The Circus in Modern Art
By INA COLEART TIMES November 2008
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From its inception in the stadium of Olympia in ancient Greece and the Rome amphitheatres,
the circus evolved into an international extravaganza, mesmerising
audiences with acts of astounding skill and daring. These acts were
continued by small troupes of performers travelling Europe in the
Middle Ages, and by the early nineteenth century permanent circuses
were established in London, Paris, St. Petersburg and the United
States. Consequently, the origins of circus acts can be found in
every civilisation, recorded for posterity in paintings, book illustrations
and illuminated manuscripts. In avant-garde European art the circus
became an established theme, connected to a wider subject area,
that of the cabaret and café concerts. Artists such as Edouard Manet,
Georges Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edgar Degas depicted the subject
with intense dynamism, setting the scene for further artistic developments
in this area. In a sense, the circus performer became a metaphor
for the artist, similarly at odds with modern society, as shown
in paintings from Picasso’s Rose period and the expressively angular
works of Georges Rouault. In addition to the emotional extremes
provided by the performer, the structural arrangement of the circus
ring, with ascending and descending acts, provided a challenging
opportunity for the creation of radical perspectives to evoke a
contemporary experience of spectatorship.
![]() Courtesy of The Model Arts and Niland Gallery, Sligo © Estate of Jack B. Yeats. DACS 2008 |
The
American circus was revolutionised by P.T. Barnum, and its influence
brought about a considerable change in the character of the modern
circus. Traditional acts were superseded by ambitious, acrobatic
performances, requiring a greater number of performers, often aided
by complex machinery. Alexander Calder’s interest in the circus
began when he published illustrations featuring the Ringling Brothers
and Barnum and Bailey’s Circus for the National Police Gazette,as
a result of his frequent visits. Calder was fascinated by the possibilities
of motion and the mechanical potential of his chosen materials,
and the circus was therefore a significant subject for him to explore,
particularly in relation to the dynamic movement of bodies in space.
At the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Alexander Calder:
The Paris Years 1926-1933 (to 15 February 2009), is a highly
focused exploration of the artist’s early years, featuring Cirque
Calder (1926-31), arguably one of the greatest circus inspired
works of the twentieth century. Here an array of jugglers, sword
swallowers, clowns and animals were crafted from an assembly of
cork, wire, wood, paper, string and cloth, and were each assigned
a series of movements. This intricate, miniature cavalcade of performers,
ingeniously operated by Calder himself, would entertain invited
guests for two hours at a time with more than twenty acts. With
performances in Paris and New York through the 1930s, Cirque
Calder played a significant role in establishing the artist’s
reputation amongst avant-garde circles of the time.
The painter Jack B. Yeats had an enduring preoccupation with the circus
and travelling fairs of his native Ireland. Masquerade and Spectacle:
The Circus and the Travelling Fair at Compton Verney, UK (to
14 December 2008), brings together paintings that reveal a world
of fantasy and illusion, exploring Yeats’ unique interpretation
of the spectacular. With their exhilarating use of paint, and often
partly abstract in form, the works explore the psychological tensions
of performance and the artistic process of expression itself. The
exhibition features TheSinging Clown (1928), a portrait of the celebrated musician
and clown Johnny Patterson, who joined a circus in America in 1876.
On returning to Ireland in 1885 Patterson formed his own circus
and, as part of his act, composed a song in reaction to the political
situation, urging Loyalists and Nationalists to ease their differences.
Sadly, in an unpredictable turn of events, audience hostility as
a result of his sentiments resulted in Patterson’s untimely death,
struck on the head with an iron bar. The Singing Clown is a potent example of Yeats’ expressive use of colour and paint application
to reveal the personal motivations and emotions of the characters
depicted. It epitomises the artist’s fascination with the clowns’
world of comedy, mystery and song, and the inherent loneliness and
vulnerability of these solitary figures, often marginalised by conventional
society.
In Russia Vladimir Lenin adorned the circus with a status equivalent to
theatre, opera and ballet, and the Moscow Circus School was consequently
established in 1927. When the State Circus began touring internationally
in the 1950s, it elevated originality and skill to a new level of
possibility. As a child Marc Chagall witnessed the mastery of itinerant
acrobats in village fairs in Russia, and following his move to Paris
regularly frequented the circus in order to sketch. Psychologically
the circus offered Chagall a way of travelling to new horizons,
resulting in the creation of an unearthly pictorial world filled
with pathos and enchantment. The circus was a magical spectacle
of hidden depths, and part of its fascination for Chagall lay in
the disquieting melancholy of its transience. In his unmistakeable,
gravity defying paintings Chagall audaciously avoids structure and
perspective to create dream-like compositions, deploying an arrangement
of flying motifs effortlessly levitating within the picture space.
This is particularly well represented in two works from 1950 displayed
at Tate, UK - The Dance and the Circusand The Blue Circus - studies for
two large murals originally commissioned for the auditorium of Watergate
Theatre in London, where the artist’s extraordinary use of luminous
colour epitomises the intoxicating energy present at such events.
These highlights are only a sample of the plethora of modern masterpieces created utilising the circus as a subject matter. Part of the fascination with this form of entertainment lies in the twentieth-century concept of the ‘other’, and the idea that performers, stripped of their glittering façade had a darker, more mysterious inner life. The existence of the outsider has traditionally held great appeal for artistic endeavour, and the rejection of convention was significant in that the professional boundaries established by modern capitalism were not adhered to. It is therefore understandable that a travelling troupe of similarly minded individuals aligned with their own social structures, and free from the constraints that usually bind society, was a concept the modern artist had great affinity with. The artist similarly often travelled, seeking locations that had the potential to be viewed in terms of a new world far removed from the everyday. This ‘going away’ became the ultimate modern experience, rooted in contemporary assumptions about the avant-garde artists’ role as a discoverer of new modes of expression. In this way the circus became a site for the exotic, and its imagined scenarios created a powerful metaphor for twentieth-century artists, providing the impetus for new ideas to flourish as a result.