Marc Chagall’s birthplace, Vitebsk, wasn’t an isolated provincial Russian city. Linked by rail to St. Petersburg, the town was visited regularly by troupes of touring actors and performers, including acrobats and equestrians. Some of their performances were not unlike the Cirque d’Hiver that Chagall enjoyed during his long sojourn in Paris.
The new exhibition at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, “Chagall’s Le Cirque,” brings together a set of the artist’s circus-inspired lithographs published in 1967 by Tériade Éditions. The exhibit of 23 color and 15 black-and-white lithographs is a first for Milwaukee. The artworks, on loan from Manitowoc’s Rahr-West Art Museum, have never been displayed together in our city and have only been displayed once before in the U.S.
Scenes observed firsthand from the Cirque d’Hiver may have been fresh in Chagall’s mind as he created those works, and yet Vitebsk was never far from his field of vision. The “Le Cirque” lithographs are packed with familiar images and symbols recurrent in most everything Chagall created but transposed to a circus ring.
“It was always about his world, his memories and his own personal stories,” says the Jewish Museum’s curator, Molly Dubin.
Chagall’s enduring appeal is that his world of memories continues to speak to audiences distant in time and place from the pre-World War I Russian-Jewish community where his imagination was shaped. Chagall was a visual storyteller, modern yet with deep and unapologetic roots, and a playful surrealist drawing from personal yet recognizable archetypes. He painted dreams of metaphysical freedom and love whose meaning—at least on one level—needs no complicated decoding.
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The winged figure holding a bouquet in “Le Cirque’s” Plate XX might be an angel that materialized in the circus ring; one of Chagall’s characteristic rams with big Egyptian eyes keeps him company; in the background, acrobats whirl and hover beyond the sketched outlines of the audience on stadium seats. Filling the frames in many of “Le Cirque’s” lithographs are harlequins, violins, levitating couples embracing, suns, crescent moons and the incongruous presence of fish. Dubin explains that Chagall’s father was a successful fishmonger. To the artist, those fish may have been a comforting reminder of home and the dependability of family.
Plate XVII is especially striking for its depiction of a lion tamer whose whip hand suggests a conductor waving a baton. One of his lions smiles. Down below, a woman rests against the side of a sleeping lion. It’s a peaceable kingdom transcending the grit and cruelty of circus life. The faces of many of the beasts in “Le Cirque” wear almost human expressions, and the borders between angelic, human and animal become almost porous. Chagall’s images are usually whimsical, yet his palette is often dark. Perhaps the joy Chagall found in the world cast a shadow in the uncertain gap between the ideal and the real.
The exhibition includes wall-size panels describing Chagall’s life in Paris, his World War II refugee years in New York City (he barely escaped Nazi-occupied France) and his condemnation by the Nazis as a “degenerate artist.” A video of Chagall recently discovered in France shows the artist at work on a lithographer’s stone with many closeups of his free-styling fingers. The Jewish Museum’s intimate setting provides a unique opportunity to ponder a set of beautiful artworks up close.
On the way to “Chagall’s Le Cirque” in the museum’s foyer is a related exhibition, “Wisconsin: The Mother of Circuses and The Great Circus Parade.” Culled from collections at the World Circus Museum in Baraboo and the Milwaukee County Historical Society, the exhibit tells the surprising history of the Badger State’s pivotal role in the circus industry as it developed in the 19th century. Included are many photographs from the Great Circus Parade that rolled down Wisconsin Avenue for many years from the 1960s through the ’00s and panels recounting the role of Milwaukee’s Ben Barkin and Chappie Fox in preserving circus history and mounting the parade.
Chagall’s Le Cirque and Wisconsin: The Mother of Circuses and The Great Circus Parade run through Sep. 8 at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee, 1360 N. Prospect Ave. For more information, including special programs in conjunction with the exhibits, call 414-390-5730 or visit jewishmuseummilwaukee.org.
