Marc Chagall, (1887-1985)
Clown au bouquet de fleurs
Clown au bouquet de fleurs
signed 'Marc Chagall' (lower right)
India ink and wash on paper
60.9 x 45.6cm (24 x 17 15/16in).
Executed circa 1975
The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by the Comité Chagall.
Provenance
Anon. sale, Pierre Bergé & Associés, Brussels, 8 June 2011, lot 24.
Private collection, Brussels (acquired at the above sale).
Clown au bouquet de fleurs stands testament to the enduring magic that the circus and its players held for Chagall: the noble profile of a clown takes centre stage while a nude equestrienne balances on her horse to the upper left. In his hands, the clown clasps the Chagallian bouquet of flowers which was often used to symbolise love in its joyous yet melancholic whole.
Travelling troupes were the first artists Chagall encountered as a child, who recalled early memories of acrobats, musicians and jesters visiting his home town of Vitebsk in Russia. The circus appeared as a dominant motif in his artwork from the 1920s onwards, following evenings spent at the Parisian Cirque d'Hiver at the invitation of the dealer Ambroise Vollard. Inspired, Chagall painted a series of nineteen gouaches which were translated into the Cirque Vollard lithograph suite. The artist was invited to attend the shooting of a film set in this same circus some thirty years later, prompting a return to the whimsical world of entertainers in his paintings and another series of lithographs entitled simply Cirque, published by Tériade in 1967.
Chagall often pondered his own fascination with the circus: 'these clowns, bareback riders and acrobats have made themselves at home in my visions. Why? Why am I so touched by their make-up and their grimaces? With them I can move towards new horizons. Lured by their colours and make-up, I dream of painting new psychic distortions' (M. Chagall quoted in S. Compton, Chagall, (exh. cat.), London, 1985, p. 14).
Freed from a fixed time and place, the fantastical world of the circus allowed Chagall to unleash his imagination, portraying tumbling acrobats, grimacing clowns, romantic horseback riders and soaring animals, explored in paint, ink, pencil and lithography. Chagall's circuses however were not just arenas of entertainment, but simultaneously a more sobering reflection of humanity. In Clown au bouquet de fleurs the viewer is presented not with a playful fool, but rather the elongated and noble profile of a player, boldly formed with dense ink strokes, whose features strongly resemble those of the artist himself as presented in works such as Self Portrait with Palette, 1955. The female rider, far from seeking to entertain us, glances aside at the clown, ostentatious nudity negated by her melancholic air. The fundamentally false nature of these actors' lives struck Chagall: 'it is a magic word, circus, a timeless dancing game where tears and smiles, the play of arms and legs take the form of great art. But what do most of these circus people earn? A piece of bread. Night brings them solitude, sadness. Until the next day when the evening flooded with electric lights announces a new old-life... The circus seems to me like the most tragic show on earth' (M. Chagall quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, (ed.), Chagall: A Retrospective, Westport, 1995, p. 197). Indeed Chagall extended the circus as a metaphor for the devastating world events of the first half of the twentieth century speaking in 1967, he commented: 'alas, in my lifetime I have seen a grotesque circus: a man roared to terrify the world, and a thunder of applause answered him' (M. Chagall quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ibid., p. 197).
Hope is offered in the form of the equestrienne seen in so many of the artist's compositions, who looked to this motif for guidance and redemption: 'I would like to go up to that bareback rider who has just reappeared, smiling... I would circle her with my flowered and unflowered years. On my knees, I would tell her wishes and dreams, not of this world. I would run after her to ask her how to live, how to escape from myself, from the world, whom to run to, where to go' (M. Chagall quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ibid., p. 197). Executed circa 1975, the present work was created in the artist's later years and certainly illustrates a dichotomy of hope and melancholy. The clown appears to offer an abundant bouquet of flowers to the horseback rider, an enduring symbol of romance in Chagall's work from its first appearance in The Birthday of 1915 in which Bella holds a small posy. A visual embodiment of the love he felt for her and his second wife Vava, bouquets by their very nature however are temporary, fleeting: 'cut flowers are ephemeral: through man's artifice their beauty is arranged momentarily [...] the artist reminds us of the importance as well as the ecstasy of human love' (S. Compton, op. cit., p. 212).
Whilst flowers were often used as a vehicle for the artist's exuberant palette, the colourist here restrains himself to monochrome ink and wash, in which we can yet discern numerous gradations and variations in tone and line. Thick sweeps of dense ink form the clown's profile, hat and ruff, contrasting with the delicate tendrils of washed ink which form a botanical halo around the flowers. Geometric cross-hatching to the male's hair and eyebrow are echoed in his jacket, while calligraphic squiggles run freely across his costume and through the blooms. The composition is painterly, as if executed with speed and passion, with pigment allowed to run down the upper right edge, punctuated by a blot of ink below.
Known for his joyful use of colour, Chagall nonetheless enjoyed exploring more subtle variations within the media of ink and print. Showing his engravings to Alexander Liberman in 1956, the artist 'picked up a proof and pointed out, using musical terms, 'there must be the same black accents everywhere; 're-echos', that's the word. Black and white is a color. If you do not see color in a black and white picture, it is dead. In Rembrandt, Goya, and Daumier you can see the color in black and white, less so in the others. Matisse has a beautiful black and white because he was a colorist'' (J. Baal-Teshuva, op. cit, p. 238).
The strong black outlines of Clown au bouquet de fleurs also reflect Chagall's contemporaneous work on stained glass windows in the mid-1970s. Religion featured in the artist's work through these designs, two series of illustrations of the Bible, and more subtly within compositions apparently of another subject altogether. Chagall was raised a Hasidic Jew, a faith in which dance and music are forms of prayer. The artist did not differentiate between his Bible illustrations and his portraits of clowns for example, and would elevate his circus compositions to a spiritual plane: 'I have always considered clowns, acrobats, and actors as tragically human; to me, they resemble the characters of certain religious paintings. And even today, when I paint a Crucifixion or another religious painting, I feel the same emotions that I experienced while painting circus people' (M. Chagall quoted in Exh. cat., Marc Chagall, San Francisco, 2003, p. 106).
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Clown au bouquet de fleurs
Clown au bouquet de fleurs
signed 'Marc Chagall' (lower right)
India ink and wash on paper
60.9 x 45.6cm (24 x 17 15/16in).
Executed circa 1975
The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by the Comité Chagall.
Provenance
Anon. sale, Pierre Bergé & Associés, Brussels, 8 June 2011, lot 24.
Private collection, Brussels (acquired at the above sale).
Clown au bouquet de fleurs stands testament to the enduring magic that the circus and its players held for Chagall: the noble profile of a clown takes centre stage while a nude equestrienne balances on her horse to the upper left. In his hands, the clown clasps the Chagallian bouquet of flowers which was often used to symbolise love in its joyous yet melancholic whole.
Travelling troupes were the first artists Chagall encountered as a child, who recalled early memories of acrobats, musicians and jesters visiting his home town of Vitebsk in Russia. The circus appeared as a dominant motif in his artwork from the 1920s onwards, following evenings spent at the Parisian Cirque d'Hiver at the invitation of the dealer Ambroise Vollard. Inspired, Chagall painted a series of nineteen gouaches which were translated into the Cirque Vollard lithograph suite. The artist was invited to attend the shooting of a film set in this same circus some thirty years later, prompting a return to the whimsical world of entertainers in his paintings and another series of lithographs entitled simply Cirque, published by Tériade in 1967.
Chagall often pondered his own fascination with the circus: 'these clowns, bareback riders and acrobats have made themselves at home in my visions. Why? Why am I so touched by their make-up and their grimaces? With them I can move towards new horizons. Lured by their colours and make-up, I dream of painting new psychic distortions' (M. Chagall quoted in S. Compton, Chagall, (exh. cat.), London, 1985, p. 14).
Freed from a fixed time and place, the fantastical world of the circus allowed Chagall to unleash his imagination, portraying tumbling acrobats, grimacing clowns, romantic horseback riders and soaring animals, explored in paint, ink, pencil and lithography. Chagall's circuses however were not just arenas of entertainment, but simultaneously a more sobering reflection of humanity. In Clown au bouquet de fleurs the viewer is presented not with a playful fool, but rather the elongated and noble profile of a player, boldly formed with dense ink strokes, whose features strongly resemble those of the artist himself as presented in works such as Self Portrait with Palette, 1955. The female rider, far from seeking to entertain us, glances aside at the clown, ostentatious nudity negated by her melancholic air. The fundamentally false nature of these actors' lives struck Chagall: 'it is a magic word, circus, a timeless dancing game where tears and smiles, the play of arms and legs take the form of great art. But what do most of these circus people earn? A piece of bread. Night brings them solitude, sadness. Until the next day when the evening flooded with electric lights announces a new old-life... The circus seems to me like the most tragic show on earth' (M. Chagall quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, (ed.), Chagall: A Retrospective, Westport, 1995, p. 197). Indeed Chagall extended the circus as a metaphor for the devastating world events of the first half of the twentieth century speaking in 1967, he commented: 'alas, in my lifetime I have seen a grotesque circus: a man roared to terrify the world, and a thunder of applause answered him' (M. Chagall quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ibid., p. 197).
Hope is offered in the form of the equestrienne seen in so many of the artist's compositions, who looked to this motif for guidance and redemption: 'I would like to go up to that bareback rider who has just reappeared, smiling... I would circle her with my flowered and unflowered years. On my knees, I would tell her wishes and dreams, not of this world. I would run after her to ask her how to live, how to escape from myself, from the world, whom to run to, where to go' (M. Chagall quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ibid., p. 197). Executed circa 1975, the present work was created in the artist's later years and certainly illustrates a dichotomy of hope and melancholy. The clown appears to offer an abundant bouquet of flowers to the horseback rider, an enduring symbol of romance in Chagall's work from its first appearance in The Birthday of 1915 in which Bella holds a small posy. A visual embodiment of the love he felt for her and his second wife Vava, bouquets by their very nature however are temporary, fleeting: 'cut flowers are ephemeral: through man's artifice their beauty is arranged momentarily [...] the artist reminds us of the importance as well as the ecstasy of human love' (S. Compton, op. cit., p. 212).
Whilst flowers were often used as a vehicle for the artist's exuberant palette, the colourist here restrains himself to monochrome ink and wash, in which we can yet discern numerous gradations and variations in tone and line. Thick sweeps of dense ink form the clown's profile, hat and ruff, contrasting with the delicate tendrils of washed ink which form a botanical halo around the flowers. Geometric cross-hatching to the male's hair and eyebrow are echoed in his jacket, while calligraphic squiggles run freely across his costume and through the blooms. The composition is painterly, as if executed with speed and passion, with pigment allowed to run down the upper right edge, punctuated by a blot of ink below.
Known for his joyful use of colour, Chagall nonetheless enjoyed exploring more subtle variations within the media of ink and print. Showing his engravings to Alexander Liberman in 1956, the artist 'picked up a proof and pointed out, using musical terms, 'there must be the same black accents everywhere; 're-echos', that's the word. Black and white is a color. If you do not see color in a black and white picture, it is dead. In Rembrandt, Goya, and Daumier you can see the color in black and white, less so in the others. Matisse has a beautiful black and white because he was a colorist'' (J. Baal-Teshuva, op. cit, p. 238).
The strong black outlines of Clown au bouquet de fleurs also reflect Chagall's contemporaneous work on stained glass windows in the mid-1970s. Religion featured in the artist's work through these designs, two series of illustrations of the Bible, and more subtly within compositions apparently of another subject altogether. Chagall was raised a Hasidic Jew, a faith in which dance and music are forms of prayer. The artist did not differentiate between his Bible illustrations and his portraits of clowns for example, and would elevate his circus compositions to a spiritual plane: 'I have always considered clowns, acrobats, and actors as tragically human; to me, they resemble the characters of certain religious paintings. And even today, when I paint a Crucifixion or another religious painting, I feel the same emotions that I experienced while painting circus people' (M. Chagall quoted in Exh. cat., Marc Chagall, San Francisco, 2003, p. 106).
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