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Lot Essay
This work is sold with a photo-certificate from the Comité Chagall.
In this drawing La danseuse au bouc, Chagall displays the juxtaposition of some of his favorite characters; the bride dancing elegantly at the centre of the composition, a green swooning youth holding a bouquet of flowers and a pink goat preaching with a blue rooster on its head, thereby creating his own whimsical world of fantasy. In the far lower left corner, Chagall depicts a musician playing the violin, accompanying the characters' whirling movements, plunging them in the lyrical blue background.
Although the vibrant colours and the movement of the scene radiate themes of love, joy and celebration of life, when Chagall executed La danseuse au bouc, the artist had just emerged from one of the darkest years of his life. By 1945, Chagall had been in New York for almost four years, where he had moved to with his beloved wife, Bella. In 1944, Bella died very suddenly, leaving Chagall in despair and sadness, as he clearly recalls 'For me all was darkness' (Meyer, p. 466). During the nine months following Bella's tragic death, Chagall did not produce anything, his creative mind held back by the depression he found himself in. Instead he sought comfort by his daughter Ida, who lived in New York, and he helped her translating Bella's memoirs Burning Lights from Yiddish into French.
From then on, Chagall was determined to recover from his mourning by immortalizing the past, by celebrating his passionate love for Bella and by reviving his enthusiasm for life throughout his work. One of his first projects, in which he fully explored the rebirth of his optimism, were his extraordinary stage designs and backdrop curtain of 1945 for Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird, which was based on a Russian fairytale. At the opening of The Firebird, every New York newspaper headline praised Chagall's decorations over the performance itself. In the context of Chagall's aspiration to perpetuate past joyful memories, it is not surprising that the theme of the Phoenix bird, symbol of immortality, dominated Chagall's stage designs. In La danseuse au bouc, the luminous colours and Chagall's imagination echo the magical scenery he designed for The Firebird.
The present work is also reminiscent of Chagall's decorations produced for Rachmaninov and Pouchkine's ballet Aleko, commissioned from him shortly after his arrival in America, in 1942 (fig. 1). La danseuse au bouc is particularly similar in style to that of the preparatory gouache for the set design, representing the dancer 'Zemphira' from the first scene of Aleko (Museum of Modern Art, New York). By 1942, Chagall's palette of colours could set the scenery ablaze, being infused with the intense fiery colours characteristic of Latin American culture, which had struck Chagall when he traveled to Mexico that same year. In La danseuse au bouc, Chagall succeeds in expressing the triumph of those flamboyant colours and of his joy of painting, which helped him overcome his despair following Bella's death.
(fig. 1) Chagall on Aleko set, Mexico, 1942.
In this drawing La danseuse au bouc, Chagall displays the juxtaposition of some of his favorite characters; the bride dancing elegantly at the centre of the composition, a green swooning youth holding a bouquet of flowers and a pink goat preaching with a blue rooster on its head, thereby creating his own whimsical world of fantasy. In the far lower left corner, Chagall depicts a musician playing the violin, accompanying the characters' whirling movements, plunging them in the lyrical blue background.
Although the vibrant colours and the movement of the scene radiate themes of love, joy and celebration of life, when Chagall executed La danseuse au bouc, the artist had just emerged from one of the darkest years of his life. By 1945, Chagall had been in New York for almost four years, where he had moved to with his beloved wife, Bella. In 1944, Bella died very suddenly, leaving Chagall in despair and sadness, as he clearly recalls 'For me all was darkness' (Meyer, p. 466). During the nine months following Bella's tragic death, Chagall did not produce anything, his creative mind held back by the depression he found himself in. Instead he sought comfort by his daughter Ida, who lived in New York, and he helped her translating Bella's memoirs Burning Lights from Yiddish into French.
From then on, Chagall was determined to recover from his mourning by immortalizing the past, by celebrating his passionate love for Bella and by reviving his enthusiasm for life throughout his work. One of his first projects, in which he fully explored the rebirth of his optimism, were his extraordinary stage designs and backdrop curtain of 1945 for Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Firebird, which was based on a Russian fairytale. At the opening of The Firebird, every New York newspaper headline praised Chagall's decorations over the performance itself. In the context of Chagall's aspiration to perpetuate past joyful memories, it is not surprising that the theme of the Phoenix bird, symbol of immortality, dominated Chagall's stage designs. In La danseuse au bouc, the luminous colours and Chagall's imagination echo the magical scenery he designed for The Firebird.
The present work is also reminiscent of Chagall's decorations produced for Rachmaninov and Pouchkine's ballet Aleko, commissioned from him shortly after his arrival in America, in 1942 (fig. 1). La danseuse au bouc is particularly similar in style to that of the preparatory gouache for the set design, representing the dancer 'Zemphira' from the first scene of Aleko (Museum of Modern Art, New York). By 1942, Chagall's palette of colours could set the scenery ablaze, being infused with the intense fiery colours characteristic of Latin American culture, which had struck Chagall when he traveled to Mexico that same year. In La danseuse au bouc, Chagall succeeds in expressing the triumph of those flamboyant colours and of his joy of painting, which helped him overcome his despair following Bella's death.
(fig. 1) Chagall on Aleko set, Mexico, 1942.