"For
me, a circus is a magical spectacle, a passing and dissolving like a little
world. There is a disquieting circus, a circus of hidden depths. These clowns,
riders, acrobats are imprinted on my sight. Why? Why am I moved by their
make-up and their grimaces? With them I travel on toward other horizons. Their
colors and their painted masks draw me toward other, strange, psychic forms
which I long to paint.
Circus! A magical word, a centuries old entertainment
parading before us, in which a tear, a smile, a gesture of arm or leg takes on
the quality of great art.
And what do circus people receive in return? A crust
of bread. Night brings them solitude and sadness stretching on to the following
day until evening, amid a blaze of electric light, heralds a renewal of the old
life. For me, the circus is the most tragic of all dramatic
performances.
Throughout the centuries, its voice has been the most shrill heard
in the quest for the amusement and joy of man. Often it takes on a high poetic
form. I seem to see a Don Quixote tilting at windmills, like the inspired clown
who has known tears and dreams of human love.
My circus pitches its Big Top in
the sky.
It performs among the clouds,
among the chairs,
or in the
moon-reflecting windows.
In the streets a man goes by.
He puts out the lights
and lamps of the town.
The show is over."
Marc
Chagall, Circus (1967)
"Chagall saw circus folk
as the perfect example of artists who desire to be loved and achieve
their dreams. He identified himself with these people and the
representations he made of them can be seen as self-portraits."
Chagall’s son, David MacNeil.
"
For him, clowns and acrobats always resembled figures in religious
paintings... The evolution of the circus works... reflects a gradual
clouding of his worldview, and the circus performers now gave way to the
prophet or sage in his work—- a figure into whom Chagall poured his
anxiety as Europe darkened, and he could no longer rely on the lumiére-liberté of France for inspiration."
Jackie Wullschlager
