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Lot Essay
The imagery of Chagall's native Russian folk art and icons and the Hasidic traditions of his community in Vitebsk exerted a powerful influence over the artist and remained consistent elements in his work. The musicians, cows, and clowns present in Les musiciens are recurrent symbols in Chagall's paintings. However, Chagall stressed that these were to be understood not as pictorial subjects, but rather as "the vital mark these early influences leave, as it were, on the handwriting of the artist" (J.J. Sweeney, "An Interview with Marc Chagall", Partisan Review, vol. XVI, 1949).
Chagall believed that the visual effectiveness of the painted composition was primary to any other concern of narrative or structure. He emphasized that the compositional arrangements of his paintings were based only on concerns of form and color and were not dictated by any text. In a lecture Chagall gave in Chicago in February 1958, he compared color in a painting to notes of music, calling it "the pulse of a work of art ...[that] goes through the eyes and remains within the soul". The dream world that he evoked in Les musiciens is replete with symbols that reference his personal history. The musician has been interpreted as an incarnation of an Orphic prototype which stands for art itself, the horse as symbolic of nature, the lovers as the union of man and woman.
In the present work, the clown is playing a fiddle, the chief instrument of the street musician and one which is traditionally associated with the evening serenade of a loved one. The minstrel's beloved, from whom a horse springs (perhaps emblematic of her own passion), stands by with a bouquet of flowers. In the background of the present composition, an acrobat can be seen swinging on a trapeze. For Chagall, the circus performer was a universal symbol for humanity in both its tragic and comic aspects. The clown is clearly a foil for the artist himself, as a conjuror of tales, a mime of sadness and joy. In 1967 Chagall wrote:
The circus seems to me like the most tragic show on earth. Through the centuries, it has been the most poignant cry in man's search for amusement and joy. It often takes the form of high poetry. I seem to see a Don Quixote in search of an ideal, like that inspired clown who wept and dreamed of human love (quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., Chagall: A Retrospective, New York, 1995, p. 197).
Chagall believed that the visual effectiveness of the painted composition was primary to any other concern of narrative or structure. He emphasized that the compositional arrangements of his paintings were based only on concerns of form and color and were not dictated by any text. In a lecture Chagall gave in Chicago in February 1958, he compared color in a painting to notes of music, calling it "the pulse of a work of art ...[that] goes through the eyes and remains within the soul". The dream world that he evoked in Les musiciens is replete with symbols that reference his personal history. The musician has been interpreted as an incarnation of an Orphic prototype which stands for art itself, the horse as symbolic of nature, the lovers as the union of man and woman.
In the present work, the clown is playing a fiddle, the chief instrument of the street musician and one which is traditionally associated with the evening serenade of a loved one. The minstrel's beloved, from whom a horse springs (perhaps emblematic of her own passion), stands by with a bouquet of flowers. In the background of the present composition, an acrobat can be seen swinging on a trapeze. For Chagall, the circus performer was a universal symbol for humanity in both its tragic and comic aspects. The clown is clearly a foil for the artist himself, as a conjuror of tales, a mime of sadness and joy. In 1967 Chagall wrote:
The circus seems to me like the most tragic show on earth. Through the centuries, it has been the most poignant cry in man's search for amusement and joy. It often takes the form of high poetry. I seem to see a Don Quixote in search of an ideal, like that inspired clown who wept and dreamed of human love (quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, ed., Chagall: A Retrospective, New York, 1995, p. 197).