagall’s Couple au cirque depicts the artist’s pertinent theme of the circus, employed as the allencompassing allegory for life as he witnessed it. Chagall delights the viewer with his wondrous dream-like vision depicted in bright, jewel-like colours of ultramarine, ruby, amethyst and emerald, featuring the pair of lovers being served a bouquet amidst a sea of acrobats, musicians, animals, clowns and performers with the full crowd engaged in cheer behind them. It is an expression of both Chagall’s eternal belief in the ultimate significance of love and his revelry in the cycles, seasons, trials and successes of life that align with the very spirit and essence of the artistic calling.
The origins of the circus theme go back to Chagall’s early life as a young man in the Belarusian town of Vitebsk. Chagall never forgot a particular moment when he observed a father and his young children perform on the street, hoping to earn a few pennies for bread, their efforts at acrobatic stunts clumsy yet clearly strenuous. The passing public deemed this performance more pathetic than applaudable, and Chagall sadly watched as they afterwards walked away, unappreciated and empty-handed. At that moment, and at certain other times during his career, Chagall must have pondered that this notion of performance, of an attempt to inspire and entrance, was aligned in a poetic way with the challenges of life of one who may pursue the career of an artist.
Of course, if the artist were talented, dedicated and fortunate enough as Chagall was, there might be an altogether more favourable outcome, more akin to the scene depicted in Couple au cirque. This moment of abundant delight and applause aligns with Chagall’s own great success in art, life and love during a harmonious and abundant time in his late career. It is a celebration not only of his success, having overcome the many challenges he faced throughout his life, but a metaphorical appreciation of the richness of lived experience in all its variety. Chagall here summons the experience of circus performance– clowns, acrobats musicians, the ringside stands brimming with spectators, the total spectacle of the circus, in all its colourful complexity–as a vivid metaphor for the life he had decided to lead. The vision and dream of the circus became the very heart of Chagall’s personal mythology.
Paris in the early 20th century, was a circus-goer’s paradise. Having first arrived in June 1911, Chagall soon discovered the famed Cirque Médrano on the edge of Montmartre and the Cirque d’Hiver in the 11ème arrondissement. Chagall painted a notably modernist picture of a female acrobat before returning to his homeland in mid-1914. He thereby joined a long and distinguished line of painters working in France who featured the circus in their work, from Antoine Watteau–a favourite of Chagall–to Honoré Daumier, Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and among his immediate contemporaries, Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault, Kees Van Dongen and Fernand Léger.
The circus subjects that Chagall developed in 1926-1930 would continue to bear fruit for the next half century of this artist’s amazingly long life, finding their pinnacle in masterpieces such as Le grand cirque from 1956 and aligning closely with compositions such as La Vie, commissioned for the Fondation Maeght in 1967. It is clear to see that whilst La Vie is not ostensibly a circus scene, it shares with Couple au cirque the same abundance of energy, the joyous circular arena metaphorically aligned with the cycles and seasons of life, celebrating the young couple, the lovers, underneath a radiant beacon, interchangeably the sun, moon and star. As such, it is clear to see that Chagall’s experience of life and its metaphor in the circus, as he conceived of it, were inextricably intertwined.
The theme of the lovers is arguably the most celebrated and best represented themes within Chagall’s oeuvre. Exuding romance and desire informed by his own life, the lovers represent both the youthful passion for his first wife and great love Bella, as well as the enduring and faithful love of his second wife, Valentina “Vava” Brodsky, to whom Chagall was married at the time of painting Couple au cirque, and who would remain his devoted companion until his passing. For Chagall, love and beauty were powerful elements, forces that could only bring greater harmony to a world that appeared in need of it during his lifetime. Explaining his dedication to this cause, he said, ‘I thought that only love and uncalculating devotion towards others will lead to the greatest harmony in life and in art of which humanity has been dreaming so long. And this must, of course, be included in each utterance, in each brushstroke, and in each colour’ (Chagall, quoted in Chagall: A Retrospective, ed. J. Baal-Teshuva, Westport, 1995, p. 208).
Ambroise Vollard, Chagall’s dealer and the publisher of his prints during the 1920s and 1930s, was a great aficionado of the circus and in 1927, he proposed to Chagall a new project to create a suite of gouaches in celebration of it. Vollard offered him free use of his season box at the Cirque d’Hiver, which the artist happily took advantage of,and from its inspiration, painted his circus series in two sets, nineteen gouaches in all, which became known as the Cirque Vollard (Meyer, nos. 481-501).
The theme of the lovers is arguably the most celebrated and best represented themes within Chagall’s oeuvre. Exuding romance and desire informed by his own life, the lovers represent both the youthful passion for his first wife and great love Bella, as well as the enduring and faithful love of his second wife, Valentina “Vava” Brodsky, to whom Chagall was married at the time of painting Couple au cirque, and who would remain his devoted companion until his passing. For Chagall, love and beauty were powerful elements, forces that could only bring greater harmony to a world that appeared in need of it during his lifetime. Explaining his dedication to this cause, he said, ‘I thought that only love and uncalculating devotion towards others will lead to the greatest harmony in life and in art of which humanity has been dreaming so long. And this must, of course, be included in each utterance, in each brushstroke, and in each colour’ (Chagall, quoted in Chagall: A Retrospective, ed. J. Baal-Teshuva, Westport, 1995, p. 208).