Lovers as depicted by celebrated art history giants Marc Chagall, René Magritte and Francis Picabia. In this round we offer insights into their works currently on view in "Section 2: A Couple in Love" of Mori Art Museum's growingly popular "All You Need is LOVE."
One of the 20th century's leading painters, Marc Chagall spent most of his life as a painter in places far from his homeland, including Russia in the 1900s, Paris in the 1920s, and America, where he emigrated to escape the ravages of World War II. Although Chagall found himself drawn to the bustling cities, what remained both in his heart and in his art are the landscape of his hometown, Vitebsk, and the humble life of the Jews who lived there, and most of all, his beloved wife and muse, Bella Rosenfeld.
Both works featured in the exhibition, Above the Town, Vitebsk (1915) and Winter Night in Vitebsk (1947), depict Chagall and Bella flying over the small town in loving embrace. In 1915, the couple married, and from this time on scenes of couples embracing and kissing as they float in the skies above towns and weddings became motifs that appeared frequently in Chagall's work. Chagall expressed the dreamy feeling of joy, as if rising to the heavens, by depicting 2 lovers floating, defying gravity. However, when one considers the tumultuous times he had witnessed - 2 world wars and the persecution of the Jews - this motif can also be seen as an escape from the horrors of war.
An important painter of the Surrealism movement, Magritte produced art that even today leaves its viewers strangely mystified and at a loss. He strongly rejected symbolic or psychoanalytical interpretation of his work. To borrow the words of the artist himself, Magritte's art attempts to "evoke mystery without which the world would not exist."
The painting included in this exhibition, The Lovers (1928), shows a veiled man and woman kissing. Some believe that the image of veils has its origins in the fact that when the body of his mother, who had drowned herself when Magritte was 14, was discovered, her head was covered by her dress. However, it is not difficult to imagine that Magritte himself would reject such conjecture. The entirety of what is expressed in this painting is the evocation of mystery from an image that is more eerie than happy, as the man and woman are portrayed with their faces covered.
Francis Picabia was a painter and poet whose work managed to continually change -- from Impressionist through a Machinist/Dada period, up to his later realistic art. Picabia was already attracting attention in his early 20s when he unveiled Impressionist-style paintings, and later in the mid-1910s, when together with Marcel Duchamp and others, he brought Dadaism to New York. However, as indicated by his own comment that "the only way to be followed is to run faster than the others," he was an artist who changed painting styles like a chameleon, an individualist who belonged to no group and who never stopped taking on new challenges.
The work included in this exhibition is an oil painting, Portrait of a Couple (c. 1942-1943), painted during World War II, when the flamboyant times had come to an end and Picabia was beset by financial pressures. During his "realistic period" from 1940 to 1944, Picabia produced collage-like paintings appropriating images from popular magazines. Through the combination of different elements, the models and composition forming the basis of the work lose their original meaning, and a new world is brought to life as the product of Picabia's free thinking.
■Relevant information
・Roppongi Hills and Mori Art Museum 10th Anniversary Exhibition
"All You Need Is LOVE: From Chagall to Kusama and Hatsune Miku"
Friday, April 26 - Sunday, September 1, 2013
・"LOVE" in a Minute - Artist & Work
(1) Jeff Koons Sacred Heart
(2) Gohar Dashti Today's Life and War series
(3) Nan GoldinThe Ballad of Sexual Dependency series
(4) John Everett Millais Speak! Speak!
(5) Frida Kahlo My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (FamilyTree)
(6) Zhang Xiaogang Bloodline: The Big Family
(7) Kusama Yayoi Love Is Calling
(8) Shilpa Gupta I live under your sky too
(9) Hatsune Miku Hatsune Miku: Connecting Love
(10) Alfredo Jaar Embrace
(11) Robert Indiana Love & Gimhongsok Love
(12) Sophie Calle Take Care of Yourself
(13) Lovers painted by Chagall, Magritte and Picabia
(14) Tracey Emin I promise to love you
(15) David Hockney My Parents
(16) Damien Hirst Untitled
