Chagall & music

RBC takes tremendous pride in supporting the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as presenter of the exhibition Chagall: Colour and Music. With this exhibition, the Museum, as a major cultural institution in the city, hosts a world-class event that ties in nicely with the 375th anniversary of Montreal.

I would like to acknowledge the Museum’s boldness in going beyond what the general public has come to know and love in Marc Chagall’s art by presenting lesser-known works that bring together two important art forms, namely painting and music.

Chagall was a modern artist whose life and work spanned cultures. As such, I believe a definite parallel can be made with Montreal, which traces its origins back to two prominent cultures and stakes its place in the world through both a glorious past and a modern, exciting future.

RBC is committed to art. We firmly believe art helps nurture hearts and minds, lift spirits and develop positive values so that each and every one of us can ultimately be better individuals.

May Chagall: Colour and Music bring as much joy to its many visitors as to its presenters.

Martin Thibodeau President, Quebec Headquarters RBC Royal Bank

Self-portrait with Seven Fingers [CAT. 42] 1912-1913 (detail)

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Final model for the ceiling of the Opéra de Paris

Preparatory drawing for the ceiling of the Opéra de Paris: Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, Stravinsky’s Firebird, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake

Preparatory drawing for the ceiling of the Opéra de Paris: Debussy’s Pelléas and Mélisande and Rameau

1963 Private collection

1963 Private collection

1963 Private collection

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Final design for a stained glass window for the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem: The Tribe of Ruben, 5th state 1959-1960 Private collection 51

The Tribe of Ruben 1960 Private collection 52

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Final design for a stained glass window for the synagogue of the Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem: The Tribe of Zebulon, 5th state 1959-1960 Private collection 53

The Tribe of Zebulon 71

1960 Private collection 53

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Paris between Two Banks

The Rainbow

1953-1956 Private collection

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1967 Strasbourg, Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain, on deposit from the Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris

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The Dance

White Goat

The Lovers

Lovers on Bench

1911-1912 Paris, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou

1914 Private collection

Peasant Couple: Departure for the War

1914 Private collection

1911 Private collection

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1914 Paris, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou

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SOUND, COLOUR AND MUSICAL RHYTHM

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Calvary

Half-past Three (The Poet)

1912 New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, 1949

1911 Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950

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THE STAGE

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A group of katsinas

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Momo Katsina (Bee Katsina)

Cradle Katsina Doll

Patung Katsina (Squash Katsina)

About 1900 Paris, Galerie Flak 373

About 1890-1900 Paris, Galerie Flak

Mid-20th century Paris, Galerie Flak

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Kuwan Heheya Katsina Doll About 1910 Paris, Galerie Flak

Costume design for The Firebird: Green Monster with Black Stripes 1945 Private collection

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Hahai-I Wuhti Katsina Doll About 1950 Paris, Galerie Flak

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CHAGALL AND MUSIC

Marc Chagall with the illustrated book The Dead Souls 1949-1950

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Meret Meyer

CHRONOLOGY 1887-1910 Marc Chagall was born on July 7, 1887, into a Jewish family, in Vitebsk, a city at the confluence of the Vitba and Western Dvina rivers in present-day Belarus. In Vitebsk, as in other cities of the region, citizens of Jewish origin (half of the city’s population of 48,000) enjoyed considerable freedom, although their professional activities were subject to control. Chagall attended the heder (the Jewish elementary school) for seven or eight years, also taking violin and singing lessons and assisting the cantor at the synagogue. He went on to study at the official school in Vitebsk, where classes were taught in Russian.

In 1906, on completing his schooling, Chagall entered the art school run by Yehuda Pen, a painter of genre scenes and portraits in the style of the Salons of the time. He became good friends with Viktor Mekler, the son of a well-to-do Jewish family, who was also Pen’s student.

That winter, Chagall and Mekler went to Saint Petersburg. To reside there legally, Jews required a permit granted only to university students, merchants, intellectuals, craftsmen and their employees.

A patron and lawyer by the name of Goldberg took Chagall under his wing, ostensibly hiring him as a domestic servant. This gave Chagall the opportunity to look for an art school. He opted for the one founded by the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, directed by the painter Nicholas Roerich, who allowed his students artistic freedom.

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Chagall divided his time between Saint Petersburg and Vitebsk. In the fall of 1909, Thea Brackman, a friend who had posed for him, introduced the artist to her friend Bella Rosenfeld, the youngest child of a family of well-to-do jewellers and a student in Moscow: “It’s as if she had known me for a long time, and knew all my childhood, my present, and my future; as if she had been watching over me… I knew that this was she — my wife… I have entered a new home, and I am not to be parted from it.”1 The first showing of what came to be called the “New Art” was an exhibition organized by the Zvantseva school and held in the offices of the magazine Apollo from April 20 to May 9, 1910, during the cultural off-season. The exhibition, in which Chagall showed The Dead Man and another canvas, caused a scandal following Repin’s criticism of the new trends it revealed. Bakst left Saint Petersburg for Paris to devote himself entirely to his work with Diaghilev. Chagall, too, felt the urge to leave and offered to work for Bakst as a decorator, but to no avail. Finally, it was financial support from Vinaver that enabled Chagall to undertake a four-year stay in Paris.

In early May, Chagall travelled to Paris by way of Berlin. He attended classes at La Palette and La Grande Chaumière, and visited galleries, Salons and museums, especially the Louvre. At Durand-Ruel, he first saw Renoir and the Impressionists, and at Bernheim-Jeune, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse. At the Salon d’automne, he immersed himself in French painting, “that visual revolution, that rotation of colors.”2 During this period he met the Delaunays, then Gleizes, La Fresnaye, Léger, Metzinger, Marcoussis, Lhote and Dunoyer de Segonzac, taking part during many artistic gatherings in discussions about the Cubist and Futurist movements.

One of Chagall’s first large compositions was The Wedding, which combined “the two most important components of the New Art, the transparent form of the Cubists and the transparent colour of Delaunay,”3 to produce the “psychic transparency”4 on which he would base his approach.

1911-1912 In late 1911 or early 1912, Chagall moved to a studio in La Ruche, at 2 Passage de Dantzig, where he stayed until 1914. This residence included about 140 studios, occupied by painters, sculptors, poets and actors. While at La Ruche Chagall became a good friend of the poet Blaise Cendrars, and it was there that he created a number of masterpieces (some on fabric) showing a predilection for geometricization, to which Cendrars gave such titles as To Russia, Donkeys and Others and Russian Village under the Moon.

His friendship with the poets Max Jacob and André Salmon was also of great significance to Chagall, and Guillaume Apollinaire, who dedicated the poem “Rodsoge” to him, provided invaluable support. Chagall’s patron from Saint Petersburg, Vinaver, visited him in his studio, as did Bakst and the Russian journalist

A. V. Lunacharsky. All were pleased with his progress.

1912 Chagall exhibited three paintings at the Salon des indépendants: The Drunkard, Dedicated to My Fiancée and To Russia, Donkeys and Others.

In Homage to Apollinaire, also executed around this time, the dual nature of being is thrown into relief by the essential visual unity of the work. Chagall also painted several portraits and self-portraits and showed three canvases at the Salon d’automne, among them the monumental Calvary.

1913-1914 From his memories of Russia arose the Jewish motifs and figures — expressions of Hasidism — that would henceforth occupy almost the entire pictorial space. During his stay in Paris, the painter’s inner vision and his representation of the city became inseparable. Chagall exhibited twice more at the Salon des indépendants, in 1913 and in 1914.

Invited by the great dealer and patron of the arts Herwarth Walden to exhibit three paintings (Dedicated to My Fiancée, Calvary and To Russia, Donkeys and Others) at the Erster deutscher Herbstsalon (First German Autumn Exhibition), Chagall went to Berlin, taking all the works he had painted in Paris with him. In April 1914, Walden exhibited a large group of Chagall’s works at his gallery, Der Sturm, and in June 1. Marc Chagall, My Life (London: Peter Owen, 1965), p. 77.

2. Marc Chagall,“Quelques impressions sur la peinture française,” lecture given to the “Franco-American Pontigny” at Mount Holyoke College, August 1943; published in Renaissance, quarterly review of the École libre des Hautes Études, vol. 2/3 (New York, 1944-1945), p. 46; quoted in English from “Some Impressions Regarding French Painting,” in Benjamin Harshav, ed., Marc Chagall on Art and Culture (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2003), p. 67.

3. Georg Schmitdt, Zehn Farblichtdrucke nach Gouachen von Marc Chagall (Basel: Holbein Verlag, 1954), p. 8.

4. Ibid., p. 7.

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In July 1908, criticism from other teachers led to Chagall’s sudden departure. For a few months, he worked at the private school run

On Sev’s recommendation, Chagall approached Léon Bakst, a teacher at the Zvantseva school, which had a liberal tradition and was open to modern art. Bakst taught a new definition of the palette, according to which colours were compositional elements in their own right.

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CHRONOLOGY

The young painter’s work was noticed and rewarded with a small scholarship. Roerich even obtained a military deferment for Chagall, and eventually an exemption.

by Seidenberg, a painter of genre scenes drawn from Russian history and influenced by the style of Repin.

Chagall met several collectors and patrons during this period, including Vinaver, a deputy in the Duma, Vinaver’s brother-in-law, Leopold Sev, the critic Sirkin and the writer Pozner — all on the editorial board of the liberal Jewish magazine Voskhod — who were immediately supportive.

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THE MONTREAL MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS For this edition Publisher: Francine Lavoie — Head, Publishing Department Publishing Assistant: Sébastien Hart — Publishing Assistant, Publishing Department Revisor: Donald Pistolesi Translation: Jill Corner, Susan Le Pan, Joanne McCracken, Donald Pistolesi, Judith Terry Copyright: Linda-Anne D’Anjou Documentation: Manon Pagé Bibliographic research: Geneviève Beaudry Proofreading: Jane Jackel Graphic design: FEED, Montreal, after a layout

by Pascal Guédin

ÉDITIONS GALLIMARD For the original edition Publishing oversight: Nathalie Bailleux Artistic advisor: Jean-Loup Champion Publishing coordination: Jean-François Colau and Astrid Bargeton with the assistance of Coraline Grandguillot Artistic direction: Anne Lagarrigue Graphic design: Pascal Guédin Layout: Cathy Piens/Pays Production supervision: Pascal Lenoir Production follow up: Mélanie Lahaye Proofreading: Marie-Paule Jaffrennou and Jocelyne Moussart Press: Béatrice Foti with the assistance of Françoise Issaurat Co-publishing: Hélène Clastres

© 2016 The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts / Éditions Gallimard – Philharmonie de Paris / Cité de la musique, Paris ISBN The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: 978-2-89192-399-6 ISBN Éditions Gallimard: 978-2-07270-118-4 Aussi publié en français sous le titre: Chagall et la musique ISBN Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal: 978-2-89192-400-9 ISBN Éditions Gallimard: 978-2-07270-117-7 All rights reserved.

The reproduction of any part of this book in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the publishers is an infringement of the Copyright Act, chapter C-42, R.S.C., 1985.

Legal deposit: 4th quarter 2016 The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts 2181 Bishop Street Montreal, Quebec H3G 2E8 www.mbam.qc.ca Éditions Gallimard 5, rue Gaston-Gallimard 75328 Paris Cedex 07 www.gallimard.fr

CITÉ DE LA MUSIQUE Publishing coordination: Marion Challier

Publication in Museo Sans, designed by Jos Buivenga, and Mencken Text, Typofonderie character.

Paper: Condat Matt 135g/m2 Photoengraving: IGS-CP (16) Printed in December, 2016 at the presses of Cayfosa, Santa Perpètua de Mogoda Printed in Spain Edition number: 309 830

Cover Marc Chagall working on the panels for New York’s Metropolitan Opera: The Triumph of Music Atelier des Gobelins, Paris, 1966 Photo © Izis-Manuel Bidermanas Endsheets The Opéra ceiling first assembled on the ground Hangar de Meudon, 1964 Photo © Izis-Manuel Bidermanas Marc Chagall working on the Opéra ceiling, the Tchaikovsky and Adam parts Atelier des Gobelins, 1964 Photo © Izis-Manuel Bidermanas

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