Chagall’s La Mariée
Happiness isn't happiness.
The first time I noticed La Mariée wasn’t in a gallery but in a movie — Notting Hill. Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, a quiet dinner, and behind them, on the wall, Chagall’s bride. Richard Curtis put it there because he knew: the painting aches with yearning for what’s lost, for what’s just out of reach. Later in the film, Roberts’ character even gifts the painting itself, as if love could be secured by canvas and frame.
Painted in 1950, the title means The Bride. She blazes in her red dress, white veil trailing, bouquet in hand. Radiant against a wash of soft blues and greys that might be melancholy, might be air. She is luminous, standing apart, ready to step out of the painting into the life of whoever dares to claim her.
Ahhh-My muse. She wore white, but blazed with color no matter the shield in which she wrapped herself in. Always she has been that figure: the impossible and the inevitable at once. Brilliance set against the dim backdrop of everything else. She does not belong to gravity. She belongs to dream.
And then — the cast around her. The artist ensured the scene vibrated. There’s the man in the hat, holding the veil. The pragmatic landing father and husband— steady, present, the one by her side in the official story. OH!” to something like “Oh, what if it were different—my hand at her veil, but we must all know our place in this great tableau of life.
And then there’s the goat, violin in hand. The odd one off to the side, providing the tune without which happiness is less. Not the bridegroom, not the figure at her veil — but the necessary dissonance, the music that makes the whole thing live. If happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat. Let the goat know, his many skins may never find his own happiness, but he will bring it to others with constancy.
And above, the fish in the sky, candle and chair dangling absurdly. The cast of characters in a woman's life — floating, ridiculous, straining to carry light into the scene. But no. Musicians and clowns, all of us, at the feet of this goddess.
Chagall fills the rest with dreamstuff — the church in the distance, a flute, a girl with pigtails, a squirrel. The whole riot of imagination that makes a wedding scene into something stranger and truer.
This is why La Mariée lingers. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s personal. The Muse at flight, always just beyond the reach of the minstrel-poet. His longing pouring out in his work, bleeding and bleating for her attention, her desire, her want—forcing himself to be satisfied with the shape of her, the aroma—a meal of memory that simply must be enough.
His fast is lifelong, she is the sup, he can never have as long that the hat-man takes flight with her sunshine and warmth.
A bizarre love triangle caught between dream and reality—strange vibrating music that keeps us all alive.
Ahhh, goat—if you see a chance, take it. Start living you fool. You can live with consequence, but regret is a cruel bitch.
#essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #WYST
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