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拍品专文
Executed in 1945, Marc Chagall’s Ballerine pour Léonide Massine is a lyrical rendering of a dancer floating among a number of the artist’s favoured leitmotifs. With Chagall’s expressive and smooth, undulating brushstrokes, the titular ballerina is a vision of serene elegance as she dances over rows of rooftops. The sense of performance is further implied by the presence of the seated blue fiddler in the lower right corner, a figure Chagall often incorporated into his works. The violinist prominently recurred in Chagall’s oeuvre, and the character was rooted in memories of the artist’s youth in Vitebsk, where music was an integral component of communal life, a part of weddings, funerals, feast days, and religious festivals. Chagall was beguiled by the fiddler’s artistic potential, their ability to convey the full range of emotions through the auditory, something he sought to replicate with visual imagery. Amid the swirls of colour in the upper portion of Ballerine pour Léonide Massine, a dreamlike horse emerges, as well as the profile of a male figure, who, with flurries of sparkling white and yellow strokes cascading round his head like constellations, presses his forehead to the dancer’s cheek in a tender embrace. Spheres of golden light radiate from a beaming sun, while a luminous blue cockerel perches beneath it, aglow with a gleaming white light.
Chagall had been drawn to the performative arts from an early age and was captivated by the creative worlds they unveiled: ‘as a child, Chagall not only wanted to be a singer, he wanted to be a dancer, a violinist, a poet… all the arts moved and stimulated him, excited and obsessed him’ (N. Bondil, ‘Some Notes on Chagall’s Magical Score,’ in Chagall and Music, exh. cat., The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2017, p. 19). As a young man he became the chief set designer for the Theatre of Revolutionary Satire in his native Vitebsk, and in 1920 he was asked to create the backdrops for the Jewish Chamber Theatre’s first Moscow production, before painting seven monumental murals for them too. It would be some twenty or so years before the artist resumed his engagement with the theatre, when, having settled in New York, he was approached by the Ballet Theatre in 1941, commissioned to design the costumes and sets for an upcoming production called Aleko. The ballet was to be choreographed by the famous Russian dancer Léonide Massine, who, like Chagall, had emigrated to the city. It was an interpretation of Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Gypsies, set to an orchestration of Petyr Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A Minor, Op. 50, for piano, violin and cello. The artist was captivated by Pushkin’s story, which explored narratives of love and loss, exile, and nomadic life, as well as invoking the pre-Revolutionary Russia that Chagall had known as a child.
Chagall and Massine worked tirelessly together for months, sharing their inspired and poetic visions for the ballet. The two collaborated closely, listening to the music together in Chagall’s studio with the artist’s wife Bella reading Pushkin’s verses as they discussed colour schemes and choreography. Although the ballet had been planned to debut in New York, for technical and economic reasons production was moved to Mexico City, and it was there that Chagall himself painted the sets for Massine and his drawings of the costumes were brought to life, their creation supervised by Bella. Teams of local craftspeople and artisans assisted, including the Surrealist painters Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. With Massine and Chagall’s artistic vision finalised, Aleko was first performed in September 1942 in Mexico City, before debuting in New York that October. Their collaboration was a complete triumph, attracting significant praise from critics in Mexico and New York.
While working with Massine, Chagall spent hours watching the dancers rehearse, and his close observations enhanced his understanding of form and movement. The artist’s balletically-inspired works, such as Ballerine pour Léonide Massine, showcase his astounding ability to capture the elegant dynamism of the human figure. Here, the pearlescent ballerina dances between light and dark, and the composition is infused with a deeply evocative poignancy, a beautiful sense of love and loss, perhaps particularly resonant of Chagall’s personal life in these years. The previous year, 1944, the artist’s beloved wife Bella passed away, and overcome with grief, Chagall had been unable to work for six months. It was in the spring of 1945 that he resumed painting, and began designing the sets and costumes for another ballet, The Firebird. The artist went on to work on one more ballet in his lifetime, Daphnis and Chloe, as well as a production of the opera The Magic Flute. His ability to reflect and capture the emotional intensity and synaesthesia of the performing arts continued to be recognised, and the artist was asked to paint the ceiling frescoes of the magnificent Opéra Garnier in Paris in the 1960s. Ballerine pour Léonide Massine was acquired by the pivotal collector and gallerist Agnes Widlund, whose gallery, Samlaren, revolutionised and modernised the Swedish art scene.
Chagall had been drawn to the performative arts from an early age and was captivated by the creative worlds they unveiled: ‘as a child, Chagall not only wanted to be a singer, he wanted to be a dancer, a violinist, a poet… all the arts moved and stimulated him, excited and obsessed him’ (N. Bondil, ‘Some Notes on Chagall’s Magical Score,’ in Chagall and Music, exh. cat., The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2017, p. 19). As a young man he became the chief set designer for the Theatre of Revolutionary Satire in his native Vitebsk, and in 1920 he was asked to create the backdrops for the Jewish Chamber Theatre’s first Moscow production, before painting seven monumental murals for them too. It would be some twenty or so years before the artist resumed his engagement with the theatre, when, having settled in New York, he was approached by the Ballet Theatre in 1941, commissioned to design the costumes and sets for an upcoming production called Aleko. The ballet was to be choreographed by the famous Russian dancer Léonide Massine, who, like Chagall, had emigrated to the city. It was an interpretation of Alexander Pushkin’s poem The Gypsies, set to an orchestration of Petyr Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A Minor, Op. 50, for piano, violin and cello. The artist was captivated by Pushkin’s story, which explored narratives of love and loss, exile, and nomadic life, as well as invoking the pre-Revolutionary Russia that Chagall had known as a child.
Chagall and Massine worked tirelessly together for months, sharing their inspired and poetic visions for the ballet. The two collaborated closely, listening to the music together in Chagall’s studio with the artist’s wife Bella reading Pushkin’s verses as they discussed colour schemes and choreography. Although the ballet had been planned to debut in New York, for technical and economic reasons production was moved to Mexico City, and it was there that Chagall himself painted the sets for Massine and his drawings of the costumes were brought to life, their creation supervised by Bella. Teams of local craftspeople and artisans assisted, including the Surrealist painters Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. With Massine and Chagall’s artistic vision finalised, Aleko was first performed in September 1942 in Mexico City, before debuting in New York that October. Their collaboration was a complete triumph, attracting significant praise from critics in Mexico and New York.
While working with Massine, Chagall spent hours watching the dancers rehearse, and his close observations enhanced his understanding of form and movement. The artist’s balletically-inspired works, such as Ballerine pour Léonide Massine, showcase his astounding ability to capture the elegant dynamism of the human figure. Here, the pearlescent ballerina dances between light and dark, and the composition is infused with a deeply evocative poignancy, a beautiful sense of love and loss, perhaps particularly resonant of Chagall’s personal life in these years. The previous year, 1944, the artist’s beloved wife Bella passed away, and overcome with grief, Chagall had been unable to work for six months. It was in the spring of 1945 that he resumed painting, and began designing the sets and costumes for another ballet, The Firebird. The artist went on to work on one more ballet in his lifetime, Daphnis and Chloe, as well as a production of the opera The Magic Flute. His ability to reflect and capture the emotional intensity and synaesthesia of the performing arts continued to be recognised, and the artist was asked to paint the ceiling frescoes of the magnificent Opéra Garnier in Paris in the 1960s. Ballerine pour Léonide Massine was acquired by the pivotal collector and gallerist Agnes Widlund, whose gallery, Samlaren, revolutionised and modernised the Swedish art scene.