This twenty-color lithographic print was produced by Mourlot of Paris by a special lithographic process, issued by Arta Gallery, Jerusalem, by agreement with the Chagall Estate. It is from the original painting: THE CIRCUS (1970), private collection.
‘For me, a circus is a magic show that appears and disappears like a world,’ Marc Chagall wrote in 1966. ‘These clowns, bareback riders and acrobats have made themselves at home in my visions. Why? Why am I so touched by their make-up and their grimaces? With them I can move towards new horizons.’
With time, the circus came to lie at the very heart of his personal mythology. In his art, he summoned the spectacle of the experience in all its colorful variety — clowns, acrobats and women riding bareback, stands brimming with onlookers — as a vivid metaphor for the life he had decided to lead.
In his work, Chagall consistently sought to create fantasy worlds in which anything was possible. For him, the circus stage was the ideal setting for dreamlike, extraordinary acts: trapeze artists, lovers, cockerels and violinists floating in their own metaphysical spaces, defying, like the circus itself, the formal laws of composition.
‘A circus is disturbing. It is profound,’ Chagall wrote in 1966. ‘A timeless dancing game where tears and smiles, the play of arms and legs take the form of a great art.’
Loc: G.C. pp245a