Mostra Chagall Mantova | Il capolavoro

After Chagall painted the backdrops celebrating the first anniversary of the October Revolution in Vitebsk in 1918, for the second anniversary the artist made a group work devoted to the theatrical reality that was very much focused on the art of appearance: the large-scale paintings for the new Moscow Chamber Jewish Theater.

The large-scale paintings are an exceptional loan from the State Tretyakov Gallery of Moscow, and a rather rare presence in Italy: they were exhibited in Milan in 1994, and in Rome in 1999, after the 1992 show at the Guggenheim in New York, and the 1993 show at The Art Institute of Chicago.

In the painting cycle, the theater is identified with the feast of the October Revolution experienced by Chagall as the renewal and affirmation of the utmost individual freedom.
In the large mural Introduction to the Jewish Theater, which occupied the left wall of the seating area, it is immediately clear to see that Chagall was breaking away from what had become his customary manner of painting, and experimenting with more synthetic, immediate techniques.
The artist brings together gestures, characters, functions, the situations of a humanity that experiences the uncertainty of the present, involved in incidents of all sorts, and impacted by obsessions that make it appear isolated in the bizarreness of a whole new condition.

On the right wall of the theater were the four murals personifying the Arts: Music represented by a Mephistophelian violinist, Dance by an enormous ballerina, Drama by the Badchen, the Jewish jester at weddings, and, lastly, Literature, portrayed by the completely white figure of the poet-scribe.

The panels are topped by a frieze of symbols that are both edible and horrifying. This Frieze represents the wedding banquet where, served alongside the fish, loaves of bread, fruit, and live roosters, is a deceased lover, perhaps hinting at the fact that the old Jewish theater would be replaced by poetics of the absurd.

As they headed toward the exit from the hall the members of the audience could see the painting Love on the Stage, which showed the extent to which Chagall could go in using elements that were not objective, remaining the painter of thought-provoking psychological images with a twofold meaning.

The Moscow Chamber Jewish Theater