Museum calendar 2022 / The sound of images

The sound of the images

Among the visual artists there are musical and non-musical creators. If one believes the judgment of numerous contemporary witnesses, Picasso undoubtedly belongs to the second category. The Spaniard evidently had no musical sensibilities, but nevertheless depictions of musicians and dancers play an important role in his work. When Picasso moved from Paris to the Côte d'Azur after the Second World War, the archaeological traces of antiquity inspired him in a previously unknown way.
After the Second World War, everything in Picasso's life points to "major": a new lover and muse entered his life in Françoise Gilot. Further
he discovers lithography as a printing technique for himself and his work and explores its possibilities of expression with creative fury. Picasso creates his own Arcadia in which mythological hybrid creatures make music. Picasso was a master of transformation all his life and so the hybrid formations of human and animal probably held a special fascination for him. In Picasso's work, figures making music become projection figures par excellence for creative people. Thus, on March 10, 1948, a series of four lithographs was created depicting fauns making music (months of January and November). The horned creatures blow antique double whistles and seem completely engrossed in their game. In contrast, in the multi-figure graphic Centaur and Bacchante with a Faun (July), he unmistakably flanks his young lover Françoise with mythological hybrid creatures. A faun plays the flute, while a centaur longingly reaches out to the sleeping muse. On the September issue, Picasso transformed the young muse into a female one
transformed into a centaur, a form unknown to ancient mythology. She seems adoringly contemplating herself in a mirror while in turn
a faun playing the flute. Euphoria and ecstasy as well as an unforced creatureliness are the characteristics of these works. The later lithographs (March and June) are characterized by antique nudity and exuberance.

The lithograph Die Probe (June) was created in 1954, that is to say in the year in which Picasso began to work artistically with the linocut. This gives him the opportunity to combine the precision of line art with the medium of color. The May issue is ecstatic and wild, where a creaturely
Trias makes music and dances exuberantly. In August-Blatt, on the other hand, Picasso relies on the sole power of the lines. Picasso's "Hispanidad", his deep cultural imprint
through his native country, is evident in the linocut Serenade mit Frau im Lehnstuhl (October), where a guitarist serenades a lady in an intimate, shadowed interior.
For Marc Chagall, too, music has an important place in his entire artistic work. Chagall comes from the Belarusian place
Vitebsk and is the scion of a Jewish family that belongs to Hasidism, a Jewish revivalist movement. Chagall's brother plays the mandolin and his uncle the violin. In the tradition of Hasidism, music and dance are of great religious importance, so it is not surprising that musicians in
are omnipresent in his work. Chagall created a large part of his oeuvre in France, but as he himself explains, he brought his imagery and themes with him from his native Belarus. Paris only threw its light on it. In his late work, too, he repeatedly evokes the home world of the Jewish shtetl in Vitebsk. So against the backdrop of the low wooden houses
Hometown repeated figures playing violin (February and April).
In the mundane, Chagall finds a deep religious dimension, and in the world of the Old Testament, the artist identifies tragedies and destinies from this world. With his biblical depictions, Chagall boldly disregarded all religious conventions and pictorial traditions. Against this background, it is not surprising that he depicts the psalmist David armed with his harp in an unusual way in a loving embrace with Bathsheba (December).

Art calendar with motifs by Picasso and Chagall
Format: 50 x 70 cm
15 sheets plus cardboard backing
4-color print on paper, 260g Freelife Vellum White by Fedrigoni
silver Wire-O binding with a wide hanger