Chagall’s approach to painting emerged from a strain of artistic fascination with mysticism and the supernatural that nourished Romanticism and Symbolism and reached its apogee in Dada and Surrealism around the time of World War I. What set him apart was his incorporation of folkloric and biblical themes into his vibrantly colored canvases. Born a Russian Jew into a family of modest means, Chagall’s grounding in the religious and cultural practices of turn-of-the-century western Russia defined his imagery for his entire career.
Moving to Paris in 1910, Chagall became immersed in the Parisian avant-garde and the circle of Guillaume Apollinaire—poet, champion of Cubism, and forefather of Surrealism. Though completed half a century later, The Queen of the Circus embodies the intellectual and formal concerns that had been incubating in Chagall’s work since the 1920s. Figures, animals, and musical instruments materialize in a spray of color across the picture plane. The sophisticated palette comprises vivid greens, deep magentas, and cobalt blues that work harmoniously alongside bursts of yellow and acidic orange. The interior of a circus is roughly defined by the ring and audience in the background, but direct references to an actual event, as well as perspective and narrative, end there. Rather, elements both large and small are deployed without a consistent perspectival strategy, resulting in a playful, fantastical artistic performance. As Chagall said of his semi-referential worlds: “Judge me by form and color, by my philosophy, not by the separate symbols. One can see all the questions and answers in the pictures themselves. Everyone can see them in his own way, interpret what he sees and how he sees.”
2024
