The Green Violinist by Marc Chagall
“A
fiddler on the roof. It sounds crazy, no?” asks the poor Jewish milkman. “In
our little village of Anatevka you might say every
one of us is a fiddler on a roof. Trying to scratch out a pleasant simple tune
without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask why do we stay up here if
it is so dangerous? We stay because Anatevka is our home. And how do we keep our balance. That
I can tell you in one word. Tradition!”
So begins the famous opening lines of Fiddler
on the Roof, one of the longest-running Broadway musicals and an award-winning
movie. No doubt many of us have seen it live on stage here in St. Louis, 
for
it has come to The Muny eight times (1970, 73, 76,
82, 87, 93, 98, and 03). It certainly is a delight to see, combining enchanting
music with universal themes and memorable characters.
Fiddler on the Roof is loosely based on
a novel called Tevye the Milkman, written by Yiddish author
Sholem Aleichem and published in
1894. At the time of its publication and in roughly the same area of the world,
another Jewish Russian was experiencing life in similar fashion to the fictional
characters of Anatevka. The boy’s name was Moishe Shagal, but the world
knows him best as Marc Chagall.
The Green Violinist is one such painting by Chagall. It is a merry
celebration of the tension between change and continuity, or the material and
spiritual elements of our lives. Chagall painted this in 1923-1924, thirty years
after Aleichem’s novel and forty years before the
Broadway production of Fiddler (which
took Chagall’s painting as inspiration for the title of the musical).
The
painting itself is enjoyable. Set against a bland backdrop of grey, brown, and
black, a geometrically-inspired man in vibrant secondary colors (purple,
orange, and green) plays a violin while standing on top of two houses. Or
perhaps he is floating above them even like the man at the top is floating like
a kite? At any rate, the man is green – really green! One hand is bare and the
other is gloved. And check out that purple coat with triangle patterns! Take a
look at the rectangular-shapes making up his pants.
Don’t
stop there. Find the dog on the left. Is he friendly or mean? And what is the deal
with the ladder resting against a tree without even a single leaf? Is someone
trying to get to the bird in the tree, or did the bird need to use the ladder
itself?
Like
I said, this is an enjoyable painting. But it is meant for more than comedic
pleasure, for it is intended to make us reflect on the transitory and changing
nature of the world in which we live. How should we respond to change and
how should we relate to the past?
How
does one move forward into the future while not losing the essential character
of who they are?
In
Jewish villages, the fiddler would come out and play at births, weddings, deaths
– all transforming events that cause us to reflect on the past, present, and
future.
Regarding
tradition, Fiddler’s Tevye says, “You may ask, ‘How did this tradition get
started?’ I’ll tell you! I don’t know.
But it’s a tradition... and because of our traditions... Every one of us knows
who he is and what God expects him to do.”
There is real tension between the forces that
pull us forward and those that keep us in the past. However, even the phrase “keep
us in the past” is a phrase that seems either negative or positive depending on
your perspective. In the modern times we live in, being “kept in the past”
would seem to be a negative thing in light of the promised land of potentiality
and change and transformation.
However, with the wanderlust for
change comes certain rootlessness, a spiritually
homeless condition wherein we have no historical landmarks to mark the land and
no North Star to direct our course. Without a guide, how are we to survive if
the future does not deliver on the promises? What if the future is empty in
soul and spirit? With nothing behind us or under us, our only recourse will be
to keep going forward in search of ‘new truth’ and ‘new paths’.
Chagall said, “Changes in
societal structure and in art would possess more credibility if they had their
origins in the soul and spirit. If people read the words of the prophets with
closer attention, they would find the keys to life.”
Chagall’s fiddler is a modern
Moses, commanding the people to remember the past even as they experience the
change of the present and the promise of the future. Moses said, “Remember! lest the promised grace of Canaan turns into a nightmare of
godlessness. And when the LORD your
God brings you into the land that He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac,
and to Jacob, to give you- with great and good cities that you did not build,
and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you
did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant- and when you
eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out
of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (Deuteronomy 6:10-12)
The fiddler stands for joyful tradition, even while playing out to people
leaving the village (horse and cart at top right) and finding freedom elsewhere
(man floating off the page at top). The drumbeat of change will not stay
outside of this man’s town, and yet the dog reminds us of fidelity to some part
of the past. The ladder is at once both bound and free, one end on the ground
and the other in the air. The tree itself is barren, but the bird in the branch
reminds us of Chagall’s use of birds as a symbol of freedom.
And the fiddler himself is
standing on and above the bedrock institutions of his village – home and synagogue.
He is larger-than-life and yet his feet are still connected to things of the
earth. This man is neither ascetic nor monastic. He is both “in this world” and
“not of this world.”
Is this a lament over the death
of tradition and the anxiety of change? No, the man’s greenishness,
while possibly meaning various things like envy or greed, is best understood as
a symbol of life and living. This is in keeping with other of Chagall’s works
where he celebrates the theme of life with living plants, flowers, and other
botanical elements. This fiddler, central to “the tradition” of the village is
also alive and well even in the midst of the fast-paced changes all around him.
And the purple speaks of stable passion, emotional exuberance under control of
the mind. Excited about the future even while retaining memory of the past.
Not that this tension is easy to
manage. Not all fiddlers find joy in grabbing the hand of both tradition and
change. Hence, the small-man (lesser importance and lesser quality of character)
who holds his fiddle like a club instead of as an instrument.
The material world does
not deliver all it promises. Trees withhold fruit. Houses are shabby. Friends
leave for distant places and even death. Change is real.
But
there is something from the past that can guide us and give us direction in the
future. This something is both inside and outside our reality. The bridge from
past, to present, to future is found in God as seen in His Son Jesus Christ - “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the
Last, the Beginning and the End” (Revelation
22:13). God is eternal and timeless, and as He enters time in
providence, He always accomplishes His will: “I declare the end from the beginning, and from
long ago what is not yet done, saying: My plan will take place, and I will do
all My will.” (Isaiah 46:10)
Perhaps the meaning of The Green Violinist can be understood in light of Ecclesiastes 3:11-12, “He has made
everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts,
but man cannot discover the work God has done from beginning to end. I know
that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life.”
Perhaps Chagall is saying that it is up to individuals to live larger
than life by finding color and joy in remembrance of the past, even as the call
of the future beckons.
This
is a study in the tension between letting go and hanging on. Which are you
more inclined to do? Have you found balance on the roof? Is Jesus Christ the
man from the past who is in your present and Who
you are placing all your hope on for your future?
